Be warm by your sun

by toomanybats

Summary:

Soap’s been running his ranch on his own just fine up until now. Uses the occasional ranch hand when needs must but mostly just puts in the work so he doesn’t have to bother with them. Except now the most beautiful beta he’s ever seen has waltzed into his life and asked for a job, and God help him Soap’s given him one.

Ghost needs somewhere to lie low for a while, somewhere out of town where it’s unlikely anyone will recognise him from the wanted posters springing up all over town. Just his luck that the ranch owner is the kind of alpha dreams are made of, especially when he really can’t afford to be getting tangled up with anyone.

Notes:

This idea has been stewing for a long while but I really hope you enjoy it! I'm going to try to keep updates fairly regular (keyword here is try) so please bear with me! Thank you so much to my betas who helped so much with getting this chapter tidied up and ship-shape!!

Tags will probably be added as this progresses!

Chapter 1: Wanna swim in your river

It’s hot as shit out in the desert. Soap isn’t sure why no one between here and the Scottish highlands had pointed out that it might be a bit warmer than he’s used to. Honestly he’s not sure why that never occurred to him himself. Regardless, it’s hot as shit, and you can take the alpha out of Scotland, but you can’t take Scotland out of the alpha. Even after seven years of this relentless sun and scorching heat, Soap only has the tan to show for it, none of the heat resistance that seems to come naturally to the locals.

Seven whole years, Soap can scarcely believe it, since he picked up sticks and bought a one way boat ticket to come to the USA and try to find his feet. It worked too, in a way; he’s got his land, his ranch, his sheep and he’s also got quite a bit of money set aside. He’s made tidy earnings thanks to the small herd of hardy sheep he brought with him, sturdy stock with great resilience which he’s successfully bred with the local animals to produce a ewe with good fleece and meat.

Tablet, his border collie, yips at his side; she’s done for the day, and frankly, so is Soap. Dust is coiling up and looming over him, surrounding his head and coating every inch of exposed, sweaty skin he hadn’t managed to cover with the bandana. Even his eyelashes feel grimy, and he honestly can’t wait for a bath.

He literally can’t wait, he decides, and veers his horse off the well trod path between field and ranch. He aims for the stream which runs down the length of the property, the one that acts as an almost perfect boundary line between him and the wild un-owned tract of land on the other side.

The creek is cool and fast flowing, comes down off the mountains crystal clear and it’s shallow enough he’s not quite in danger of being swept away when he strips off and wades in. He leaves his clothes on the bank, frankly hard pushed to decide whether he’d rather ride back sopping wet or tip to toe dusty. 

His horse seems grateful for the rest either way as she tucks into some grass, and Soap can’t find it in himself to tie her off and limit her. She’s a good girl and even if she does bolt she’s only going to go home, which is less than a mile from here, walkable even at this temperature.

The water is heaven, ice cold and instantly washing the thick, cloying blanket of dust from his skin. He ducks down to wet his head, hat lying with the rest of his clothes, and scrubs a hand through his hair to sluice the worst of the sweat out of it. 

It truly is beautiful out here, light tree cover dappling the sunlight, blue sky meeting grey mountains in the distance, pale scrub and cactuses as far as the eye can see still holding so much life, birds and lizards and snakes and all manner of other critters. The crickets are thick, loud enough he can almost feel their hum in his molars.

Soap lies back on a sun drenched rock jutting from the centre of the water and closes his eyes, lets everything simply wash over him for as long as he can.

He’s a busy man these days. This entire operation is run by only him, sure he’ll take on the odd ranch hand when they wander through and need to earn some cash, but he’s never much enjoyed it. They’re nearly always alphas and right knothead ones at that, none of them likes being told what to do and Soap’s own alpha instinct usually ends up biting him in the arse before their agreed season is done.

He’s had a few betas, and they’ve usually worked out better, less friction since they pose no real threat to him, he’s even talked a couple of them into bed, but he still finds the presence of another person, someone not pack, in his home to be grating. He’s nearly always glad when their term is up, ready for his peace once again. 

The town isn’t a long ride, Soap knows himself well enough to know how much he loves companionship, friends, and he heads to mainstreet when it’s time for that, meets his friends at the sketchy bar run by another expat, Price, a man who doesn’t share much about his past but who walks with military bearing and has that same gruff manner. 

Tablet yips, and Soap cracks an eye in her direction. He can’t see her over the bank but he listens closely, doesn’t hear anything more, and relegates the noise to a figment of his imagination, or at least, nothing to worry about.

“Oi, this your horse?” Soap startles up so violently he nearly falls off the rock, flails frantically to catch himself. There’s a man staring at him.

A fucking huge man, if Soap’s seeing him right, he’s a fair distance away but even from here Soap can see the breadth of his shoulders, the miles and miles of thick muscled leg wrapped in denim. He’s got to have at least two or three inches on Soap, and while his face is covered by a black bandana with the lower half of a skull painted on it, Soap can see he’s gorgeous, no doubt about that.

There’s a Colt .45 on his hip, the cleanest part of him, clearly well oiled and well taken care of, more than you usually see in this part of the country. Soap makes a note of it, anyone who takes care of their gun that well clearly knows how to use it.

His voice is rich, deep and gravelly the way Soap has always enjoyed listening to, and he’s English. Normally that would be a blot of his copy book but out here, well, it’s close enough to home to be worth wanting to listen to. 

“Your horse?” The stranger says again “This her?” He holds up her reins in a calfskin glove so well made it’s practically one with his flesh. 

“Aye. Who’s asking?” The man looks around him dramatically, throws a hand up to his brow to enhance it.

“Well, seeing as I’m the only fucker out here, I’d guess that’d be me.” 

“And you are?” Soap tries again.

“Bored of this. Your horse was wandering off, she’d got a fair way too, might want to think about tying her off next time.” Soap isn’t sure how, but he’s pretty sure he sees the man smirk under his mask. “Might want to think about britches too, think your cock might be sunburned.”

“Worry about yer own cock, ye rascal.” Soap stops trying to cover himself with his hands, if this man wants to talk about his cock he can damn well look at it while he does. “This is private land, yer trespassin’.”

“Yeah.” The man shrugs. “So’re you.” Soap’s tired of trying to yell back and forth, he swipes his clothes, makes a point of putting on his hat before anything else, yanks filthy trousers on and winces when it sticks to his damp skin. Throws his shirt on and scrambles up the slope before bothering to button it. The stranger, notably, doesn’t look away. 

From closer Soap can tell the height difference is more marked than he’d thought, more like five or six inches than three, and his shoulders are broader too, trunk thick and strong, built for heavy lifting and honed by the same. Soap surreptitiously sniffs the air, can’t pick up the alpha scent he was expecting, the man must just be an unusually large beta.

“How’d’ye figure?” Soap raises an eyebrow, cocks his head enough to meet his eye under the brim of his hat without craning his neck. 

“You’re out here too, no? Starkers at that.”

“Seem awfully concerned about my nudity, stranger.” The man barks out a huff of laughter.

“Simply surprised.” His shoulders relax and the man seems to shake off some of the tension he’d been stiff with. “Look, I’m out here looking for a ‘Soap MacTavish’. Heard he owns this ranch and I’m looking for work, Price sent me.” 

“Aye, he does.” Soap says warily, Price has sent him workers before, but never without warning Soap first.

“Any idea where I might find him?” 

“Probably up at the house, ye can follow me, if ye’d like?” Soap doesn’t know why he’s doing this, why he isn’t just telling him, but something about this beta is making him feel playful, light. Makes him want to poke and prod and push until he sees him snap. 

Christ maybe he just wants to fuck him. It’s been a while since Soap had a good go of it.

“Obliged.” The man nods once, turns to head back over to his horse. The horse, like her owner, is fucking huge. Some sort of draught breed, grey and dappled and largely unsuited to the trekking life of a ranch hand. Soap’s not sure how he expects to be herding anything on her.

Soap’s own mare seems to have taken an interest in her, is edging closer and stretching the stranger’s grip on her reins to the limit. The man drops them, wanders over to his own horse and despite her ridiculous height, mounts her easily, those huge thighs spreading across the saddle. Soap resolutely does not look at the way the denim hugs his tensed muscle.

They ride in silence, the man is clearly not one of many words. He’d pulled a hat off the pommel of the saddle and was riding with it low over his eyes, a shield to any further conversation. Pitch black, like the shirt and mask, though all of it tinted yellow-grey with dust.

Tablet runs circles around them, apparently herding them home, and for all his silence the beta does occasionally call commands just to see if she’ll obey them. She does, for the most part, soppy creature.

The house doesn’t take long to come into sight. It’s not much, positively quaint for the size of the ranch, but it does the job. There’s three bedrooms, plenty of living space, but ranch hands usually stay in the small room over the barn. 

“He live alone here?” The man grunts, but he doesn’t sound like he’s prying, just surprised. “No pretty omega stashed away somewhere?”

“Just him,” Soap answers, “and the hands. Garrick, from the general store, comes out to help out in the busy season sometimes, a few others too.” He quietly doesn’t mention that currently there’s no one out here, just him.

Soap dismounts first, points the beta to the hitching post and water. “I’ll run and get Soap for ye. Tablet, in.” She runs ahead of him and waits, pushes past him into the house when he enters. Soap has no idea why he’s taking the bit this far, but nevertheless he runs upstairs, changes his clothes as fast as he can, switches out his hat, and turns to stare at the dog.

“Fuck am I doin’?” She yips in answer, which doesn’t help at all, and Soap huffs and heads back downstairs.

At the front door he inhales to steel himself, marches forward and flings it open, “John MacTavish, howdy do?” he does a piss poor American accent and throws his hand out as he strides towards the, mildly startled looking, stranger.

“You?” The man blinks twice. “MacTavish.” he mutters, eyes widening. “Scottish, I should’ve known. You’re kind of a bastard, eh Johnny?” He says, but he’s laughing under the mask, crows feet creasing the corners of his eyes.

“Aye, probably.” Soap grins back. “What can I call ye though? Still keepin yer own secrets.”

“Ghost.” The man takes Soap’s hand and shakes it. “People call me Ghost.”

“Well, Ghost,” Soap is still shaking his hand, can’t quite bring himself to release his grip just yet, likes the way their calluses slot together, “welcome aboard.” 

“That easy?” Ghost looks as taken aback by that as any of the rest of it.

“Aye, ye said Price sent ye? That’s enough for me.” Ghost gives him an appraising look, runs his eyes over him, the look slow and heavy enough for Soap to think just maybe there was more to it. Just maybe Ghost saw something he liked.

Ghost finally slides his hand from Soap’s, fingers dragging across his palm as he does. “Where do you want me?” He asks, in my bed Soap thinks and then hooks a hand over his shoulder to the barn. “There’s a room in half the hayloft, a water pump round the back. Get washed up and settled, then come up to the house for dinner when yer ready.” 

“You don’t have to-”

“Pshh.” Soap waves him off. “I’d feel like a right bastard, leaving you out here eating canned beans when there’s far more food than just I can eat. Turn,” Soap gestures expectantly at Ghost’s behemoth of a horse.

“Last.”

“Last? What kind of a name is ‘Last’.”

“Hers.” Ghost answers, deadpan, and Soap cracks a laugh.

“Yeah, alright, turn Last out into the paddock, give her all the hay ye want. Mind doing Thistle too?” He nods at his own horse and Ghost nods in answer. “I’ll get started on the dinner.”

Soap turns away to head back to the house, Tablet, the little traitor, stays with Ghost, who—along with being huge and beautiful—doesn’t even have the decency to be bad with animals.

-

Ghost doesn’t know what the fuck is wrong with him. Soap. Bloke toys with him for an age, has fucking mischief written all over his features. Keeps smiling at Ghost too, grinning at him like he means it when he says he’s welcome for dinner, like he thinks Ghost is funny. The man is clearly out of his mind, far too quick to accept this random stranger into his home. One who could bring all sorts of trouble to his door.

In Ghost’s case, almost certainly one who will.

One who has so much baggage he could fill a railcar.

So, Soap is insane, clearly, and Ghost may be no better off having run away from his old life to this one, into the jaws of this unknown alpha with a smile like sunshine and a really nice cock and the stupidest fucking hair Ghost has ever seen.

But fuck, does he smell good. 

Soap, like everyone else on this side of the Atlantic, (and most people on the other side) doesn’t do a single thing to cover his scent. Warm and sweaty like he was earlier, Christ even fresh out of that creek, Soap smells perfect.

Soap smells like hay and the cool air of late evening and the damp of spring when it clings to the moors on an island thousands of miles behind him.

Ghost wants to roll in it, wants to crawl into Soap’s arms and absorb it until he never smells anything else. 

And he needs to nip that in the bud right now , needs to ignore the ache between his thighs at the mere thought of that perfect alpha scent. What he really needs is to get washed up and dressed for dinner.

He’s limited for options, but he still agonises before finally choosing his nicest shirt and a pair of linen trousers he’d taken when. Well. A pair of linen trousers. There’s a film of sweat and dust across his skin, a long day's ride in the sun will do that, but he’d seen a pump out the back of the barn as he came in, and he’s out of sight of the house.

He strips outside, not really keen to spread (more) dust across the blankets of the hayloft bed, the water is cool, divine on overheated skin. He feels like he can breathe properly for the first time as the water sluices over him, washes grime and heat away and leaves him feeling more level than he has for who knows how long. 

His clothes lie in a heap on the floor as he begins to wash, has to contort into some strange angles to get all of him under the tap but Christ is it worth it, feeling cool, fresh water slide between his legs, down to his feet. He dries off with a clean spare sheet he’d found upstairs, pulls his trousers and gloves on and is just working on his boots when Soap appears.

“Fucking shite, I’m sorry Ghost, didnae mean to interrupt.” Soap’s slapped a hand over his eyes, or at least tried to, his hand was full with some sort of bag and so mainly he’s smothering himself.

Ghost, against his better judgement, smiles. He ties his bandana back on before clearing his throat.

“You can look, I’m not exactly a blushing maiden.” He’s not, but Soap looks like one as he lowers his hand. Cheeks pink and eyes resolutely fixed over Ghost’s shoulder. Ghost knows he looks good, knows his body is strong and powerful and why the fuck does he feel kind of offended that Soap won’t look at him.

Ghost swings his clean shirt on over his shoulders and dithers with the buttons until Soap relaxes enough to look at him properly.

“What can I do for you?” Ghost asks, and drops the shirt to reveal he’d fastened exactly zero buttons, leaving his torso on display. Soap squeaks, but this time he doesn’t look away.

“Um.” Soap swallows hard. “Uh, it’s more what I can do for you.”

“Oh I’m sure you could do plenty.” Ghost grins, and perhaps this is a little cruel, considering he doesn’t plan to follow through on any of this flirting no matter how much he might want to, but he’s allowed to have fun once in a while, “But what did you have in mind?”

“Wash ye?” Soap says, and then seems to shake himself out of it and scrambles, “Yer clothes! Wash yer clothes, I’ll be doing laundry anyway, seems only fair, aye?” 

Ghost inclines his head, starts to actually fasten the buttons on his shirt, leaves the neck open since even though they’re having dinner, there won’t be any ladies present. 

“Thank you.” Ghost nods, takes the bag Soap holds out to him and absolutely does not feel sparks shoot through his fingertips when they brush Soap’s hand. He stuffs his dirty things in, and falls into step beside Soap as they stroll back to the house. He feels a little naked without his hat, but he supposes he’ll have to get used to it. If he’s staying here for the long haul Soap will see him worse than hatless he’s sure.

Dinner, Ghost decides almost immediately, was a terrible mistake.

To start with, he’d somehow overlooked the fact that agreeing to dinner in Soap’s kitchen meant removing his mask, and while in crowded saloons or cantinas it wasn’t too much of a concern, one on one, here? In a quiet kitchen with an alpha? It was something else entirely.

He unties the bandana carefully, takes his time and pretends he doesn’t see Soap watching rapt from over at the basin. He knows what he looks like, he’s been told often enough by enough people to know he’s a good looking man, even with the scars now marring some of the skin. The main problem, the one that could be about to bring this whole nice evening crashing down around his ears, is the posters.

Ghost has no way of knowing if Soap had been into town recently enough to see the posters with his face plastered all over them.

Price is pretty good at getting to them quick, Garrick too when he sees them, but there’s no guarantees that Soap hasn’t just happened to have had bad timing enough to have spotted them.

Ghost folds the bandana carefully and slips it into his pocket before finally raising his gaze to Soap, who is… busy stirring the stew and making absolutely no mention of the fact that Ghost has even revealed his face, let alone that he’s seen wanted posters of him all over town.

Well. Alright then.

Soap, it turns out, can cook. He’s made a mutton stew, and Ghost has had plenty of that in his life, usually tough as old boots and as brown as it is flavourless. Soap’s is not. It only takes one bite for Simon to be addicted, it’s rich, salty, and there’s enough herbs in there to have it rivalling some of the finer meals Ghost has eaten at—

Well. Some of the finer meals he’s had, which is saying something. There’s fresh bread to go with it, thickly sliced and substantial enough to sop up the extra sauces. Fucking hell, there’s dried apricots mixed in, sweetness cutting through the richness of the fatty meat. Ghost thinks he might moan, a little.

“It’s good.” He says, unnecessarily, since Soap is watching him like a hawk and has a little smirk on his lips like he can tell exactly how much Simon is enjoying his cooking. 

“Aye?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Good.” Soap is grinning, a little pink highlighting his cheekbones. Christ, he’s pretty. A good alpha too, if he can cook this well when he’s just knocking together whatever he’s got lying around.

“Looks like the sun didn’t catch you too bad in the end.” Ghost says, eyes trailing over the exposed hollow of Soap’s throat, he just can’t help himself, something about Soap is drawing him in, calling to him.

“Ye would say that, ye’ve no’ seen my cock.” 

“Not in,” Ghost pulls out his pocket watch, makes a show of checking it “several hours now anyway. Could’ve shrivelled up and fallen off in that time.”

“Oh I can promise ye,” Soap purrs “it most certainly hasn’t.” 

Ghost swings his gaze up to Soap’s, ready to trade some verbal jab back, but when he does he sees that Soap may still be toying with him, but his eyes are fixed on Ghost’s watch.

His gold filigree pocket watch.

The one that is clearly way too expensive for some random ranch hand to have come into possession of by honest means.

The one with a very highly recognisable monogram.

Shit.  

Ghost snaps the watch shut and stuffs it into his pocket, as if somehow that can force Soap to unsee it.

“Didn’t take ye for a rich bastard.” Soap says, slowly, calculated to be a joke, if Ghost wants, or not if he doesn’t. 

“Because I’m not.” Ghost says, gentle because it’s not Soap’s fault, but firm, because Soap is a nosy prick.

To his credit Soap takes it in stride. Nods and tosses his hands up in the air in submission, smoothly transitions the conversation back onto safer terrain. Fuck it all if that doesn’t just make Ghost like him more. 

They keep dinner conversation light, breezy, trade stories from back in the day, swap jokes and jabs like old friends. Ghost can admit he’s a bit of a prickly bastard, at first acquaintance, but dammit if Soap hasn’t managed to steamroll right through those barriers and into his heart without even trying that hard. 

Jesus, Ghost has got to get a grip.

He helps himself to seconds of dinner, because it’s just so damn good, and when he’s wiped his plate clean with the last of his bread he finds himself leaning in each time Soap talks, and he’s not quite able to convince himself that it isn’t in the hopes of catching a trace of that scent again. He’s painfully aware of his own, of the fact that he’d washed and that it’s been hours since he last took the tincture he uses to suppress his scent. 

He’s dangerously close to just saying ‘fuck it all’, to letting his scent loose just to see how Soap would react.

With any luck, Soap would react by tossing him down on the nearest piece of furniture and fucking him senseless. 

“Do ye want a nightcap?” Soap’s face is lit by the flickering of the candle on the table, shadows throwing that pouty bottom lip into stark relief, flame lighting his bronzed skin gold, his blue eyes navy. 

Fuck, Simon is in so much trouble.

“What you offering?” He asks with a lifted eyebrow, tongue feeling thick in his mouth as Soap reaches beneath the table, pulls out a hip flask.

“Bourbon, sadly.” 

“Nectar of the gods, that.”

“They wish.” Soap takes a swig, winces just a little at the burn as Ghost watches the line of his throat bob. Fucking hell how does he even make swallowing look indecent? 

“Who?”

“Americans.” Soap scoffs “They tried to improve on Scotch, but they’ve never quite managed it.” 

“I hate to break it to you, Soap, but they very much did.” Soap’s mouth drops open in outrage, clearly ready to launch into a tirade, but Simon soldiers on “Scotland has produced certain other things I’m a fan of though.” and he lets his eyes roam once down across Soap’s torso before sliding back up to his face.

“Like?” Soap asks, and his voice is low, gravelly in the way Ghost has always liked. He delays answering by reaching over and taking the flask from Soap’s hand, brings it to his own mouth and imagines he can taste Soap when he presses the opening against his lips. The bourbon washes across his tongue like an old friend, warm and familiar. 

A satisfied moan claws its way up out of his throat, it’s the good stuff, Soap clearly doesn’t cheap out on alcohol. He generously doesn’t mention the way Soap’s eyes darken as he watches him, or the way he shifts in his seat, the way a hint of arousal begins to trickle into the edges of his scent.

“Poetry.” Ghost says finally, taking another swig, tongue darting out to catch the bead of amber liquid clinging to the throat of the flask when he finishes.

“Aye, we’ve a way with the arts.”

“You a poet?” Ghost asks, holding the flask back out and watching with rapt attention as Soap gets his mouth back on it, hint of his tongue tracing the place Ghost’s had just been.

“No.” Soap says finally. “Not a poet.”

“Musician?” and that makes Soap laugh, a real one that transforms his face and makes him look terribly young.

“Portraitist.” 

“Any good?” Soap’s smile winds down until it’s more contained, though no less beautiful, lingering now only at the corners of his mouth and eyes.

“Not bad.” He shrugs, easy as anything, and lets the smile reduce further, change and reshape until it’s a smoulder, heated and crackling. “I can show you, if you like? I’ve a fair few upstairs…”

And there it is. 

The offer Ghost knew damn well he’d get if he kept pushing, the one he knows he can’t accept, no matter how much he wants to.

Ghost finally breaks their gaze, ducks his head just a little, aiming for demure and hoping it doesn’t miss and land at embarrassed. 

“Perhaps in the morning.” He says, and they both know it’s a rejection, no matter how gentle. Soap doesn’t reply for a while, simply watches him, eyes searching Ghost’s face for something that has him aching to tie his bandana back on.

“Alright.” Soap says, finally, and mystifyingly the smile is back, though this one is small, private, only meant for himself. 

“Goodnight, Johnny.” Ghost says, standing and reaching for a hat he didn’t even bring with him. He reties the mask instead, feels more settled the minute it’s back on, like he has more control.

“Goodnight, Ghost.”

Tablet decides to haul herself off her spot on the hearth to follow Ghost out the door, and honestly he appreciates the company. He feels a little unmoored, lost, something about the ease with which Soap took his rejection, the grace, has him reeling. 

He’s nothing like Ghost was expecting when Price had first mentioned a lone rancher out on the range. He doesn’t really know what he’d been anticipating, an alpha, sure, and he’d been right on that count. Honestly he thinks he’d been picturing a middle aged hardarse with as much money as sense; fuck all of either.

Soap is. Well, Soap is not that.

For a start, it bears repeating, he might actually be the single most beautiful man Ghost has ever seen in his life, for another he’s young, can’t be much over twenty five. He’s kinder too Ghost’s mind whispers gentle, funny-

Ghost kicks a rock by his feet to derail that particular line of thinking, Tablet, good girl as she is, immediately runs to fetch it. Ghost rewards her with a firm stroke between the ears before sending her on her way back towards the house.

The hayloft is cool when he makes it back, quiet but for the lowing of cattle in the distance, the hum of insects. Ghost peels off his gloves before anything else, brings up his wrist to inhale. It’s almost undetectable, faint as anything, but beneath the sweat and leather there’s just the faintest hint of omega.

Shit.

He’d let that get far too close, doesn’t know what he was thinking other than that he wasn’t, didn’t have any thoughts in his head except soapsoapsoap .

He rummages through his bag to pull out the leather roll hidden at the bottom. His supplies are still well stocked, for now, but next time he heads into town it would still be worth visiting Price to get more. He doesn’t know much about how Soap runs things here, but he can’t risk being caught without them while out with the herd. 

When he’d first started making this mix it had been complicated, it had taken every ounce of his concentration to make sure he was getting it right, that everything was measured out just so and in just the right quantities to ensure that it would work how he needed it to. How it had to in order to do its job. He’s well practised now, though, takes no time at all to tap out the right measure of each herb into the oil, to mix it thoroughly enough for everything to incorporate. 

The taste used to bother him, the strong bitter flavour of the herbs taking some getting used to, but now the only part he doesn’t like is how it washes away the burn of the bourbon lingering on his palate, the traces of liquor which will be the closest he ever gets to tasting Soap the way he wishes he could.

Fucking hell, alpha pheromones are some bullshit, if they have him this obsessed after knowing him for a grand total of about ten hours.

Ghost massages the tincture into his wrists, his neck, spends a long time rubbing it into his mating gland to ensure it’s properly absorbed.

By the time he’s stripped down and fallen back onto his straw mattress he’s ready to pass out and forget about the world for a few hours, but sleep evades him, lingers just out of his grasp as he tosses and turns and tries not to wonder if Soap is doing the same thing up at the house. Rolls over onto his belly and buries his face into the thin pillow in the vague hope of smothering himself, but all that he achieves is accidentally grinding his cock into the coarse fabric beneath him.

A grunt claws its way out of his throat at the unexpected stimulation and he can’t help the way his hips jerk down again, repeat the movement more deliberately, grinding just right to get his cock plumping up between his legs. He’s grateful the remedy he takes renders his slick scentless, because he’s been wet since Soap walked in on him bathing, and that certainly wasn’t helped by Soap speaking to him softly in the firelight over dinner. 

He rolls back onto his back, accepts that he needs to deal with this now if he has any hope of getting to sleep. Slipping a hand down along his body, Ghost cups himself through his drawers, rubs firmly and mewls at how good it feels. He hasn’t touched himself in so long, hasn’t had the time, hasn’t wanted, but oh how he wants now.

He moves his hand, slides it beneath his waistband to hold himself properly, his hand is cold and it feels incredible wrapping around the heated flesh of his cock, stroking leisurely. There’s no way he’s going to last long, not like this, not with the way the fog of arousal is infecting his mind, the way his cunt is gushing slick into his underwear, wetting his thighs. He releases his cock long enough to slide his hand down and collect some of the wetness pooling there, drags it back up to coat his skin and ease the way for his hand.

Ghost pictures Soap as he strokes, imagines him lying in his own bed, up at the house. Pictures him pulling out his own cock, flushed red with arousal and sunburn, Ghost knows how thick it is, saw it first hand, knows it would stretch him open so well if he only took him up on his offer. The Soap in his mind whimpers his name as he takes himself in hand (his real one, not Ghost), and strips his cock hard and fast, knot swelling fat and heavy at its base. 

Soap had nice balls, fat and heavy, like a proper alpha. Ghost imagines them slapping against his arse as Soap fucks him. He’d kiss him, Ghost thinks, seems like he’d be sweet even as he took Ghost apart piece by piece. 

Ghost trails his other hand down, kicks his heels further apart so he can slide his hand down between his legs to toy with his cunt, hole soft and warm and welcoming when he presses two fingers in. He twists them just right, playing his own body like an instrument as he works himself. His cock jerks in his hand and he lets his mind wander back to Soap, think of him gasping and whining as he squeezes his knot, pumps rope after rope of come onto his chest, wasting it just because Ghost denied him his cunt.

Ghost presses a third finger to his hole, slides it in and starts pumping them in and out immediately, turns them and presses up and in, massaging his sweet spot as he rolls his thumb over the head of his cock. He comes imagining Soap’s hand, Soap’s cock, Soap’s come and knows it’s a mistake just as clearly as he knows he’ll do it again.

He wipes himself down with a spare rag, peels off his drawers since they’re soaked beyond help for now. The combination of slick and come on the cloth renders it pretty much ruined and he tosses it onto the pile of rubbish he’ll take out to dispose of on a fire in the morning. Sated and clean enough for now he lies back and settles in to wait for sleep to finally take him.

It doesn’t come and by the early hours of the morning, Ghost gives up. He dresses in his spare work clothes, grabs his hat and a lantern, and gets to work on the ranch.

Chapter 2: I can't stand the distance

Notes:

Thank you so much to Aessedia for betaing this chapter for me! Also to Monsterlice and Tenz for cheerleading this into existence <3

Soap, not for the first time in his adult life, wakes up sticky. It’s not even the first time that it’s been thanks to his own hands, his own ministrations. It probably is however the first time that it’s been accompanied by such a profound sense of disappointment.

Ghost had been perfect, last night, gorgeous and funny and interesting, Soap could have sworn he’d been flirting too, right up until the point where he was gently but very firmly rebuffed. Jesus, Soap has always thought he was good at reading people, has prided himself on being able to understand what people want, both from the world and from him , but Ghost seems to be something else entirely.

If he wasn’t half convinced it was just wishful thinking Soap could have sworn that the disappointment on Ghost’s face last night had been genuine, that he’d wanted to say yes to Soap’s offer, that he’d wanted to come to bed with him. And what a face it was, Soap had tried to play it cool but he wasn’t entirely sure he’d achieved it. If Ghost hadn’t been appealing enough already, he had to be the single prettiest bastard Soap has ever seen.

He probably isn’t beautiful, by the classic definitions, ‘striking’ would probably be more accurate, ‘arresting’ maybe. His jaw is strong, his nose long and roman, with the obvious hallmarks of at least one break in the middle. There are scars too; an old split through his brow that continued just below his eye, another that darted through his top and bottom lips and had added a crooked charm when Ghost had laughed, the crows feet at the corners of his eyes giving him a kindness that might otherwise have been buried beneath the stronger features.

Soap doesn’t like that his proposition failed, but not because Ghost refused. He doesn’t like the confusion, the unease that being wrong has left him with. He doesn’t like the possibility, however unlikely, that he might have made Ghost uncomfortable last night. He resolves to apologise, clear the air, he doesn’t want Ghost to be in a position where he feels he has to leave because of Soap making unwanted advances.

He doesn’t want Ghost to leave, full stop.

He gets up and stumbles over to the wash basin, uses the tepid water to sluice the sweat, as well as the less savoury fluids, off him and stares blankly into the mirror as he does.

Last night had been. Well. Soap had barely cleared the bedroom door before his hand had been down his trousers, hand around his cock in a haze of arousal tinged with hurt from the rejection. 

He’d teased himself more than usual last night, had flopped backwards onto his bed as he shrugged off his other clothes; stripped himself nude and laid himself out. When he’d slid his fingers into his own mouth he’d been imagining Ghost’s, had been frustrated when his weren’t as thick as he thought Ghost’s would be. He imagined Ghost’s hands when he trailed his own down his front and teased at his nipples, scraped fingernails through his chest hair. 

He certainly wasn’t imagining it was his own hand that wrapped tight around his cock, fisted him hard and fast and squeezed so tight and vice-like around his knot that he came in just minutes. He let himself dream, dazedly, about Ghost up at the barn.

What if his disappointment had been real? What if Ghost had wanted to join him but circumstances had prevented him? What if Ghost was in the hayloft even now pleasuring himself to thoughts of Soap? There was no doubt that a beta of Ghost’s size would have a cock to match, but would he be willing to submit to an alpha and let Soap fuck him, or would he want to be the one doing the fucking?

It said enough that Soap actually almost thought about it.

With a sigh Soap finishes washing up, forgoes shaving since he simply can’t be arsed, and heads downstairs to see where Tablet can have got up to, since she wasn’t in her usual position at his door this morning. 

Tablet it seems, the utter traitor that she is, has been spending the morning with Ghost. 

Soap nearly trips down the porch steps when he spots them, Ghost is moving hay out into the feeders, but he’d clearly done plenty before that, a quick glance around tells Soap that more than half his morning chores are done already.

“The fuck time did you get up?” Gratifyingly, this makes Ghost jump, Soap does his best not to feel too smug about that, fails.

“A while ago.” Ghost says, giving nothing away, cagey bastard that he is. 

“Best come in for breakfast then.” Soap barks, and turns on his heel. He doesn’t know why the idea of Ghost working alone out there makes him uncomfortable, why he’s already resolving to wake up before dawn tomorrow so Ghost can’t pull this again. He focuses his attention on the pantry instead.

Ghost’s tread is heavy on the stairs, deliberately so, announcing his presence in the room while Soap’s back is turned. When Soap looks at him he seems awkward, hands wringing his soft gloves in a bunch between them, he’s down to his shirtsleeves and there’s already a light sweat at his collar and chest in a way that makes Soap want to lick him.

“I didn’t want to overstep.” Ghost starts, and it immediately takes the wind out of Soap’s sails, deflates him until he’s sagging against the counter top behind him. “Just couldn’t sleep is all.”

“It’s alright.” Soap says, because it should be, he’d be thrilled if any other ranch hand had done this, and yet something needy and desperate in his gut is chanting to him that it should be the other way round, that he should be doing things for Ghost, that he should be taking care of him. 

Maybe the summer heat has finally stewed his brain all the way to soup.

“Doesn’t seem like it.” Ghost shrugs.

“Aye, I’m sorry.” Soap shrugs and turns back to continue slicing the thick loaf in front of him. “Must’ve woken up on the wrong side of bed this morning, is all.”

“Hmm.” Ghost doesn’t sound entirely like he believes him. “This isn’t because of last night?”

“What?” Soap whips back around, Ghost’s stance is set, poised like a wrong answer will have him running to the stables and then disappearing just as fast as he came. Soap can’t have that. “No!” He sounds too defensive, he knows he does “No, Ghost, it’s not that at all, I swear.” He holds eye contact until Ghost finally seems to believe him, sends him a curt little nod of acceptance. “And I’m sorry about that, I never meant to make ye uncomfortable or put ye in a position-”

“Stop.” Ghost sighs “Don’t, Soap, you didn’t. I wasn’t uncomfortable, alright, I just…can’t.” It’s a lame excuse, and a lame little shrug Ghost offers with it, but Soap is so relieved that Ghost doesn’t secretly hate him that he’s not about to dwell on it.

“That’s sorted then.” He says instead, sets the slices of bread onto the kitchen table along with  the butter bell and a block of slightly hard cheese. “Breakfast.” 

“Thank you.” Ghost says, something that could be a smile showing in his eyes over the bandana, Soap doesn’t know if he means for not prying or for breakfast but he decides he doesn’t really care either way. 

While Soap sits and gets comfortable, Ghost passes him to get to the sink, pulls a spare handkerchief from his pocket and dampens it to mop at the back of his neck and, when he removes his bandana, his face. 

“There’s cold milk in the ice box.” Soap announces conversationally but Ghost perks up like he’s been offered fifty bucks. 

“I’d kill for something cold.” He shoots Soap a grin that makes him look a decade younger and heads over to find it. In the process he drops his handkerchief, the thing slipping as he tries to stuff it into his pocket, he doesn’t seem to notice at all, too excited by the prospect of a cool drink. Soap, without even really knowing why, swipes it off the floor and pockets it, before turning back to butter his bread as if nothing happened.

Breakfast is easy, light conversation as Ghost fills Soap in on what he’s achieved this morning (even more than Soap had feared, actually, the man must have been up for most of the night), then listens while Soap outlines what will be required for the rest of the day. 

“We can go for a ride if you like? I can show ye the property line, the different grazing areas for the sheep?” 

“Sounds good.” Ghost mumbles around a mouthful of bread and cheese, which should be disgusting but somehow he makes even that look good. “Lemmedodishes?” He mumbles and Soap can’t help the laughter that rumbles out of him.

“Wantae try that again?” He grins, and Ghost rolls his eyes and chews faster, swallows. 

“Let me do the dishes?” He repeats, but he’s already standing and pulling Soap’s plate towards him.

“I’ll put on my riding clothes.” Soap acquiesces, doesn’t know what it is about Ghost that makes him so damned amenable. 

The floorboards of the house creak, Soap is used to hearing his own noise as he moves around, but he’s forced to admit as he climbs the stairs to his bedroom that he rather likes hearing the creaks and shuffles that come from the kitchen as he does, the reminder of someone else, someone welcome, here in his space. 

He thinks maybe he’s been lonely.

He pulls out the handkerchief when he gets to his room, means to just throw it onto his chest of drawers, but he’s caught off guard by the fine silk of it when he pulls it out. The fabric catches a little over his rough fingertips, flows like water when he shakes it out. Expensive, then, and then boggles a little when he sees the monogram, also silk. 

‘SR’ embroidered oh so carefully into the corner, burgundy writing onto pale lilac, the monogram is different from the one Soap saw on Ghost’s pocket watch last night, though that had been expensive too. Very expensive indeed. 

There’s a hint of something as Soap turns it over, faint, but growing stronger when Soap brings it to his nose. It doesn’t smell of much, mostly sweat, which is to be expected from a beta, they don’t produce detectable pheromones after all, but there is something, a sweetness, something herbal and fresh that sticks in the back of Soap’s throat. It feels like a mask, like if he could just scrape the herbs away he’d be able to answer just some of the increasing number of questions he has about this enigmatic stranger.

“Ghost.” Soap mutters to himself “Who the hell are you?” There’s a clatter of a dish downstairs, and Soap knows he’s out of time for dithering. He changes quickly, grabs his gun and his hunting knife along with his favourite hat, and only stops to neatly fold the handkerchief and tuck it into his sock drawer before going to head out on their ride.

–

Ghost doesn’t ride like a cowboy, he’s well aware of that, even more aware since he’s spent a few days in the saddle next to Soap, who has a hell of a seat but always holds himself in that lax, louche way all the western men do. The ones who grew up in the saddle, who ride for practicality rather than posturing. 

Soap has clearly adapted well to life in the American west and that includes the way he rides, all fluid movement and strength. There’s no way he learned to ride like that in Scotland, not with all the thick wool he’d have had to have been wearing. No matter how Ghost tries he simply can’t seem to mimic the style, that rigid posture and formality of his training worming into his form.

An American would probably just think he was stiff, maybe learned to ride late in life, maybe an old injury preventing him moving right, but anyone familiar with the English riding style would recognise it for the indicator of wealth and privilege it most definitely is. He’s starting to really hope that Soap never spent much time around the upper echelons. 

“So, ewes who’ve been tupped are in this field here,” Soap is telling him, arm outstretched to encompass a large pasture of sheep lazily grazing on the grass. “Non-breeding girls are the ones I showed ye yesterday.” 

“Must be nice, don’t you think?” Ghost answers, looking over at Tablet as she slowly stalks up behind a ewe who has strayed just a little too far from the rest of the flock, eyes fixed and unblinking on her quarry. Soap looks a little nonplussed, his eyebrows furrowing as he tries to follow Ghost’s gaze.

“Being a sheepdog?” his tone is bemused, a little smirk dancing at the corner of his mouth but his head is still tilted like he’s genuinely interested. 

“Being that sure of your purpose.” Ghost replies. He’s not quite sure that that’s even what he means, but it’s as close as he can voice right now. He thinks maybe what he means is ‘being that certain of your nature’ or perhaps ‘that free to follow your nature’ but that conversation will be for another time, another place. 

“Hmm.” Soap hums, but says nothing more, and Ghost is grateful for that. He watches as Soap swings his leg over and hops down from his horse, removing her bridle and leaving her to graze the area as she likes. “I packed us some lunch.” Soap segues smoothly as he flips open one of his saddle bags and starts to pull out cloth-wrapped parcels.

Ghost hops down himself, and loops the end of Last’s reins through the fence. Soap may be willing to give Thistle her freedom, but Ghost doesn’t trust Last as far as he could throw her, she’s a crafty minx and a troublemaker at that. She takes the indignity in good part and simply bows her head to graze alongside Thistle. 

“Where’d ye find a beast like her?” Soap asks, spreading an honest to god gingham cloth on the ground, as though this whole scene wasn’t already so domestic that it makes Ghost’s back teeth itch.

“Stole her.” Ghost shrugs, doesn’t say why or where from, Soap’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline but he doesn’t pry, just like Ghost knew he wouldn’t. 

“Yer a strange man, ye know that Ghost?” It startles a laugh out of him, real and belly-deep. He tugs down his mask as he does and enjoys the light touch of a cool breeze on his cheeks given the heat of the day. Soap is staring at him, eyes tracing his features with a heat in his gaze so intense it’s burning. 

“I’ve been told.” Ghost nods, smile still plastered on like it plans on staying forever. Out here, in these pastures with the gentle bleating of the sheep and Soap looking at him like he’s the only thing in existence? Well, Ghost doesn’t reckon that sounds too bad.

“Long as you’re aware.” Soap grins back, dimples in his cheeks deepening and sending butterflies fluttering in Ghost’s stomach, wings beating up towards his throat. “Let’s eat.” 

They eat. Soap had packed a mixture of fresh fruits and pastries. There’s hearty bread too which they tear off and eat in large chunks. When he pulls out a flask of Scotch Ghost almost groans, the heat of it sliding down his throat so welcome that he almost doesn’t complain about it not being bourbon. Almost. 

They talk aimlessly, conversation meandering and so easy it’s like they’ve known each other for decades, not days. Ghost wishes it weren’t so easy, wishes it didn’t feel like coming home and tenderness. He wishes, honestly, that it was harder, he knows where he stands with harder.

He knows where he stands with worse than that.

The wind changes direction and suddenly Ghost is confronted with the overwhelming scent of Johnny, it clogs his mouth and blurs his vision, coats the inside of his sinuses like pollen in spring and just as overwhelming. He’s smelled Soap before, of course he has, but today he’s been in the sun for a long while, he’s sweating and happy and just a little aroused, scent so thick and lush Ghost feels he could be smothered by it. 

Oh he wishes he could be smothered by it. Wishes he could turn his head and lean in, closer, closer until his face is buried into Soap’s collar bone, nose tucked against the source of all that perfection.

Soap pulls off his hat, begins to fan himself with it, unwittingly wafting his scent even more thickly in Ghost’s direction. Ghost’s eyes fix on a bead of sweat building on Soap’s shaved temple. Watches it as it slowly, oh so slowly, slides down his face and curls around the bolt of his jaw, continues its path until it soaks into the collar of his shirt right over his scent gland. Ghost digs his nails into his thighs so hard it hurts, even through denim. 

Soap flops backwards, throws one arm over his eyes and tucks the other under his head. He’s flexing and they both know it, showing off his body to its best advantage, arms bulging and thick, shirt buttons straining over his heaving chest, sweat cooling in patches down his sternum and under his arms. He looks like a meal, like the worst sort of temptation, Ghost is oh so dangerously close to succumbing to his desire.

His eyes flutter shut as he leans in, inhales deliberately, loud enough he knows Soap must hear him, must vaguely wonder what’s happening since betas can’t pick up on alpha or omega scents. Maybe he just thinks Ghost’s a kinky fuck who likes the smell of a man regardless, might even be a little right.

His mouth drops open and his small omega fangs ache with the need to drop, to sink into the skin of the man lying oh so pliantly beside him. 

He’s going to give into it, they both know it, Soap has this little smirky tilt to his lips that Ghost wants to wipe off with his own. 

He’s going to give in.

The commotion in the pasture saves Soap’s neck.

Tablet is yipping, running in circles and stirring up the other ewes, all but one who is bleating miserably in the middle of the pasture, head thrown back and eyes rolling. 

Omega instincts aren’t really as strong as all that, people love to pretend that there’s some sort of magic within omegas that makes them perfect parents, perfect baby machines, but Ghost’s parents are a testament to the fact that’s not the case. It isn’t all lies though, and even a hardened and useless omega like Ghost can’t bear to see an animal in labour and in pain and not instinctively want to help.

He’s up and vaulting the fence before Soap has even spotted the source of the commotion, he’s sprinting to her side and dropping to his knees not long after that. He yanks his overshirt over his head to avoid getting the worst of the mess on it and rests a steadying hand on her flank. There’s a lamb already out, breathing hard and bleating plaintively, Ghost picks it up and lays it out by her head, shows her that at least one of her babies is okay before he gets to work on helping the other.

One look tells him this one is stuck, coming breech and no way she’ll shift it on her own, he doesn’t even think about it. He reaches out, places one hand on her belly and massages lightly while the other reaches for the baby's feet, he uses his hold to adjust the angle and pull, shifting and massaging in time with her pushes. 

It’s over quickly, the lamb sliding loose and falling limp onto the grass, slimy and pink and utterly tiny. It isn’t breathing and Ghost is all instincts when he starts to work on it, every part of him screaming that this is a baby, that he has to save it, that he can’t just leave it to die. It’s seconds that feel like hours before the tiny body thrashes, a gurgle sputtering from its mouth before it gets enough air in its lungs to really wail.

The ewe is quiet, focussed on cleaning off the first baby when Ghost lays the second out in front of her. Whom she ignores completely. Shit. 

Ghost moves the first further away, and she rolls, tries to stand to get back to it and almost kicks the smaller lamb in the process. He tries all the tricks, all the things he knows to try, but she’s having none of it, the small lamb is on its own.

Well. Ghost went to too much effort and upset to just let it die. He lifts his eyes to find Soap for the first time since he ran over there. Soap is watching him thoughtfully, strong crease between his brows, pity in his gaze. 

“Yer a real bleeding heart about the lambs, huh?” 

“Johnny?” Ghost pleads but Soap is already nodding, already walking over from the fence he’s been leaning against to help, before Ghost even asks him to. 

“I’ll hold her still, you get some milk into it.” And that’s exactly what they do, Soap stands the female up and locks her head between his thighs, Ghost grabs both lambs and helps them up onto their feet, grins a little ferally when they both latch quickly, tails wagging fast as they take their first greedy gulps of milk.

The minute they let her go the ewe turns and kicks at the runty lamb, before urging the larger one to follow her away and into the field, she only misses because Ghost scoops it up before she can make contact.

“Yer gonna want tae keep it, right?” Soap asks, his tone suggesting he’s already resigned to the fact. Ghost turns on the puppy dog eyes anyway, turns to face him with the lamb cradled gently against his massive body. Soap’s eyes are darting between the lamb and the stretch of Ghost’s undershirt over his pecs and biceps, so he makes it a point to flex in case that sweetens the pot. He also waves one of its little legs at him. 

“Yeah.” Ghost nods and feels nothing but relief when Soap just rolls his eyes and nods back. “I’ve got a spare blanket ye can make a sling from for the journey back.” and true to his word he fishes a ratty woollen throw out of one of his saddlebags. 

-

Ghost and the lamb is a problem, is becoming a problem, certainly will be one in the future. It’s the way he looks at it, Soap thinks, like this tiny creature who isn’t even important to the flock is the most precious thing on the planet. He coos at it when he thinks Soap can’t hear him, softens entirely when he remains his usual acerbic, hot and cold self otherwise. 

The lamb spends most of its time in a small box of blankets by the stove to keep it warm, Ghost coming in with bottles of milk at regular intervals, turning those damned dangerous doe eyes on Soap if he’s busy and needs him to take over.

It’s stronger than Soap had expected, the lamb, considering how small it had been at birth Soap hadn’t much rated its chances of survival, but it’s tough and under Ghost’s tender care the little bugger is growing like a weed. It’s nearly doubled in size in just a few weeks. Tablet loves it, Soap would be lying if he said he hadn’t melted just a little the first time he’d come into the kitchen to find the two of them curled up together.

He ran to grab his sketchbook, made a rough sketch of the moment so he could remember it, planned to neaten it up later but then Ghost had walked in. He’d crowded up behind Soap’s back and loomed over his shoulder, eyes darting between the scene before them and the soft movements of soap’s pencil against paper. He’d ended up standing there for a lot longer than he thinks either of them had intended, soothed by the heat of Ghost at his back, the strange herbal smell of him in his nose.

“What’s a sheep’s favourite letter?” Ghost had asked.

“I don’t know?”

“Ewe.” Soap had snorted out a laugh against his better judgement, though it was worth it for the low, rumbling chuckle Ghost gave him in response.

Eventually his pencil had worn down too much to use and Ghost had reached around to pry it gently from his fingers, had pulled out a wicked looking knife and begun to sharpen it for him with deft fingers. 

“Would you draw one for me?” Ghost had asked, voice low as though not wanting to break the moment, pitched quieter than the gentle crackling of logs in the stove. 

Soap had shrugged noncommittal, then stayed up half the night just to do another, ended up giving Ghost the original, sneaking up to the hayloft to leave it on his bed and save them both the awkwardness of handing it over directly.

“You planning a trip to town any time soon?” Ghost asks over dinner, he has a mouthful of bread and stew at the time and it should be disgusting, though it somehow decidedly isn’t. 

“Was gonnae head in next week, why?” Soap lifts an eyebrow, really looks at Ghost for the first time in a few days. He’s been trying to avoid that, looking, it’ll bring him nothing but trouble in the long term. Ghost has made his stance clear, this between them, the tension, the attraction, isn’t going anywhere and Soap is just going to have to deal with it.

He still doesn’t understand it, not really, he sees the way Ghost looks at him. Sees the hunger and the desire that burns in his eyes sometimes when he looks at Soap’s body, the fondness when Soap makes some stupid joke that has him rolling his eyes even when he’s already laughing. 

Ghost wants him, Soap knows he does, but he’s also seen the hunted look he gets sometimes, especially at night. The ghosts that haunt him are always present, hovering in his periphery and making him flighty, have him jumping to attention everytime hoof beats approach the farmhouse. Soap wishes desperately that there was anything he could do to try and take away some of that fear, to soothe those echoes that he knows keep Ghost awake.

So he looks, which means he finally sees the tension strung around Ghost’s body like barbed wire. There’s a tightness around his eyes, a stiffness in his shoulders that tells Soap something is wrong, something has Ghost scared , and that’s enough to worry Soap all on its own. 

“Need supplies.” Ghost shrugs “I’ll have to head in sooner than that.” 

“What do you need?” Soap asks, knowing the response he’ll get.

“That’d be my business, now wouldn’t it?” His tone is dry as the dirt outside but Soap can see the little glint of playfulness Ghost so often gets when he’s being an arse.

“Prick.” 

“Takes one to know one.” 

“We can head in tomorrow?” Soap offers and pretends he doesn’t see the relief that weaves through Ghost instantly. 

“Tomorrow.” Ghost knocks on the table once, then stands and gathers the dishes ready to wash them; Soap cooks, he cleans, like clockwork. He stops as he gets to the sink, turns to look back at Soap. “Thank you.” It’s the closest he’ll come to an acknowledgement, to addressing his vulnerability, Soap isn’t about to ruin the moment.

“Need tae talk to the farrier anyway.” Soap waves a dismissive hand, doesn’t think too much about the gratitude in Ghost’s eyes. “Want me to feed Mint Sauce?” Ghost rolls his eyes at the nickname Soap has given the lamb, but smiles and nods too.

Ghost is quiet the rest of that evening, twitchy in a way that contrasts the unnaturally still control with which he usually carries himself. When Soap leans in to pass him a bowl of preserved peaches with condensed milk he flinches away and almost spills them, rears back as though Soap’s proximity scares him.

He eats the peaches though, makes this little scrunched up happy face while he does that, has Soap’s stomach twisting with fondness, Ghost has a hell of a sweet tooth, lights up the minute Soap gets hold of anything with sugar in it. Ghost slurps the remaining juice from the bowl, wipes his face with the back of his hand after, succeeding in nothing but smearing a streak of white across his cheek. 

Soap isn’t thinking when he reaches out, not about Ghost’s boundaries anyway, he’s too distracted by the satisfied grin painting Ghost’s mouth, ticking the corners up and twisting the scar across his mouth in just the right way to make Soap want to lick it. He isn’t thinking when he reaches out, which is why he does it. His thumb lands at the corner of Ghost’s mouth, traces a path across the spilled milk and wipes it away, Ghost’s breath catches but he doesn’t move away.

Soap doesn’t move his hand, freezes there with his hand cupping Ghost’s cheek with all the care he would a stick of dynamite, knows Ghost is just as liable to detonate. He strokes his thumb again, just for the thrill of it and hears the rattling breath Ghost inhales when he does. When he goes in for a third stroke he moves his thumb too far, accidentally scrapes a callus along the tender skin of Ghost’s lip. 

Large hands wrap around his wrist, holding his hand where it is, not pulling or pushing, just cradling with gentle pressure as Ghost’s eyes flutter closed, his face leaning more heavily into Soap’s palm. Soap swallows with a dry click, terrified that any sound could crack through the delicate bubble they find themselves in. Ghost turns his head and presses a chaste kiss to Soap’s palm and though it’s hard to tell Soap could swear, just for a moment, that Ghost smells him.

“Ghost?” Soap asks and the dynamite goes off, Ghost’s eyes shutter and he pushes Soap’s hand away, firm but gentle. For all that his face is still bare, the mask is back on.

“Goodnight.” Ghost says as he stands and it’s as close to a sorry as Soap knows he’ll come, it’s more than Soap needed, he’d known he was pushing his luck, he’d known it wasn’t fair.

“Goodnight, Ghost.” Soap answers and hopes to God that Ghost hears his own apology within it. 

“Simon.” He says “You can call me Simon, if you want.” and Soap knows he’s forgiven.

“Goodnight, Simon.” Ghost nods at him, solemn but sure, crouches to press a single kiss between Mint Sauce’s ears and bestows another upon Tablets when she worms her way over to him. Then he’s out the door, once again fleeing into the night.

-

The journey to town takes a couple of hours, both of which Soap spends staring at the way Ghost’s hips sway while he rides. The air is a little less stifling than it has been, the heat less overwhelming. Leaving just after dawn helps, the sun still low and the skies streaked with purples and pinks.

“Red sky at morning, shepherd’s warning.” Ghost intones from his mount, eyes fixed on the blush of red still clinging to the horizon.

“Och, that old chestnut?” Soap rolls his eyes “Didn’t take ye for a superstitious one, Ghostie.” When Ghost looks back at him there’s a little glimmer of humour in his eyes, if Soap could see under the mask he reckons he’d find a smile.

“Some things become classics for a reason, Johnny.” He turns to look back at the track ahead of him, giving Soap a perfect view of his shoulders flexing as he does. “You mark my words, it’ll be stair rods by tea time.” 

“This isn’t England.” Soap says, firmly “The sky is clear, the ground is dry and the birds are singing, we’ll no’ get rain today.”

“If you say so.” Ghost shrugs, “I suppose for now,” he shifts just a little in his saddle, firms his grip on his reins until Last twitches. Soap narrows his eyes. “This is perfect racing weather. Hyah!” Ghost urges his mare into a gallop with a kick of his heels and a snap of her reins, pulling ahead of Soap easily. Soap hadn’t thought much of Last given her build, but she can move far faster than he expected.

Soap gives a whoop of laughter before kicking forward until the steady thrum of Thistle’s hoofbeats picks up and he gives chase. Ghost throws a look over his shoulder and Soap sees his mask is tugged down around his neck, his mouth pulled into an exhilarated grin at the sight of Soap in pursuit.  

Last has gained herself some good ground and she’s far faster than Soap had given her credit for but Thistle was born for speed and he steadily gains on Ghost as they race on across the track. He’s not even thinking as he lets go with one hand, reaches out, just knows that every step, every metre of gained ground, gets him closer to Ghost. His quarry. 

He pulls level and he stretches, feels only air for long moments before his hand closes over the back of Ghost’s neck and squeezes. It’s a damned dangerous move, the speed they’re going and the distance between them, he barely reaches, doesn’t know what the fuck possesses him to do it. The second his fingers clamp down Ghost pulls hard on the reins, Last stopping hard. If Thistle were any less of a mount she might not have felt what was going on, might have kept running and ultimately unseated them both. She stops just barely in line with Last, Soap’s hand still in place.

“Got ye.” His breath is panting out of him as he sucks in huge lungfuls of air, he’s sweated through his shirt and to his utter embarrassment his alpha scent is strong with the thrill of chasing down prey. Thank god Ghost can’t smell it. 

When Soap’s eyes fix on him Ghost’s eyes are dark, his gaze burning hot as his own chest heaves. For just a moment as Ghost pants Soap swears he sees the glint of a too-sharp fang but then Thistle paws the ground and distracts him and he releases his hand. He’s only turned away for a moment but by the time he looks back Ghost’s mask is pulled back up, covering his mouth and the pretty overheated flush that had been on Ghost’s nose.

“Good work.” Ghost growls, voice thick with the gravel of exertion “I’m not easy to catch.” 

Soap, and he knows he’s never going to fucking live this down, whines. Quietly, but absolutely audibly. 

The rest of their ride is done mostly in silence, just the huffing of the horses and the clank and squeak of leather and buckles. Ghost is twitchy, keeps shifting uncomfortably in his saddle and rolling his shoulders. Usually he rides like a posh prick, classic English snobbery coating every one of his movements like a neon sign stating ‘rich fuck here’, now he’s finally riding like a cowboy.

It’s doing funny things to Soap’s insides, actually.

Not fifteen minutes later they’re reaching the wrought iron archway announcing their arrival to Soldier’s Rest, Soap has never been so glad for a distraction.

Ghost stops outside the general store, dismounts and ties Last off on the hitching post. There’s something awkward in his gait as he walks around her, a little too bandy legged for such a short ride, a little too hunched for a man as massive as he is. 

“Sit on your balls, did ye?” Soap jokes and almost misses the wince Ghost does before he smiles. Probably would’ve, if he wasn’t always looking at Simon.

“Just a little stiff, not as young as I used to be.” Ghost shrugs, visibly shakes himself to his full height. He’s lying, Soap realises, this is what Ghost looks like when he lies to him. “Didn’t you have to go to the farrier?” 

“Aye.” Soap nods, “Aye, I do.” and he does his level best not to be hurt by the blatant dismissal. Whatever Ghost’s reasons, whatever he’s about, he’s never given Soap any reason not to trust him. Soap walks away, internally fights the need to turn and look back at Ghost and by the time he loses, Ghost is already gone.

It would’ve helped, Soap reckons, if his story about the farrier hadn’t been largely spurious and simply an excuse to give Ghost what he wanted. It means he has to aimlessly mooch around the forge where the farrier is busily knocking together horseshoes and occasionally throw out just enough interest that he isn’t asked to leave.

He gives up after ten minutes, which is already more than he’d wanted to spend in that cramped space approximately twenty degrees hotter than hell itself. He hopes desperately that Ghost is done, Soap has sweated clean through his shirt again and more than anything wants to have a fucking drink but the bar isn’t open yet and he doesn’t like to go into the saloon alone, the working girls in there have taken a shine to him and get far too pushy. 

Then again, if Soap has to see Ghost take up an offer from one of them he might just fling himself directly into the farrier’s forge so perhaps he’s gone off the idea of a drink entirely. 

There’s no sign of Ghost by the horses, which means he must still be in the store. 

Price had moved to town a few years back and Soap had taken to him immediately, something about the kind but powerful way he carried himself. It seemed to be mutual if the way Price had immediately taken Soap under his wing, throwing him lowball offers on essentials and always packing a little something extra into the bag. Soap thinks of him as a sort of father figure, which is confusing since he also thinks of Gaz as a brother, and Gaz’s thoughts toward Price are certainly nowhere near as toward. 

The two of them run the general store together, totally platonically (which Soap believes about as much as he believes pigs fly), and Gaz helps out at Price’s bar in the evenings.

The sign on the door is flipped to ‘be back’, which doesn’t at all help the feeling of growing unease in the pit of Soap’s stomach. He opens the door, desperately grateful that Price had removed the bell over it for ‘making a damned racket’ since it means none of them notice him walk in. 

He stops in the doorway, frozen at the image in front of him; Gaz sat in the corner with his feet thrown up on the table, flicking idly through a book, Price standing with his arms folded defensively but a woeful look in his eye. Ghost is in the middle, his back to Gaz and every inch of his height drawn up to loom over Price.

“-ut they were supposed to be here!” Ghost is shouting but he doesn’t sound angry, he sounds desperate.

“I told you, Simon, the coach was robbed, there’s nothing I can do until next month.” Ghost hisses and his hands come up to rake through his hair, knocking his hat off in the process. Then he’s buckling, slumping forward to rest both palms flat on the counter as what appear to be sobs wrack through his body.

“John, I can’t do this.” Ghost murmurs and Price presses his own hand over his eyes, sighs long and low.

“What a fucking mess.” Another sigh “But Simon, it seems like it would be too late even if the herbs had arrived.”

“I know, fuck , I know. It’s him.”

“And you’re sure you can’t ask-” 

“I’m sure.” Ghost cuts off whatever Price had been about to say.

Soap has listened too long, he knows it and when he darts his eyes over to Gaz he sees that he’s already looking back at him, something like a challenge in his gaze, though he’d never snitch on him.

Soap quietly reopens, then slams the door.

“Fuckin’ hell that furnace cannot need to be that hot.” He fans at himself with his hat “I think I’m gonnae die of pure heat .” Gaz makes a strangled sound at that, to which Price shoots him a nasty look and Ghost is already pulling his mask back up, scrambling for his hat and replacing it.

“Done already?” Ghost sounds shorter with him than he’s ever been.

“Aye.” 

“Let’s go.” and Ghost is walking out the door without a glance back, giving Soap the widest berth he possibly can as he goes. 

“What’s his problem?” Soap asks Price, hooking a thumb over his shoulder, Price just sighs again.

“That’s his business, son, but go easy on him, yeah?” Price is dead serious, maybe more than Soap has ever seen him.

“I’d never hurt him.” Soap says, and damn near withers under Price’s assessing look, until he turns away and sighs yet again.

“As bad as each other, fuck’s sake.” and then he’s stomping into the back room and Gaz is standing to follow him.

“Don’t be a stranger mate, alright?” Gaz offers and then Soap is left alone in the store.

When he steps outside Ghost has already started the ride home and he has to canter Thistle to catch up to him. Ghost is still twitchy, Soap is still too warm, though he’s fairly convinced that’s the stifling tension between them more than the temperature.

An hour into the ride the heavens open, Ghost doesn’t even say ‘I told you so’.

At the ranch Ghost removes Last’s tack more perfunctorily than Soap has ever seen him. If he’d seemed uncomfortable before that’s nothing on now, shifting and sweating through his shirt, the fabric over his back drenched and clinging to his muscle like a second skin with a mixture of sweat and rain. The third time he fumbles on the buckle for her bridle Soap steps in, covers Ghost’s hands with his own and tries to help.

He seems to make things worse, Ghost throws himself to the other side of the stable, knocks over a feed bag in his haste, eyes wide and chest heaving. They stay frozen in this tableaux; Ghost poised ready for flight like a startled animal, feed strewn across the floor and a stray chicken already pecking lazily at it, Soap holding both horses’ reins and restraining himself from reaching out.

“Christ and his angels, Ghost, are ye alright?” 

“Coming down with something.” Ghost grunts, his voice thin and thready, a drop of sweat trickles lazily from his temple to his chin. “Got to go.” 

And he does.

Marches out of the stable and toward the barn before Soap can say anything else, before he can ask him to stay, to talk to him, to let Soap tend to him if he’s ill. And he must be ill, because he hadn’t even finished with Last, her saddle is on the floor and he’d never managed to remove the bridle. 

Soap takes care of it, feels like it’s the least he can do, considering, feels like it’s the only way he can make himself useful. He gets the rest of Last’s tack off, returns her things to the hooks that Ghost has claimed as his own in the time he’s been here. He turns her out into the yard, and turns his attention to the saddle.

He hoists it up onto the rack, and stops dead.

He reacts before he’s even aware of what he’s doing, nose coming down to rest just inches off the leather seat, and confirms to his mind what so far only instinct had told him. 

There’s slick on the saddle.

Omega slick.

Heat slick.

He presses closer, nose pushed against leather as he breathes in, smells Ghost, and sweat and slick all blending together into a hypnotic cocktail.

Ghost is a fucking omega.

Ghost is a fucking omega, and he’s not fucking sick. He’s in heat .

Soap whines, no room for shock when his brain is already syrupy and thick, like his thoughts are having to push through honey. His tongue reaches out to slide along the saddle before he can stop it, doesn’t want to since deep down he knows if he tries to stop now he’ll do something far worse, like go to find Ghost, who clearly doesn’t want him.

Soap has never been with an omega before, they’re few and far between out here, most people assume the crossing is too much for their delicate sensibilities, and they aren’t exactly common to begin with.

So, Soap has never been with an omega before, has certainly never been near one in heat, and maybe that is why the second his tongue touches the slick his eyes roll back in his head and he loses all reason. 

His hands work at his belt, pulling and clawing at the buckles of his belt and chaps, pushing and yanking at his jeans until he can finally pull himself free. He takes another desperate lap of the saddle, savours it, rolls the taste around his mouth until it coats every inch of it, sticks to his teeth and his tongue.

His fangs grow longer, sharper, one of them nicks his tongue and the taste of his own blood mixed with Ghost’s slick is enough to have him whining and keening. He rears back and mounts the saddle, hips angled awkwardly down, buckles of his chaps clanking against the wooden frame, tangling with the stirrups. 

He grinds and almost convinces himself that it's the slick, rather than his own precome, that makes the glide so smooth, so easy. He ruts forward again, and again, cock smearing mess across the smooth surface, friction nowhere close to enough, but the smell of Ghost still smeared on his cheek is more than enough to make up for that. 

He’s not going to last long, even with the minimal stimulation, he’s so pent up and all the slowly bubbling feelings he’s been having about Ghost for the last few weeks are starting to rise to the surface, are prickling under his skin, writhing and setting his nerves alight. He wants Ghost, and he trusts him, and for all that it hurts that Ghost doesn’t want him, if this is all he ever gets, then dear God will it be enough.

It has to be enough.

He rides the saddle harder, swipes a hand through the mess and sucks it off his own fingers, presses them into the back of his throat and keens around the taste of him and, faint but oh so real, Ghost.

His omega, if only for this moment.

His mind drifts to Ghost, probably naked, right now, on Soap’s property, on Soap’s sheets, getting himself off by any means necessary, crying out for an alpha’s knot, empty and sobbing.

Soap comes in long stripes against the leather, hard enough there’s an ache deep in his balls, hard enough he’s gasping for breath when he comes down, a mess of come streaked across the seat. If he were a better man he’d clean it off, do his best to erase any evidence of what he’s done, of how he’s defiled Ghost’s property.

He is simply the man he is, however, and so he doesn’t. Instead he rubs it in, massages his come into the leather and thinks about how the next time Ghost rides it will be pressed against his cunt. 

When he leaves he goes straight to the house and locks himself in his bedroom, trying desperately to quiet the part of his mind that is begging him to join Ghost in the barn. The smell of Ghost still clings faintly to his skin and Soap knows this is going to be a long night.

Chapter 3: Your light gets me through

Ghost’s heat is hitting hard and fast. He hasn’t had one this intense since… Well, he’s not had one at all since, and since was a long time ago now. 

When he’d woken the previous morning to find he had the chills he’d put it down to the hayloft’s poor insulation. By mid afternoon he told himself the sweat was just from how hot the sun was. By evening his attempts to convince himself that he was only slicking up because of the way Soap’s chaps hugged his arse were losing their lustre. That was just pre-heat though and he’d hoped a larger dose of his herbs would let it recede to nothing.

But then the herbs hadn’t been there. 

Price had been sorry enough, sure, but sorry didn’t help Ghost. It didn’t stop him losing his control and it didn’t stop him wanting, wanting, so badly his teeth ached and his chest hurt. Then again around Soap the herbs hadn’t done much to stop that sensation to begin with. 

Christ, he’d been so weak letting Soap chase him like that, so weak and plain stupid, teasing an alpha’s hunting instincts, especially when he doesn’t even know what Simon is. He’d wanted to be caught though, ardently. He’d given no quarter, hadn’t slowed up or gone easy but he’d known, the moment he’d issued that challenge he’d known that Soap would catch him. 

Because Soap is his.

Because he is Soap’s.

Because life isn’t fucking fair and they can never have each other. 

Full heat had hit some time on the ride back, air sticky sweet with the rain and the heat and under it all, the scent of omega slick. 

When he sprints out of the stable he has only moments to spare a thought for Minty, knows Soap will take good care of her, before he’s throwing himself up the ladder and tearing his clothes from his body. The arousal is so intense he thinks he might go mad with it. Doesn’t even have time to spare for the thought that after this Soap will know the truth; that Ghost lied to him and what Ghost is. He won’t want him here, not once he knows. 

He’s a good man though, Ghost has seen it first hand, he’d never send an omega in heat out to fend for themself. Not his Soap. 

His clothes hit the floor with a wet splat, shirt ruined beyond repair and his jeans not much better. Belts and holsters and his hat scatter around the place until he can throw himself onto his mattress naked, the rough sheet feeling too coarse against his over sensitive flesh.

It’s not elegant, his position pushed up onto all fours but it does allow him to pull a hand between his legs, cram two fingers immediately into his cunt. He can’t help the loud groan that slips from his throat as he pushes inside, his wrist grinding just right across his cock as he does, the dual friction almost too much yet nowhere near enough. 

Dropping to his shoulders, Ghost brings his other hand down to play with his cock properly, perfect friction as he slides his fist up and down in time with the slick slide of his fingers. It’s good, so fucking good, and Ghost knows he’s in trouble when ten minutes passes and he’s not any closer to slipping over the edge.

He shifts up onto his knees, slides another finger into himself while he’s at it, stuffed full and reaching as deeply as he’s able. It feels perfect, just how it should, full and wet and so perfect but. He can’t come. 

He tries every position he can think of, every move that usually has his thighs shaking. Nothing. He knows what it means, he thinks he does anyway, but he doesn’t want to believe he could be that fucking stupid. 

There’s only one way to know for sure.

Ghost’s hands slow, the fist wrapped around his cock sliding off as he draws it up to his throat, runs it lightly over his mating gland and finds it swollen, just a little. Barely noticeable, definitely not visible, but still utterly damning. 

He’s imprinted. 

Like a fucking idiot he’s gone and got himself feelings for Soap, goaded him into chasing him, catching him. 

He’s gone and imprinted without Soap even knowing he was an omega. 

Fuck.

Which does at least answer the question of why he can’t come. Because he’s not going to be able to come, not unless Soap is here. Fucking hell Ghost should have left the minute he realised he was getting comfortable, he learned a long time ago that comfort doesn’t mean safety. Doesn’t mean contentment. 

He’s fine, he tells himself, he’s okay. He’s not near the peak of the fever yet, he just needs something that smells of Soap, that’s all, anything with his scent and he’ll be okay. He doesn’t bother with clothes, Soap will be in the house and there’s no one but the moon to see him.

Forty-five minutes after leaving the stable, Ghost climbs down the ladder.

The rain has died down, the smell of damp earth thick in the air, what little drizzle there still is feels blissfully cool on Ghost’s feverish skin. It’s not far to the stable, there’s a light on up at the house in what Ghost thinks is Soap’s bedroom.

Probably best he doesn’t think about Soap’s bedroom for too long.

There’s slick running down the insides of his thighs, mixing with the rain that clings to his body and leaving a pretty unmistakable scent trail if the downpour doesn’t continue and wash it away by the morning. Ghost is too far gone to care though. Can scarcely think of anything that isn’t getting Soap’s scent, by any means, thinks about all the tack and spare clothing Soap keeps in the stable.

The door is ajar, which is unusual, and even more so is that Soap has left a lamp lit. Lamp oil is expensive and while Soap isn’t hurting for money he’s not usually careless with it either. Ghost is glad for it now though, doesn’t have to waste any time fumbling in the dark. He heads straight for the cabinets where Soap usually keeps spare bandanas and gloves, there’s a few in there but as Ghost picks his way through them only one thing really stands out as smelling of him. 

There’s a belt, neatly wound into a coil and left on the shelf. Soap had changed out of it earlier to change into his chaps, apparently he hadn’t bothered to change back out of those before heading to bed. It’s thick brown leather, embossed with intricate patterning but also clearly well worn, well loved enough that the scent is so strong it’s like it’s become one with the leather.

Ghost picks it up by the buckle, lets the length of it unspool with a swish as he brings the metal up to his face. One inhale is all it takes for his fangs to drop fully, mouth filling with saliva as slick pools even heavier between his thighs. His cock is achingly hard, dripping precome down its length to add to the mess between his legs. 

The belt smells like metal and leather and Johnny, stronger than any trace on fabric he could have hoped for and he remembers deliriously that Soap probably hardly ever washes his belt. An item that spends all day wound around his hips, resting above his crotch, almost never cleansed of the heady alpha scent that it accumulates.

The length of it is looped across his shoulders before he can think about it any further, the cool strap resting lightly against his mating gland and making him weak at the knees. He plans to take it and go, to stumble back to the hayloft, somehow get back up the ladder and spend the next several days driving himself to madness. 

He plans to but then the wind picks up, just for a second, barely a moment but it’s enough. Through the fog of heat and fever Ghost’s nose picks up a new scent. Pure alpha. Pure Soap.

He’s all animal instinct when he follows his nose, lets it lead him over to the rack, to his saddle that’s been neatly placed just where it should be. He’s still feet away when he registers what he’s smelling; come. Come and Soap and his own slick mingled on the leather. He knows what’s happened, it wouldn’t take a genius to work it out, and he might be concerned about it were the situation different.

If things were different he would worry about an unmated alpha scenting his slick, getting off to it, marking his property.

If things were different he wouldn’t already have imprinted on Soap, he wouldn’t trust him this deeply. 

If they were different he wouldn’t hope that Soap would come find him, take him, claim him, and he wouldn’t know that Soap would never do that, not like this. 

He’s experiencing one of the safest solo heats of his life, and he hates it.

Ghost swings a leg over the saddle. If this is his only opportunity to get this close to being mated by Soap, to coating himself in the smell of him in a way he could only have dreamed of? Then he’s going to take it, never has been one to look a gift horse in the mouth, has Ghost. 

The first touch of cool leather against his cock has a desperate moan dropping from his lips, as he settles properly and feels his cunt rest against it, against where he knows Soap’s come is smeared into the leather, his mind goes still. The first roll of his hips is ecstasy, as is every subsequent movement, the knowledge that his alpha’s come is so close to where it should be, scenting him properly and soothing the ragged edges of his mind.

Ghost’s hips roll as his hands thread the end of the belt through the buckle and pull, leashing himself. The pressure is light, this isn’t about stopping his breath, this is about feeling Soap wrapped around him until his senses can’t think of anything else. The hand holding the end of Soap’s belt trails across Ghost’s chest, scrapes the leather across his nipples until he’s hissing. 

It feels good, all of it, so fucking good but it still isn’t enough, not quite, not yet. The saddle is smooth and slick and not giving him the friction he needs to finally, finally , make it over the edge. He hunches, bringing down the tail of the belt to lay it flat against the saddle, and lifting for a minute so he can tuck it between his legs. The grind of his cock against the embossing is the perfect friction, hips bucking wildly as he feels the scrape of the pattern across sensitive skin. 

Each thrust has the belt shifting lightly around his neck, a pulsing pressure that Ghost can close his eyes and pretend is Soap’s hand squeezing around his throat. His hips thrust forward once more, hard, and the belt shifts, buckle scraping hard across his mating gland and smearing Soap’s scent deep into the skin.

Ghost falls forward as his orgasm finally shudders through his body, almost violent in its intensity as he shivers and twitches, hips bucking wildly as his cunt gushes slick onto the saddle and his cock streaks it with come. 

The wind picks up again and Ghost notices the chill, fog finally lifting from his head with the relief of his orgasm. He knows it’s temporary, knows he has only a couple of hours before he’s overwhelmed by need, but he has the belt, and he has the saddle. Ghost dismounts and runs both hands across the surface, smears back and forth until he can smell the combination of him and Soap sinking into his skin, he lifts his hands to rub that into his throat, his wrists, his chest. 

He doesn’t clean up any further, soap already knows about his heat, is at least on a base level attracted to him according to his humping of Ghost’s property. He sort of hopes Soap comes in here, smells and sees the mess he caused Ghost to make. Knows that he has a claim over Ghost, even if he can never know how large. 

Ghost staggers back to the door, stops by the pump as he does to sluice away the worst of the mess covering him, knows that the scent will linger anyway. The cool water is a desperate relief, especially now that the rain has stopped, and he luxuriates in it for a few long moments. 

As he looks down he catches sight of himself in the bucket of water, the embossing on the belt has printed onto his throat, intricate whorls and loops marked out in red against his neck. Good. 

The barn door is closed, just as he left it, but there’s a note pinned to the ladder when he gets to it, a large basket beside it.

 

Ghost,

I’m sorry, I know you didn’t want me to know. I’ll take good care of Mint Sauce and Last while you’re occupied so don’t worry about that. Put yourself first. 

If you need anything I’m here, always, as is the spare bedroom up at the house. You can hardly build a decent nest in a hayloft. I’ll understand if you’d rather not so I’ve left you some supplies to help see you through. 

I’ll drop food off and I expect it to be eaten, else I’ll worry.

Yours, Johnny

 

The paper smells like him, though Ghost curses the letter anyway, curses it for proving to him that Soap is exactly the man he feared he might be. 

He’s kind. 

In everything he does he’s kind and Ghost has no idea what to do with that.

He hauls the basket up to the loft and pulls out the contents, blankets and sheets and even a couple of pillows, more than he could have hoped for from someone with no obligation to help him. It’s not like he’s often had the opportunity to build a proper nest, he’d have made it through without anything more than the sheet he already has. 

As he shakes out one of the blankets something falls out, and when Ghost picks it up he finds that it’s the handkerchief he lost a while ago, the monogrammed one. He’s going to shrug it off until he picks it up, the minute he does he realises.

Soap has scented it. Properly and with intent he’s scented it.

Shit.  

 

–

 

Soap knows it’s bad form, okay? He fucking knows that, still he doesn’t think anyone could really blame him for his moment of weakness.

Moments.

Whatever.

He went a little crazy, in the stable, finding out that Ghost was an omega but in his defence the moment he had found out it had felt like all of the jagged, torn edges of the picture had finally slotted together. Now if only the damned thing was in focus.

Ghost being an omega makes sense to him, it fits, Ghost may be far larger and far less amenable than every other omega Soap has ever heard of but Christ he wouldn’t want him any other way. He feels better now, about the way he’s been behaving, about the posturing and the showing off and the painful need he feels when he looks at him. Even if his mind didn’t know his body has clearly had an inkling about Ghost’s identity this whole time.

He knows now, he understands, he’s imprinted on Ghost. Thinks maybe it happened the very first moment Ghost showed up in his too-expensive clothes and told him his cock was sunburned (it had been a little too, prick). It explains the clawing desperate clutch of his chest whenever Ghost isn’t by his side, the hollow feeling he gets each time they say goodnight and Ghost goes out to the barn. 

It explains the overwhelming victory he felt when he had him scruffed after chasing him, the feeling of forgetting something he had when he’d let go.

It doesn’t explain all of it though, not even close, but Soap has known for some time now that the real truth, the real terrible truth is this; he’s falling in love with him. 

Too fast and not fast enough. Slow as molasses but too quick to be stopped he is falling in love with a man who won’t tell him his last name, why he’s here, where he’s come from. None of it matters though, Soap knows, because he knows the truth of him where it matters.

Simon is acerbic and yet he’s spent countless hours raising a lamb who he could just have easily left to the coyotes. 

Simon is blunt and he’s gone above and beyond to help Soap on the ranch, does more than his share.

Simon is angry, so angry, yet he’ll push Soap down into a chair and have him sit quietly while he cooks dinner. 

He’s not a perfect man, but Soap would be bored with perfect.

So, Soap is falling in love with him, has imprinted on him, and so his alpha couldn’t resist making that claim just the same as he couldn’t resist slipping back out to the barn to leave nesting materials and a note for the man he’s come to think of as his to care for.

And he couldn’t resist scenting the handkerchief, slipping it in there. He told himself that he was just returning Ghost’s property but if that was true there was no explanation for why he’d solemnly dragged it hard across his scent glands. The two at his throat, the two at his wrists, his chest. If he’s imprinted then Simon has too, imprinting is always mutual though never necessary for mating. It’s rare too.

Soap won’t pry, doesn’t think that’s fair to Ghost, he won’t push either but he knows that without his scent Ghost’s heat won’t be going anywhere. So he wanted to help and he wanted to be selfish.

He scoops Minty out of her box when she bleats at him plaintively, ignores the jealous whine Tablet gives him, she’s spoiled enough and he thinks learning to share will be good for her. Minty is trembling a bit in his arms, a little too cold so Soap shuffles over to sit by the fire, back propped against the armchair as he gives her a bottle. Tablet flops at his side, breathing smooth and steady as she dozes off; all of it successfully distracts him from thoughts of Ghost for all of about twenty seconds.

Ghost, out at the barn alone as he tries to work through his heat solo. Ghost who could have Soap with as little as a glance, he’s right here, Ghost’s but for the asking.

Ghost won’t ask. 

Soap knows he won’t in the same way he knows he’d never go up to the loft. Neither is ready to cross that line for their own reasons.

Soap can’t speak for Ghost, can’t even begin to fathom the strange handful of threads he’s managed to gather, let alone piece them together into the vague tapestry of his past. All he knows is Ghost keeps his distance for his own reasons and Ghost is hiding something.

It doesn’t stop him desperately longing to know what. It doesn’t stop the bite of bitterness in his gut when he thinks about Ghost’s conversation with Price and Gaz, that he trusted them enough to tell them the truth of his past, or at least some of it, enough that they know what he is. That he didn’t trust Soap enough to tell him the same. 

The fire crackles next to him as his gut roils, Minty’s tail wiggles happily as she finishes her milk and settles down to sleep, nose to nose with Tablet. 

Soap has just enough time to think that he’s getting a crick in his neck before he’s sliding into an uneasy sleep. 

When he wakes it’s to see Ghost frozen in the doorway.

He’s holding the basketful of nesting materials in front of his crotch, a shirt draped over his shoulders but not buttoned. He has his usual skull bandana tied around his face but there’s a sliver of lilac silk peeking out from under it. For some reason he’s wearing his hat, but Soap can’t really expect him to be rational right now, the fever must be damn near cooking his brain if the sheen of sweat across his torso is anything to go by.

“Wasn’t expecting you up.” Ghost grits out, voice a deep rasp.

“Fell asleep.” Soap says, stating the fucking obvious. His eyes are fixed on Ghost, he doesn’t even think he’s blinked, he’s so mesmerised. 

“You said I could use the spare room?” Ghost asks and shifts uncomfortably on the spot. 

“A-Aye-” Soap stammers, sits up straight but as he does the wind blows in through the open door behind Ghost, just as he closes it, and Soap gets a face full of his scent. 

Heat scent.

Christ, but Ghost smells good. Like damp earth and hay and Britain. Soap hasn’t smelled the green grass of home for years, not the heather of the highlands of the curated flowers of an English country garden, but one breath and he’s right back in it.

His fangs drop instantly, fill his mouth until it drops open and Soap is a few seconds too late in covering it with his hand, blushing bright with mortification.

“I’m tho thorry!” Soap yelps, fangs giving him a lisp that makes him blush even brighter. Ghost’s eyes crinkle like he might be smiling.

“Happens to the best of us.” He nods, toes the floor and Soap realises he’s wearing one boot, the other foot bare.

“Thpare room upthtairs.” Soap mutters from behind his hand, gestures with the other towards the staircase. 

“Johnny I-” Ghost blinks hard, shakes his head gently. “Thank you.” and then he’s gone.

Soap, showing a greater sense of self preservation that he’d known he was in possession of does not turn around to watch his bare arse as he walks away. Instead he looks fixedly at the floor, which turns out to be a mistake because it means he notices the small pool of slick where Ghost had been standing.

Oh fuck.

Soap is a fully fledged Alpha and a man of strong conviction, he will not fuck his floor, he will not fuck his floor, he will not fuck his floor-

He doesn’t fuck his floor. 

He cleans up the slick with a clean cloth and then has a desperate wank over his kitchen sink, which he decides is slightly more dignified. 

Possibly.

Minty bleats once again from her box so Soap cleans himself up and sets about feeding her again, determined not to think about Ghost somewhere upstairs, working himself through his heat alone. Unsuccessfully.

It’s just that out in his barn there was distance, physically sure, but it felt emotional too, like Ghost was using the space to tell Soap that he wanted to do this alone, that he didn’t want him. Now that Ghost is in the house, in Soap’s spare bedroom, in sheets that most definitely smell strongly of his home, it’s much harder to pretend that’s true. 

Besides, Soap saw the lilac beneath his bandana, knows Ghost is making thorough use of the scented handkerchief Soap gave him. 

Soap picks up a book from the shelf and attempts to read it but every time he looks at the page the words disappear, replaced with the soft rosy glow of Ghost’s cheekbones, the crinkle of his eyes when he smiles.

The smell of him.

He throws the book down in frustration and spends the next half hour flouncing around the house, tidying things that didn’t need tidying, hammering some nails that didn’t really need hammering. By the time he gives up he’s sweaty and pissed off and his thumb hurts because he’d missed the nails more than once. 

The walk upstairs feels far further than usual, the smell of Ghost is thick in the air and only growing the closer to the landing Soap gets. He walks past the door quickly, his fangs are still popped which is embarrassing enough, Soap’s not willing to make it worse by doing something really stupid like huffing the keyhole or crying.

The flimsy barrier of his own bedroom door doesn’t feel like enough, too thin for all that it’s solid wood. 

Changing into his pyjamas is difficult, mostly because the second he’s naked he registers that he’s still half hard, and that doesn’t seem to be about to change any time soon. Also because he’s so distracted by this whole cursed situation that he stubs his toe on his bed. Twice. He’s in a foul mood by the time he’s in the bathroom and going about his evening ablutions, stares long and hard at the jar of petroleum jelly on his counter before deciding that if he gives in now his cock will never learn its lesson.

The bathroom is the other side of Ghost’s room and soap has to pass it to go back to his room, on the way there he’d been so distracted by the blinding pain in his foot he’d barely noticed, but now the agony has subsided and he’s left with having to walk by without doing anything insane. He’s not sure he’s strong enough. 

“Simon?” Soap asks, knocking lightly before he’s even realised he’s going to. “Can I get ye anything before I turn in?” There’s a groan on the other side of the door, breathy and loud, followed by a long string of curses.

“Johnny?” it’s hoarse, barely a croak.

“I’m here.” There’s a long silence then, Soap almost thinks maybe Ghost has gone to sleep, but then his voice comes again. 

“Johnny, will you stay?” Jesus Christ, he’s going to be the death of him.

“Always.” Soap nods even though Ghost can’t see him. “Always, Simon, what do you need?”

“Just stay? At the door? Talk to me.” Soap lets his head drop forwards, forehead thunking gently into the wood, he breathes deeply knowing that he’s going to say yes even as he knows this is going to be torture.

“Of course, Ghost. I’ll stay.” There’s a soft knock on the other side of the door, like maybe Ghost is standing just the other side of it, like maybe he’s pressed his forehead there two, the two of them mirror images. 

“Thank you.” Ghost says, and then there’s a long slide ending in a soft thud, like Ghost has slid to the floor on his side of the door. Soap does the same, slides to the hard wood of the landing and leans his back up against the door.

“So, did I ever tell ye about when I first found that creek ye spotted me in on your first day?”

Ghost hums lightly from the other side of the door. 

“Och, you’ll love this one-” and Soap launches into the story, embellishes it a little, tells Ghost about how Thistle had gone wandering and taken all of his clothes with her, how he’d been roaming his land for hours completely naked, eventually finding her waiting patiently in her stall. 

Ghost hums along at first, but eventually the smell from the room changes, grows thicker until Soap is digging his fingers into his thighs to top himself reaching for his trousers. Speaking at all is becoming difficult around the raw, animal need he can feel coiled tight and huge in his chest. There’s a sound too, so faint that if you weren’t listening as keenly as Soap is you might miss it, but there is the unmistakable sound of Ghost touching himself, an occasional huff or whine, skin on skin. 

Fuck this. 

Soap keeps talking, keeps telling his story, but wraps his hand around himself as he does, the first stroke would have been enough to buckle his knees if he’s been standing, the relief almost too much to bear. He doesn’t bother trying to be quiet, Ghost must be able to smell him anyway, must know what he’s doing.

Soap hopes he does, hopes he knows exactly what he does to Soap, how he makes him feel. 

“Johnny-” It’s barely breathed, almost inaudible, but it’s what Soap has been longing for, that final confirmation that Ghost is thinking of him as he touches himself.

“Good.” Soap rumbles, deep in his chest, a sound he’s never heard from himself “Good omega.” Fucking Christ that’s his alpha voice, the one he’s never used before, the one he wasn’t even that convinced he had.

Soap comes, long and hard, and on the other side of the door, Ghost does too. 

This is how they spend their next three days. Either side of the door, both wanting, needing, but not crossing that last barrier. 

Three times a day Soap will make food and bring it up, leaving it outside the door while he goes back downstairs to clean up and complete basic tasks on the ranch. Ghost eats the meals and leaves the clean plate outside for Soap to clean up. Every free moment is spent by Ghost’s room, Soap even found himself building a piss poor attempt at a nest on the floor, incorporating some of the items Ghost has sent his way. 

The exchange seems to be working for them; Ghost will pass out his blankets to switch for new ones and Soap will scent the fresh ones before making use of the ones Ghost gives him. It’s unorthodox and a little fucked up but nothing about any of Ghost’s existence in his life has exactly been normal.

It's the dawn of the fourth day when Soap wakes up to the clicking of the doorknob, doesn’t have time to brace his weight before Ghost is pulling it open and Soap finds himself blinking up at him from the ground.

He’s wrapped in a duvet, Soap remembering belatedly he’d been mostly naked when he’d come inside in the first place.

“Howdy.” Soap says, blinking up and the looming figure Ghost cuts above him.

“Hello.” Ghost answers, he looks tired with heavy bags under his eyes, sounds it too. Soap pushes himself to his feet and takes Ghost by the wrist. He knows he must be exhausted by how pliant he is, how easily he allows Soap to wordlessly lead him down the stairs and push him, bundled in a blanket, down into an armchair. 

Ghost doses off just as he’s giving Minty a loving scratch between the ears, which is good because it allows Soap to set up the bath without any intervention. He hauls bucket after bucket of hot water from over the stove and fireplace until he has the tub steaming hot. He pours in a herbal smelling soap that Price had dropped off for him along with some other supplies the other day.

He’d looked a little wry when Soap hadn’t invited him in, like he might know what was going on, and while it rankled to know that Price had an awareness of what was going on with Simon it did help Soap feel a little less alone. 

Soap traces a finger lightly over Simon’s ear, smiles gently when it makes Ghost’s mouth twitch into a wonky little line. He looks so young like this, Soap is startled to realise that he can only be about five years older than Soap, he’s never really thought about it before, Simon has always seemed sort of ageless to him. 

There’s a little grey at his temples and the scars make it harder to tell but it’s clear, now, that he’s still a young man, not much over thirty but weary far beyond his years.

“Simon.” Soap murmurs softly, tugging gently on the curl of Ghost’s ear. Ghost blinks awake slowly, groggily. “Come with me, Si.” Soap says again, tone low and gentle, blinks in surprise when Ghost’s fingers wrap around his wrist and stay there as Soap leads their way out of the room and to the back porch where Soap had dragged the tub. 

The sun is still low in the sky and it’s turning the fields of grass to gold. There’s the gentle bleat of sheep and the smell of the open air carried on the wind. Ghost is staring at the bath with a crease between his brows. 

“This is for me?” He asks and Soap nods, nudges him towards it a little. 

“Took the liberty of grabbing ye some clothes from the loft too, hope ye don’t mind the impertinence.” Ghost stares at him, then over at the folded pile of clothing, a neatly folded skull bandana on top. 

“Thank you.” Ghost says, still looking shell shocked.

“I’ll leave you to it.” Soap shrugs and turns to head inside, but finds that Ghost’s hand is still caught fast around his wrist. He looks up and for a moment sees a strange look in Ghost’s eye, one he doesn’t recognise. 

“Thank you. ” Ghost says again, and leans in to press a tender kiss to Soap’s cheek, his lips warm and dry. Soap blushes fiercely, he knows he does, but he nods all the same.

“You’re welcome.” and then Ghost lets him go and Soap heads out to go back to his usual duties on the ranch, Ghost joining him a couple of hours later. 

They return to normal, fall back into their easy, practiced routine and they don’t talk about it. 

They’re not pretending it didn’t happen, neither of them are that good at acting, besides there’d be no point in it. It’s more that they simply carry on, treat the heat as nothing but a strange detour. An inconvenient blip. The day is warm and bright and Ghost tells him terrible jokes, just like usual. 

When Soap goes to his room that night he finds a small square of lilac silk, embellished with a burgundy monogram, folded neatly and placed on his pillow.

For the life of him he doesn’t know what it means.

Chapter 4: The sparks of the fire

They aren’t speaking about it. Soap knows what he is, knows his secret, yet they aren’t speaking about it. 

It’s starting to drive Ghost more than a little mad. 

Soap is gentle, respectful, it’s one of the many things that Ghost loves about him, but if Soap doesn’t crack and ask Ghost for more of an explanation soon he might lose his mind. Ghost can’t be the one to do it, doesn’t even know where to begin, but God he wants Soap to know all of it, everything. The whole sordid, salacious, terrible story. 

He wants Soap to understand him, if only a little better, wants him to know why Ghost has to be coy, why he isn’t being as open as he would like to be with him. 

He wants Soap to understand that none of this is his choice. 

“He’s doing my head in.” Gaz tells him as he sets the drink down on the counter. Price is looming from the doorway, busy keeping an eye out for the sheriff so he can slide him his weekly bribe into looking the other way. He clearly has an ear on the conversation though, if his damned smirk is anything to go by. 

“How is that my fault?” Ghost throws back the bourbon in one move and holds out his glass expectantly for another. 

“Oh come off it.” Gaz rolls his eyes, but fills the glass. “You know he won’t tell me what exactly happened, but I know you well enough to know you’ll not have been forthright with him. I know him well enough to know he won’t ask, too.” 

“But-”

“He’s moping like a wounded animal, Ghost.” Gaz levels him with a stern look that Ghost realises must be the same one he uses on Price. He’s starting to understand why it’s so effective. 

“He’ll be fine, it’s better this way, even, because what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.” Ghost’s hand is shaking just a little where he holds the glass and Gaz reaches to dig his thumb reassuringly over the scent gland on his wrist, a gesture of comfort from his friend, even as he looks utterly exasperated. 

“You’re not thick enough to believe that.” Price adds from behind, rolling a thumb into the covered scent gland on Ghost’s neck before reaching up to flick his hat off. “And watch your manners, there are ladies present.” Kate flips them off from the poker table where she was clearly pretending not to listen. 

“Fuck this.” Ghost mutters and throws back his second glass before making for the door. “I’ll take my chances out there, thanks.” 

He doesn’t need to look back to know that Price and Gaz will be making moon eyes at each other over the bar now, while Kate cleans up at the poker table. She knows some of his story too, had overheard when she came by to settle a debt with Price one night. She’d never tell, not as an alpha herself and certainly not because she knows-

Well. 

Enough. She knows enough. 

Last stamps impatiently when he gets outside and Ghost fishes a sweetened oatcake out of his bag to win her favour back. 

It’s late by the time he gets back to the ranch, the lights in the house are off and Tablet doesn’t make a peep. Thistle is fast asleep in her stall as he returns Last, takes his time removing her tack and brushing her down. The moon is high and bright and the stars are wheeling overhead when he finally trudges into the barn. 

There’s a light on that he knows he hadn’t had lit when he’d left. 

Ghost starts up the ladder, slides his knife out of the sheath on his hip and grips it between his teeth as he climbs. 

“Ye look like a pirate.” Soap tells him blandly as he reaches the top. Ghost spits the knife out, feeling a little foolish, and tucks it away. Soap is sat on the edge of his bed, hands clasped together, elbows resting on his knees. 

“Wasn’t expecting company.” Ghost tells him, then- “What’s an alpha like you doing in a place like this anyway?” He’s aiming for light but lands somewhere more in the region of awkward. 

“I was worried.” Soap admits, but the pink stain across his cheeks tells Ghost he’s embarrassed to admit it. “Didn’t know where you’d gone and it’s not like you to disappear.”

“Didn’t mean to worry you.” Ghost says, feeling like an arse.  

“I know.” 

“I hadn’t realised the day, not until late.” Ghost tries, and prays that Soap will pry, just a little. 

“Thursday?” Soap lifts an eyebrow. 

“First of the month.” Ask. Ghost thinks, ask, ask, ask-

“What does that mean?” Soap’s brows are furrowed and Ghost is so relieved that it takes him a minute to realise that he isn’t sure where to start. 

“You know,” He says, swallowing around the tightness in his throat. “What I am?” It comes out as a question though they both know the answer. 

“An omega.” Soap nods. 

“You didn’t wonder how I hid it?” Soap shifts slightly on the bed and for a moment Ghost thinks he’s going to stand, move away, but he just pats the bed next to him and waits for Ghost to sit. Their shoulders press together and it’s reassuring, grounding. 

“Of course I did, but I didn’t want to push.”

“I want you to push.” Ghost tells him, instantly. “I want you to know.” 

“Okay.” Soap leans harder against him and Ghost pretends he doesn’t notice the way Soap inhales, searching for any trace of his omega scent. There won’t be any, not now, maybe not ever again, for Soap at least. “How do you do it?” 

“There’s this herb...” Ghost starts, feels the tight twist of nerves fist in his belly. “Native to England, it grows on the moors.” He breathes out, tastes the sweet air on his tongue as he thinks of home, remembers his first trip out onto Dartmoor in search of the delicate little orange flowers. 

Soap has leant away a little, turned so he can show Ghost that he’s listening properly. 

“There have been stories, always, but they’re not well known about. Frowned upon, even.” Ghost shudders out a breath. “It’s technically illegal, I think. Was almost wiped out during the Wars of the Roses.”

“What does it do?” Soap asks gently.

“It neutralises all of it.” Ghost shrugs. “The tincture, you have to add a few other things but it neutralises my scent and drinking it switches it off. The heats, the scent, the urges, all of it.”

“It makes you a beta?” Soap asks.

“No.” Ghost shakes his head. “No, I’ll never be a beta, I don’t have the… parts, but it makes me safe.” 

“Safe from what?” Soap asks it so softly, so meekly that Ghost almost answers him. Feels the truth bump up behind his teeth and push against his lips. 

He swallows it. 

“So you ran out? The other week?” Soap moves on and Ghost is grateful enough he could choke on it. 

“I ran out.” He agrees. “Price buys them in for me, knows someone who knows someone who can get a hold of them, dries them and ships them over.”

“But they didn’t come?” 

“Not that day.” Ghost nods. 

“Price knows? What you’re running from?” and it isn’t jealousy, in Soap’s voice, but it’s not not jealousy either. 

“I didn’t tell him.” It’s important to Ghost that Soap knows that. “He knows me from back home, since I was a boy. We were children together.” 

“Okay.” Soap nods and Ghost sees him shake off his feelings, body turning further inward until Ghost is his whole focus once more. "Okay. Is there anything else you want to tell me? About your past or anything else?"

It's the wrong question. It's the wrong damned question and Ghost so wishes it fucking wasn't. He doesn't even know what the right one would have been, he doesn't know how Soap could get past the order that's stopping his tongue and keeping him so stubbornly silent, when all that he wants is to tell Soap everything.

"No." Ghost says instead, and schools his face so as not to show the bone deep disappointment. "No that was it. The rest…" He digs his fingers into his thigh until Soap's are closing over them, prying them off his leg and gently enfolding them. "I can't." Is what he settles on.

"Alright." Soap says, with such easy acceptance it sets Ghost's teeth on edge.

"No, it isn't." Ghost leans and allows himself a moment of weakness, knocks his head against Soap's shoulder in a way that sets his hat tipping off his head and tumbling to the floor. Neither of them moves to rescue it.

Soap inhales more obviously this time, leaning inward and breathing until his own scent turns all warm and happy. It's only now that Ghost remembers Gaz and Price both scenting him, being too much and just enough in that special way only the two of them know how to do. Soap's scent screams about safety and pack, he smells like the Atlantic when he's like this.

Soap pulls back, stands as if to head back down the ladder, but he turns back to Ghost, gaze steeled and jaw set in that stubborn, mulish way he gets when he's made a decision. He lifts out his arm and rolls up his sleeve just a little to expose his scent gland; an offering, a request.

This has gone too far, Ghost knows, if Soap is thinking of him as potential pack then this has gone far beyond where he should have let it. Still, Ghost is a weak man.

He tilts his head to expose his neck, eyes shut so he doesn't have to watch Soap's face. He tugs the knot of his bandana until it comes unravelled and slips away, exposing his throat to Soap. There's a sharp inhale of breath, and then Soap's wrist is passing across his neck so softly he almost misses it. The scent lingers immediately, combining pleasantly with the well-cooked-steak scent of Price, who never fails to make Ghost hungry whenever he's in a good mood and his scent smells strongest.

Soap's fingers gently catch his wrist, turn it to pass their glands across each other and leave his scent traced across him. Here the warm amber scent of Gaz, similar to the generic scent of all betas, blends too. Ghost lifts his wrist to pass across his own neck, blending the three of them, and feels his hat be placed on his head.

The strength of the combined scents of these men he trusts beyond any others is soothing, pleasant, and before he ever hears Soap head down the ladder, he's dozed off into one of the better sleeps he's had in recent memory.

 

-

 

Soap is well aware that perhaps he took a bit of a liberty yesterday. A man's hat is his own after all, but really he doesn't think he can be blamed, not when Ghost was looking so happy and blissed out and was huffing his scent like he needed it to breathe.

So.

Soap had swapped the hats.

Ghost is going to absolutley reek of him when he wakes up. He's probably also going to skin Soap alive and find a way to feed him to his own sheep but he reckons it'll probably still have been worth it. For now, tucked away in the relative safety of his own room, Soap inspects Ghost's hat.

It's black, well cared for. It seems like it was expensive once upon a time, though it's clearly well loved. The brim is wide, which Soap supposes helps Ghost to hide his face, and the hat band is silk with a tiny ivory skull and crossbones affixed to it. Damned show off, this thing probably cost near the worth of Soap's entire flock when it was new.

The inside is lined with a similar silk to the band, padded well with soft, supple leather. There's a trace of something, ever so faint, but when Soap brings it up to his nose he confirms that Ghost's scent is still lingering there. He wore it during his heat after all, and the pheromones are ingrained into the fabric for now. Soap buries his face in it as he inhales and feels his fangs pop in response almost immediately.

Ghost just smells so good. The best damn omega in the world, Soap is quite certain, and his hand slides down to squeeze himself through his jeans as he continues to breathe in every last trace of the scent he can find. He's already hard, achingly so, just from the first minute hint of scent, now that his face is buried in it his hips are rutting up against his palm before he can stop them.

He feels totally out of control, so desperate for friction. The hat is blocking out the light, catching his breath and creating the illusion of a dark room, humid and sticky with sweat. The rough catch of the denim is perfect against Soap's sensitive flesh, anything to bring him closer to the edge he's so eager to fall off. His fingers claw at the buttons until he can pull open his trousers and finally get a hand around himself, rutting upwards helplessly into the hot press of his palm.

His right hand is holding the hat over his face and with his left hand on his cock he can almost convince himself these unfamiliar callouses could be Ghost's. Almost.

There's a twang under Soap's finger and a soft thud, enough for Soap to move the hat just enough for a peek.

He's pulled off the hat band. It was only held on by a couple of stitches of fine cotton, Soap's finger hooked through it had been too much for the little threads. He needs to fix it, he knows that, he needs to.

The silk is so soft in his hands, so light and smooth. It slips through his fingers so easily.

The decision to trail it south isn't even conscious, no more than the way he shoves the hat back over his face and breathes in. It's cool as he wraps it around his cock, the ribbon spiralling down his length to curl under and around his balls. A tentative upstroke has the silk tugging at his balls and dulling the friction from his hand, just a little, and every parrt of him sings with the knowledge that it's Ghost's, Ghost's, Ghost's-

He doesn't last long like that, minutes of desperate grunts and whines filling his room as his hand strips his cock, the silk tightening as it's soaked with his precome.

When he finally does come it feels explosive, more intense than he'd expected. His torso is covered in come, a single drop having landed just on the edge of the hat's brim, white on black.

What the fuck was that about?

Soap is a little disgusted with himself and more than a little disturbed that he's gone as far as to steal a man's property and defile it, not least when he's made it clear that Soap is not entitled to his scent or any other part of him.

The sun has grown a little higher in the sky than Soap is happy with, he's lucky that Ghost hasn't stormed in here demanding his stetson as it is. Soap drags himself out of bed with the weariness of a man much older than himself, and sets about finding a way to hastily clean spunk out of silk and felt.

 

-

 

He manages it, thank Christ, and he privately thinks his restitching on the hat band is the best work he's ever managed with a needle and thread. He doesn't get too proud of himself, he was only having to do any of it because he behaved in a way that was entirely uncharacteristically selfish and disgusting. Ghost will be angry, should be angry, about the switch and it's only now, in the cold light of morning, that it occurs to Soap that he could be so angry he leaves.

Ghost could leave.

He could take his hat and walk off this ranch and ride to God knows where. That's all it would take to be out of Soap's life for good.

There's cold dread sitting in the bottom of Soap's stomach now, nausea welling up around it as he finishes getting dressed. He's already running late, but he finds himself still dragging his feet before heading downstairs.

Ghost is already awake and in the kitchen.

Correction, Ghost is already awake and in the kitchen and has managed to cook up a delicious smelling breakfast of potato hash with little chunks of corned beef. There's herbs in it too, fragrant rosemary from the bush out the front of the house and thyme that Ghost must have picked up from Price last time he was there because Soap is certain he didn't have it before.

"I made breakfast." Ghost says. He sounds calm, casual. He doesn't sound like a man who knows what Soap has done and is about to beat him senseless for it.

"Thank you." Soap's hand is sweating where he's gripping the crown of Ghost's hat. He sits in his usual chair as Ghost serves up steaming plates, placing the hat on the table, right beside Ghost's spot.

"I seem," Ghost starts as he sits down, picking up his knife and fork to dig into his own meal. "to have your hat." Ghost nods to the front door where Soap's hat is hanging off the coat rack. "Any idea how that occured?" His tone is light, eyes giving nothing away and he carefully takes a bite of his breakfast. Soap feels like he's going to swallow his own tongue.

He has a choice here; he can tell the truth and let Ghost be as furious with him as he should be, or he can deny it.

"I must have picked up yours by accident last night." He says in the end. It doesn't sound convincing in the least, or even vaguely reasonable since one of them is black and the other is beige. If Ghost calls him out here then there's nothing Soap can say in his defence.

Ghost's face doesn't move.

"Hmmm." He hums, as if this could possibly in any way be a reasonable explanation. "Easily done." and then Ghost goes back to eating his breakfast like nothing is amiss at all.

 

-

 

Something is amiss. Soap's being weird, squirrelly, and there's no fucking way that he switched the hats by accident. Ghost had woken up rocking his hips against the straw mattress, the smell of Soap thick in his nostrils. His face had still been buried in the hat, now resting over his head, trapping him between Soap's scent and the pillow. He'd been so close to the edge already that it was impossible to stop, to rein himself in. He'd come seconds after waking, his body trembling as his cock rocked against the bed sending wave after wave of pleasure through him.

After that he can't even be mad about the hat switching, however inappropriate it may have been. Even now at breakfast, Ghost can smell Alpha smeared all over the felt of his own hat, it'll take weeks for the scent of Soap to fully leave it. He wishes he cared more about that, but he's coming to accept that his imprinting on Soap has not immediately been the total disater he'd feared it could be.

Of course, there's still time for it to all go tits up.

Chapter 5: The sound of my lover

Notes:

As usual, thank you so much to Aessedia for betaing this chapter for me! <3

"If we don't move them today," Soap is saying with an entirely put upon sigh, "then it will be too late to do it before the water rises." He's already saddling up Thistle, stopping occasionally to scratch behind her ears fondly as she chews on his pocket.

"If they didn't want to get stuck out there then they should have thought about that before they broke out that fence and wandered off." Ghost is standing in the stable, a mulish set to his face as he gets Minty settled into a satchel he has slung across his shoulder. She looks thrilled about this development, and Soap can hardly blame her, he too would be delighted to be cradled against Simon's strong chest.

"They're sheep." Soap says with the flattest tone he can manage. "I'm not sure they've ever thought about anything before doing it."

Ghost huffs as he finishes tightening Last's tack. "It's going to be too wet out there for Minty."

"I told ye to leave her with Gaz and you refused." Soap says pointedly, at this stage he genuinely can't decide if Ghost's complaining is still in the 'cute' stage or whether it has slipped over into the 'irritating' side.

"And I told you." Ghost sounds actually annoyed now. "That I don't like how many jokes Price makes about eating her."

Definitely irritating, then.

"You literally named her 'Mint Sauce'." Soap points out as he throws his leg over and settles into Thistle's saddle. Tablet is running laps of the stable, clearly thrilled at the prospect of getting out there and doing her job. There's a rifle slung over Soap's shoulder and Simon has his own plus his usual revolver. They're taking them in case they meet any predators who might have been drawn in by the prospect of Soap's errant flock, and the easy meal it presents.

Still, Soap would be lying if he wasn't hoping, just a little, that he might get to see Ghost use it. There's no way a man who carries a weapon like that isn't a damn good shot with it.

"At the time, I thought we might eat her." Ghost shrugs, absently running a finger along the top of Minty's head.

"And now?" Soap has to turn in his saddle to make sure Ghost can see his raised eyebrow.

"She's family." Ghost picks up one of Minty's tiny hooves and waves at Soap with it. Soap vaguely thinks he might be going to have a heart attack, something warm and expansive blooming in there at the sight of Ghost curled around the tiny creature, smiling goofily back at Soap.

Not irritating. Most definitely not irritating.

Tablet yaps from the stable door and Soap turns back to her, tugging his coat tighter around himself. It's an old canvas duster he'd waxed himself; not much to look at but practical, and when combined with his hat it keeps him mostly dry.

Ghost though…

When Soap had first broached that they were to be going out on a ride today he'd thrown a bit of fit, insisting he had too much to do on the ranch and Soap could go alone. He'd acquiesced when Soap had mentioned the possibility of puma, or worse, bears, unwilling to leave Soap to venture head first into danger. Soap thinks the sulk had always been because of the rain anyway, outside of his heat Simon acts like an angry tom cat every time he gets caught in it, hissing and spitting until he can get inside and in front of the fire to dry off.

That has only ever been short showers, nothing like this downpour. It's been raining for days with very little respite. Soap keeps telling himself it'll be good for the grass but even he is losing patience for it by now. If he'd wanted this much rain he could've stayed in Scotland.

When Ghost had emerged with all the supplies he would need for the journey, and dressed to ride, he was wearing a damned Inverness cape. The quality of the wool alone tells Soap the coat is probably worth more than he earns in a year, maybe two. The collar and linings are dark silk and the buttons silver backed.

Jesus fucking Christ, every time Soap things he's finally got his head around who Ghost is he throws another damned thing at him.

Who the fuck is this guy.

"Not a word." Is all Ghost had barked in response to Soap's questioning look, and Soap had snapped his mouth shut because Ghost had used the tone that told him he'd be pissed if he asked.

It's not a problem, truly, it's just that as they ride it seems to be pretty much the only thing Soap can think about. The way the caped portion makes his shoulders appear so tantalisingly broad, even wider than they usually look. the way the expensive fabric falls around Ghost's body. The way Ghost's leather gloves look, contrasted against all that bright silk and heavy wool.

Soap can't seem to stop picturing Ghost in the suit he knows must have gone with this coat at some point. all buttoned up and slick, white silk gloves and a high collared shirt. Ghost, wearing his suit like armour, daring the world to call him anything but a highborn, wealthy alpha.

He'd have been as formidable as he is beautiful, Soap doesn't doubt that for a second.

The bandana wrapped around Ghost's face as they travel adds a whole new element to the image. He can't help picturing Ghost as a highwayman, all sweeping movements as he bellows for the carriage to stop. Maybe even ravishes Soap in the back of his coach before he rides into the sunset, pockets laden with stolen gold-

"Oi!" Ghost is waving a hand directly in front of Soap's face, almost knocking his hat off. "You're away with the fairies."

"Sorry." Soap blinks himself back to a distressingly un-ravished reality. "Sorry, I was just thinking."

"Don't hurt yourself." Ghost mutters, then louder, "Let's get out of here." Minty is tucked inside the huge expanse of coat and when Ghost spurs Last onwards Tablet howls in joy, taking off at a sprint. Soap shoots one last prayer up that he doesn't lose his mind entirely this over the next couple of days, and follows after them.

-

The rain is relentless, coming down in stair rods and Soap is soaked to the bone in minutes, which is in no way helping Ghost's aggressive attempts at ignoring his feelings entirely. It's not exactly cold, not like when it used to rain in England, but it's not warm either and it simply will not stop. They're only half way to their destination when Ghost finally calls it, he halts Last and signals for Soap to do the same.

"We can't risk going off the paths in this." Ghost has to shout over the sound of the rain, his bandana useless around his neck from the moment they got outside. "The girls could slip and your coat isn't doing a whole lot to protect you."

Soap is frowning hard, for a moment he looks ahead down their path as though he is considering continuing anyway. "Fine!" He yells back as he looks at Ghost, water streaming off the brim of his hat. "What's yer grand plan?"

Ghost nods his head to the side, towards where some rocks are forming a natural overhang. Soap slips off Thistle and under the outcropping as Ghost passes him Minty and the rest of his items. He gestures for Soap to get some of the food out of their packs, they might as well have some lunch if they're going to be stuck here. Ghost pulls a large waxed canvas sheet from his bag and sets about positioning it across the front of the rock to create a sort of awning, doubling their dry space. He's grateful for the gentle slope of the ground that means the water is at least running away from the rocks face rather than along it, or worse, into it.

Minty is wrapped tightly in a dry wool blanket and suckling happily at a bottle of milk Soap is offering her. She eats grass now too, some of the time, but she's not quite fully weaned yet. Soap, ever the multi-tasker, has also started arranging some dry tinder and wood into a campfire and Ghost leans in to take over. It's lit and happily crackling away in minutes. Minty is fast asleep beside it, huffing soft, peaceful breaths.

Soap is looking hard into the fire, skin damp and shining, the play of orange flame across his face makes him look like something divine, someone more than mortal. Ghost is half convinced he might be.

Ghost stands to pull off his soaked coat, the wool heavy with moisture as he lashes together some branches to hang it over in the hopes of drying it out a little. He makes the frame large enough for Soap's too and he looks grateful as he stands to strip out of his own jacket, draping it beside Simon's.

He's wearing a white shirt, translucent with rain and clinging to his chest. Ghost has seen him naked before but something about the way this shows just the hint of dark hair across Soap's chest and stomach, the way his nipples are pressed to the fabric and the weight of the water is tugging his trousers to ride lower on his hips than usual. The way there are bright flecks of yellow and orange and gold flickering in the rich blue of Soap's eyes as he stares back at Simon.

"You're beautiful." It takes Ghost a moment to process that Soap has spoken, Soap's eyes are fixed on where Ghost has unbuttoned his shirt, the open sides stuck to his ribs as the network of scars and marks crisscross his chest and stomach. His skin is pale as always, the sheen of water and fire not doing a whole lot to change that. He's not as hairy as Soap, and his hair is paler too, but he's not smooth and the gaps in it where a scar cleaves through always look a little strange to him.

Soap's eyes slide up to his face and Ghost is painfully aware that he isn't wearing the bandana right now.

It's Ghost who closes the space between them, who shoves Soap back against the cold rock and fits their mouths together the way he has been wanting to do since the moment he first saw him in that stream. Soap's hat tumbles to the floor, Ghost's following it, and Ghost doesn't know which of them moans first.

They can't do this, Ghost knows all the cruel and ridiculous reasons they can't, but here, in this vast and empty country, in this tiny hollow they have made for themselves, with the rain pouring down around them, cutting them off from the rest of humanity and its obstructions. Well. Ghost can almost picture that they're safe, that they're free.

He can almost see what freedom might look like, and he fears it might look a whole lot like Soap MacTavish.

"Until we get back." Ghost mumbles into Soap's mouth, prevents Soap responding straight away by licking into his mouth. There's a rumbling pleasured growl building in Soap's chest, a sound that is pure alpha, it has Ghost pulling back to make sure he understands.

"Soap." He pulls his mouth away and clamps Soap's jaw in one hand, moving him until their eyes meet. "Only until we get back, okay?" He shakes a little until the slightly glazed look in Soap's eye fades.

"Only until we get back." Soap repeats, Ghost pretends he doesn't see the disappointment buried within Soap's expression.

"It's all I can give you." He tells Soap, wills him to understand that he wishes it could be more, that he means it literally. He'd give Soap MacTavish everything, if he could. He brings their mouths back together, feverish with need, desperate to prove it to him that way.

Soap's rumbling starts back up immediately, a thick thigh lifting to push at the bulge between Ghost's legs. Ghost grinds against it, the tight restrictions of wet denim preventing him from receiving as much relief as he would like. Soap's length is a burning line against Ghost's thigh and he bends and rolls his hips to grind them against each other, both of them gasping into each other's mouths at the ache of relief.

He doesn't even register any pain when he drops to his knees on the hard floor, too busy pressing his face hard against the outline of Soap's cock. Inhaling deeply Ghost breathes in the pure alpha scent Soap is giving off. The wet denim just gets in the way and Ghost yanks at the belt and then fly until he has them open just enough that he can get at skin. Soap's pheromones are thick, heady, he has by far the best alpha smell Ghost has ever encountered and it's not even close. He presses closer, huffing breaths in and out desperately, eager to brand the scent into his brain.

Soap's hands are all over his head and shoulders, one is cupping the back of Ghost's head, wrist curved so that it brings his scent gland right next to Ghost's face, fogging his brain even further into the soup of 'warm, safe, alpha, sex' that he's already swimming through. Soap's other hand is clutching Ghost's shoulder, his thumb shifts and then he's pressing hard against Ghost's mating gland until Ghost is snarling with the blinding need for more, more, more-

Ghost wrestles the trousers further down until he can release Soap's cock. He wants to swallow it down, is desperate for it, but he wants to savour him more. Leaning in he reaches out with his tongue, laps gently across Soap's leaking tip to gather precome onto his taste buds. He immediately knows he's far more fucked than he could ever have anticipated.

He knew he'd imprinted onto Soap, knows there are feelings that he simply isn't ready to name, but one taste of him and he knows that there will never be anything quite like the flavour of this alpha. He's greedy, then, about getting his mouth around Soap's length, swallowing him down to the back of his throat immediately, ignoring the ache of something hard pressing into his cheek. Soap's thumb presses harder into Ghost's mating gland and he starts to moan. Soap's hips keep twitching, humping against Ghost's face like he can't help himself. Good. Ghost can't say he wants that, can't speak right now at all, but he doubles down and hopes Soap understands him anyway.

Soap's hand slips on his shoulder and all of a sudden Soap's scent gland is pressing hard into Ghost's mating gland. Stars explode behind Ghost's eyelids and for a moment he doesn't even recognise the sound that comes out of him then.

Purring. He's fucking purring. Soap can feel it too if the wounded noise that rips from his throat is anything to go by. Ghost lets his eyes drift up and the feral part of his lizard brain that wants this alpha more than anything is cheering when he sees Soap's fangs, long and savage, protruding from his mouth. Ghost's own fangs are aching in his jaw but dropping them now would ruin the experience for both of them. It's not lost on Ghost, the amount Soap trusts him.

Or maybe it's just that Soap is so desperate for him he's willing to risk his cock if that's what it takes.

"My knot-" Soap's breaths are heaving, his voice a low rumble. Ghost has a flash to what his alpha voice must sound like and has to change paths quickly before he comes without ever getting Soap's hands on him.

Ghost wants the knot, more badly than he could have imagined, but it's not safe enough to risk having it in his mouth out here. He lifts his hands to wrap around the growing swell at the base of Soap's cock as squeezes hard, head sliding back to focus on Soap's tip alone, lips and tongue working at his slit and behind the flare of the head,

Soap comes with a roar, Ghost lets the first few spurts fall on his tongue before diving down to take the rest down his throat, not wanting to spill even a single drop. Ghost's hands massage Soap's knot as he presses his lips to the swell of it, his throat working to swallow around him. Ghost can feel Soap balls, drawn up and pulsing against his chin. The scent of Soap is so thick now Simon almost feels dizzy, willing to remain right where he is for as long as Soap will let him.

Not long, it turns out.

Soap hauls him up by the hand on his mating gland and shoves him back against the stone wall. The rock is body warm from Soap's heat leaning up against it and Ghost has barely a moment to register that before Soap is pulling aggressively at his belt, yanking at Ghost's trousers until he can wrangle them down around his ankles. Soap's mouth is on him immediately, swallowing Ghost's cock down in one slide.

Ghost is big for an omega, huge even, and that fact applies across his whole body, Soap seems to be taking that in stride however, humming happily as Ghost slides into his throat. Soap's hand slide between Ghost's legs, clever fingers slipping between Ghost's folds until they're rubbing gentle circles over the opening to his soaked cunt. Soap's hands are cold and it's such a contrast from the burning heat of his own body that Ghost cries out. A second finger pushes in gently to join the first, curling inward to press hard against the base of Ghost's cock from the inside, massaging the place that makes his vision white out.

Soap whines happily as Ghost comes down his throat, swallows every drop gratefully, but he's showing no signs at all of being down with Ghost yet. He confirms this by hauling Ghost's leg up and shoving himself underneath it, balances Ghost's thigh around his shoulder as he tilts Ghost's hips and buries his face lower, one hand still stroking Ghost's cock as his tongue slides out and laps along the length of Ghost's slit. He mumbles something Ghost is too out of it to try and interpret and then Soap is eating him out in earnest.

The noises Soap's making are more animal than man, snarls and chuffs and whines. Ghost is trying desperately to keep enough of his brain function to memorise them, categorise them all in preparation for a time when he will have nothing left of Soap but his memories.

Unfortunately, Soap is extremely good at this and it's incredibly distracting. He's moving slowly, lazily, and if Ghost didn't know better he'd say Soap was in the middle of a lazy make out, the way he's moving his tongue. He hasn't pulled back for a second and for a moment Ghost is worried he might not be breathing properly. In the end he grabs a fistful of Soap's hair and drags him bodily away to check in.

Soap looks wrecked, face drenched with more than just rainwater, fangs some of the largest Ghost has ever seen and pupils blown wide with lust. He snarls angrily the second his face is pulled far enough back for Ghost to see him and strains to get back, Ghost lets him mostly because he'd been faintly worried about pulling out the hair in his grip. When Soap gets his tongue back on him, this time he gets his hand involved again too, not just the one stroking Ghost's cock but two fingers pressing into his cunt, scissoring and working him over, occasionally curling to graze against that point that has his thighs shaking.

When Ghost comes this time it's a slow thing that rolls across his body like a wave, spreading from his shoulders to the balls of his feet. His entire body is trembling and Soap has moved the hand from his cunt to brace Ghost's chest in case his legs give out. Soap never moves his face, too eager to lap up every drop of slick he can before Ghost finally gets just enough control to bat him away in the name of overstimulation. Soap ducks from under his leg and Ghost let's his body fall like his strings have been cut, lands on his bare arse on the dirt floor, back braced against the wall of rock.

Soap's filthy hand lands on his jaw, turns his head so he can laugh softly. He looks monstrous like this, eyes dark and fangs huge, chest heaving from the joy of the hunt. Ghost so rarely gets to feel like prey, for all that he spends his life running, he finds he enjoys the novelty of it. Soap's grin is predatory, wicked.

It's also pathetically happy.

"What's so funny." Ghost grits out.

"You've got a perfect print of my belt buckle on your cheek." Soap's thumb traces across a tender patch of skin and Ghost recoils.

"Fuck off." He scoffs, and crawls over to the edge of the cover to check in a puddle. Sure enough there is the faint mark of a ram's head surrounded by filigree. For a moment Ghost is drawn back violently to the image of himself outside the barn, imprint of Soap's belt leather around his neck, and he has to stop and take a few deep breaths.

"I'm no' complaining about the view." Soap intones from behind him, "But if ye plan to go out there you'd be best actually putting yer trousers on."

"Fuck off." Ghost says again, moving back to slump once more against the rock. There's a light clinking beside him and when he turns it's to see Soap pull a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket along with a book of matches that are, somehow, miraculously dry.

"Still want me to fuck off?" Soap asks, eyebrow raised smugly. He then pushes his fucking luck by swinging a leg over Ghost's lap and planting himself firmly in it. He takes two cigarettes out, places one in his own mouth and the other in Ghost's. The match strikes and flares to life, Soap sets it to the tip of his cigarette and breathes in, inhales the first cloud of smoke with a satisfied hum.

Soap douses the match with a casual flick of his wrist. He blows the smoke out through his nose, heedless of the way it coils in and around Ghost's face. Ghost wants to remember this image until he dies; Soap all rumpled and in his lap, hair wet and fangs still out around a lit cigarette, face slack with the satisfaction of smoke.

"C'mere." Soap tells him, Ghost goes easy, let's Soap meet him halfway, the bright cherry of Soap's smoke pressing against Ghost's until his catches too. Soap sits back then, and they stay like that. Soap in Ghost's lap, sharing body heat in front of a happily crackling fire as the sky falls down around them.

Soap finishes his cigarette first, flicks the butt outside into a puddle and curls forwards, face burying into Ghost's neck, nose huffing soft breaths against sensitive skin. Their chests are together and Ghost can just about feel how their heartbeats seem to have fallen into a shared rhythm. Soap's fingers are painting patterns onto his ribs and when Ghost looks down there is a hint of lavender peeking out of Soap's sleeve; the handkerchief tied around his wrist. The whole moment is crowded with a terrible intimacy.

And then Ghost begins to purr, and a cold dread settles in his stomach.

And then he runs.

Chapter 6: I hear the wind call your name

The rain eases off by late afternoon, Ghost had given up on wearing a coat the minute he'd remounted Last, down to just his shirtsleeves in the the cool air, goosebumps rising across his body. The sun is still out, slowly steaming the pasture the sheep have found themselves in so that the air is sweet and fragrant.

He'd found them a few hours after leaving Soap, the flock hadn't strayed quite as far as they had feared and are happily grazing on a green area surrounding a stream swollen with rain, running fast and thick through the land. They've lost a couple, no shortage of predators out here to take them, but nowhere near the numbers Ghost had feared they could have. There are a few lambs bleating happily, gambolling around the grass as their mothers graze lazily.

The cicadas have started up their droning, the air thick with mist as the rain of the day begins to evaporate, and Ghost gives himself a few moments to bask in it, empties his mind as he breathes in the beauty around him. Whatever he does, he doesn't think about Soap.

Or, he tries not to think about Soap.

Tries not to think of the hurt look on Soap's face as Ghost had run out of their strange little hollow. He'd only looked back once, knowing that if he allowed himself to do it again he would have stayed. Soap doesn't deserve that. Soap doesn't deserve any of this fucking mess that Ghost has dragged into his life, even if he's unaware of most of it.

The moment he had purred. The moment his body had made clear the things it was so easy for his mind to deny, he had known he'd gone too far. Purring in an alpha's arms like that is something Ghost has never done. It's dangerously close to something he is forbidden to do, and he's not entirely sure what happens if he disobeys. He doesn't even know if it's possible. All he knows is that purring like that is a sign he has let this go too far, has outstayed his welcome.

His skin still smells of Soap, no matter how much he had hoped the ride or the rain would have washed him clean of it. It's taunting him, reminding him of all the things he wants but cannot have. He doesn't know how he'd let Soap get so close, doesn't know why Soap hadn't seemed to feel it when his thumb had been pressed so tightly to Ghost's mating gland.

Ghost's presses his own fingers there, feels the familiar burn as he does, presses deeper and traces the familiar web of scars that tangle across the gland beneath the skin. If he thinks too deeply he can still feel the needle sliding in, the men holding his arms.

If he thinks too deeply he can still hear his mother crying, he can still breathe in the thick foul smell of the room-

If he thinks too deeply he might never pull himself back out again.

"I thought you might be here." Ghost isn't surprised that Soap has found him, he wasn't truly hiding, he just needed to think in a way that he can't when he has Soap's smell surrounding him, Soap's presence soothing all the frayed edges that have kept Ghost safe for as long as they have.

"You follow the sheep?" Ghost says. His voice is rough, gravelly, he hopes that Soap can't tell he'd been crying just an hour ago, his omega howling for him to do something, to pick this alpha please-

"I followed yer scent, strong as it was." Soap tells him and Ghost just hums in acknowledgement.

Ghost has been sat up on a ridge, high enough to watch the flock but not so close he's interfering. Soap sits beside him now, Tablet is panting somewhere in the grass behind them and Ghost can hear the faint clink of Thistle's tack. There's still a couple of feet between them, apparently Soap has decided to treat him like a cornered animal, and Ghost can admit he's probably right to.

"You took the wrong coat." Soap says into the silence, Ghost nods, he can feel Soap looking at him, though he isn't strong enough to look back just yet.

"I took the coat I meant to." He says firmly. "Yours wasn't as dry."

"You wanted to be wet?" Soap asks.

"I wanted you to be dry." Ghost says, then realising he may have said too much adds, "Minty needed you to keep her dry."

"But you didn't wear mine?" Soap asks, clearly taking in the full bath-like extent of how sodden Ghost is.

"It didn't fit over my shoulders." Ghost admits and grins despite himself when Soap snorts out a little laugh. They sink back into companionable silence for a while, watching out over the fields. Minty has wriggled her way out of her bag and is cheerfully chomping on some grass in between them. She wanders over to gently butt her head against Ghost's arm, tail wiggling enthusiastically, before she returns to her grazing.

"You told me we had until we got back." Soap says. He's calm, level, yet something about it tells Ghost that if he could see him his bottom lip might be trembling.

Ghost sighs and swallows heavily. "I did."

"Why did you lie?"

"I didn't." Ghost shakes his head fiercely, finally lifts his head to meet Soap's gaze, though he can't hold it for long. Soap is still wearing his coat, wonderfully broad shoulders looking even wider thanks to the cape. Ghost doesn't know if Soap has had much occasion to wear fine things in his life, though he suspects not, but he's made for them. He could command an entire ballroom in the right suit, Ghost bets. Never a gap on his dance card. "I thought I could do it, have you just for a few days. I just-"

"I wasn't worth it?" Soap asks, his voice small and scraped raw.

"I didn't think I'd be able to give you up. If I had you until we got home I-" Ghost cuts himself off with a snarl, furious that Soap might imply that he isn't worth everything to Ghost.

Everything that is within Ghost's power to give, anyway.

It's just that the one thing he doesn't have the power to give is himself.

"Do you have to?" Soap asks. He sounds far away, like the distance between them is two miles not two feet. He reaches out abortively, his hand falling to the grass between them,

"Yes." Ghost says. "Yes, I have to." but even as he says it he's reaching out and capturing Soap's hand in his, bending over it to press a reverent kiss to his palm. He turns it and plants another to the thin bones on the back of Soap's hand, his scarred knuckles, his pulse.

"Okay." And in Soap's voice it's the most heartbreaking sound in the world. "Okay." Soap finally looks away from Ghost; he turns to look out over the pastures instead. As he does he turns his hand, adjusts it so that his fingers can find Ghost's and thread through them, palm to palm, skin contact burning with the intimacy of it.

Ghost doesn't let go, he looks out to the field too, watches the sheep frolic, and keeps Soap's hand safely in his, resting in the grass between them.

-

The rain has passed, the sky is a startlingly bright blue for the remainder of the evening as Soap winds his way through the flock, taking note of any injuries or who has been lost. There are a few who had become so caked in mud that they needed shearing and Ghost has taken on that duty, turning them this way and that with every care as he cuts away the matted fleece. Soap is on wound watch, cleaning anything serious the best he can out here.

It's peaceful, working with Ghost like this. No matter what had passed between them earlier they're here now, in this strange limbo of wanting and denying, but they're here, together, and that's enough for Soap. They're working mostly in silence as Tablet runs overjoyed laps of a prairie dog burrow she's found a little ways away. There's the heavy drone of insects in the air, bumblebees fat with pollen flying lazily around them.

The air smells thick and sweet and the whole world has a faintly hazy glow to it as the sun steams the damp soil dry. Minty has found a small group of lambs with whom she is happily gambolling around, tail wiggling with contentment. Every now and then a small breeze passes by and Soap catches just a hint of Ghost's scent on his own skin, somewhere the rain couldn't reach to wash him clean.

For all that it might have broken his heart Soap can't bring himself to regret any of it, because when Ghost finally, inevitably, leaves his side he will still have the memory of his touch, his taste. He will still know the burning heat of Simon's mouth and the perfect sound of him falling apart under Soap's touch.

He will still have Ghost as a part of him then, because who are we if not the sum of all our memories?

There are nine new lambs in the flock, the stress must have forced some to come early. Nine new lambs and three missing ewes who Soap doubts they'll ever find so much as a trace of. It's not nearly as bad as he had feared.

As the evening rolls in Ghost takes care of the horses, removes their tack to let them bathe in the stream, which they do with gusto. He brushes them and then lets them loose of the lush grass of the area. For his part Soap is setting up camp, though it's a poor one. The canvas from their cave had been laid out over a sun-warm rock to dry and he uses is as a ground sheet for their bedrolls. They shouldn't need any cover tonight; the rain is gone and the sky the colour of apricots, deepening into purest crimson at the horizon.

"Red sky at night, shepherd's delight." Ghost says from over Soap's shoulder. Soap hadn't even heard him walk up and he struggles to hide the way that he jumps. Still. He's grinning by the time he turns to look at him.

"I reckon you might be right, this time." Soap tells him.

"I was right last time, cheeky bugger." Ghost's elbow catches him in the ribs and Soap grins even wider, a laugh rolling out of his chest before he can stop it.

"Aye, I suppose you were." Soap concedes, the smile never leaving his face. Ghost flicks the brim of his hat up and off as punishment and flops down beside the fire. The both of them stripped down most of the way a little earlier, their damp clothes hadn't quite dried all the way through so they'd taken the opportunity to bathe and hang the clothes by the fire to dry properly overnight.

The temperature is balmy and in the safety of their sleeping bags there shouldn't be any great need for too many layers anyway.

Still.

The visual of Ghost in his hat, boots and drawers and nothing else is not one he's likely to recover from any time soon. Soap's outfit is marginally more conservative, though not much. He's opted for a fresh pair of jeans that he'd had stowed at the bottom of his waxed bag but that's it.

He dusts his hat off when he picks it up, ends up propping it up on a rock beside them and hopes the wind doesn't choose to pick up too badly. He drops himself down beside Ghost.

"What's on the menu then?" He asks since Ghost is rifling through the food pack. The sun is sinking fast and the bird song has started to drop off. The main sounds now are the rustle of grass and the occasional low bleat from the flock a short ways away.

"I would say milk." Ghost pulls out a bottle, but Minty is sound asleep on her own blanket, belly full of fresh grass. "But I'm not sure she needs it."

"That's lovely." Soap nods "But I more meant for the two of us."

"Wow." Ghost tells him plainly. "Alpha like you ought to have a better attitude towards his pups." There's a wry little grin tugging at the corner of his mouth but Soap's hackles still rise a little at the slight.

"My 'pup' is safe and warm and very content, thank you." He must let enough slip because Ghost curves his head back to lightly bare his throat, an easy submission and acknowledgement of Soap's point.

"You'll be a good sire." Ghost tells him and knocks their shoulders together amiably.

"You'll be a good dam." Soap tries and watches a flicker of something like pain pass across Ghost's face.

"I would've been." Ghost agrees and Soap, showing more tact than he is usually capable of, chooses to leave that alone. "Jerky."

"What?" the non sequitur has Soap confused for a minute.

"For dinner." Ghost explains. "We have jerky and dried apricots. Oh, and a present."

"What sort of jerky?" Soap squints at Simon, who shoots a look towards Mint Sauce to check she's sleeping before mouthing:

L-A-M-B

Soap has to tamp down a smile at the antics and just nods conspiratorially.

"Aren't you going to ask about the present?" Ghost pouts at him.

"Is the present for me?"

"Obviously."

"Give it." Soap reaches out grabby hands and Simon shakes his head.

"Shut your eyes and hold out your hands." Soap obeys. "It's not much, but I'd asked Price to keep an eye out when he was ordering in my herbs." A small foil wrapped rectangle lands in Soap's hands and as his eyes blink open he reads Fry's Chocolate Cream.

There's a lump in Soap's throat and for second he feels like he's awfully close to a sob; he'd mentioned these once, near the beginning of he and Ghost's acquaintance, and not since as far as he knows. He's been eating them since he was a boy, always his favourite chocolate.

"Thank you." Is all he can think to say, it sounds paltry to his own ears but Ghost's face lights up anyway.

"You're welcome." They eat dinner together, swapping stories from back home, trading dried apricots and sneaking jerky while maintaining the pantomime that Minty can never know.

When they finish, Soap insists that they share the chocolate, won't take no for an answer. There are five squares and ultimately Simon compromises that he will take two and Soap will take three.

It's one of the best things Soap has ever eaten (present company excluded) and by the time they are settling down into their beds Soap feels overwhelmed and sated and like he's on the brink of doing something very stupid indeed.

He lies on his back and stares up at the stars, watches them wheel overhead as his thoughts race. He turns on his side and sees Simon is looking at them too.

"Ghost?" He whispers.

"Hmm?"

"Would you forgive me for doing something incredibly selfish, just this once?" Ghost's eyes slide over to look at Soap, but his head barely turns.

"I'm not sure there's anything left you could do that I wouldn't forgive you for." He says it so gently that Soap is almost surprised by the breathtaking weight of it.

Soap pushes up on his elbow and leans over Ghost, one rough hand coming to cup his cheek tenderly. The kiss tastes like chocolate and apricots and the air smells like damp earth and Ghost. When Soap pulls away he lies on his back and once again looks at the sky.

"Well." Ghost says towards the heavens. "Talk about seeing stars." and it's so surprising it rips a snort out of Soap before they're both dissolving into giggles at it all. At the absurdity of the situation they've found themselves in, imprinted on each other but not able to be together for reasons Soap doesn't even understand.

They lie together, wracked with silent giggles until their sides hurt as much as their hearts. Soap waits a short while after they both finally go quiet, finally figures in for a penny, in for a pound.

"I love you." He tells Ghost, looking at the stars rather than at him. Ghost doesn't answer and when Soap finally turns to look at him, he finds he's already fast asleep.

-

Breakfast is more apricots and Ghost, who had woken up long before Soap, had foraged some berries for them too. He slipped a couple of the berries to Minty and another ewe who had come ambling over curiously. It's the coffee that wakes Soap up in the end, Ghost had brewed it over their campfire and sweetened it with a little sugar, he adds some sheep's milk and pours it into a tin mug, pressing the cup into Soap's hands as he wipes the sleep from his eyes.

"Ye look very awake." Soap squints suspiciously at Ghost even as he takes deep inhales of the rich steam rising from the mug in his hands. He only has one eye open properly but just that glimpse is of a blue so bright it takes Ghost's breath away.

"You slept in late, I thought you deserved it so I let you." Ghost is glad for the full cover of his clothes and bandana, the sight of Soap sitting there loose and bare chested has him feeling unmoored and the comfort of his usual layers feels like familiar footing.

"What time is it?" Soap asks, taking a sip on his coffee and sighing contentedly as the hot liquid slides past his lips. Ghost feels a flush of pleasure that he had managed to make the coffee so well to Soap's taste, and then promptly resents himself for it thoroughly.

Ghost pulls out his gold pocket watch, aware of the way Soap's eyes follow it curiously every time. He's never asked about it, not that Ghost could tell him if he did, not really. Not all of it anyway. Not unless Soap does something he is far too good of a man to do. That's the genius of the whole damned thing, he supposes.

The kind of man he'd want to tell would never order him to, and the kind of man who would order him to is no better than the one he's already running from.

"A little after nine." Ghost says, squinting up at the sun to confirm. He'd woken with the sunrise at around six and gone to check the flock and do his foraging. He'd spent longer than he'd care to admit watching Soap in his sleep too, longer still trying to squash the memory of Soap's hands and mouth on him. Of that sweet, chocolate flavoured kiss. Of the way Soap had held his hand and never pushed for more than Ghost could give him.

A good man.

Ghost wishes he wasn't.

"I suppose we'd better get these girls home then." Soap says, pushing himself up to stand and excusing himself to go wash off in the stream before redressing in his clothes. Ghost wonders if he notices the same thing Ghost did; that hanging their clothes together on the dryer had simply blended their scents together. It's faint, buried under the thick mask of wood smoke, but still there underneath it.

If he does, he doesn't mention it.

Tablet is overjoyed to be put to work, she's been itching to herd the sheep since they'd arrived yesterday and she's sprinting energetic laps the second she sees Ghost and Soap mount up.

"Away." Soap commands and she's off like a locomotive, steaming down the pasture to loop behind the flock. Ghost peels off to follow and bring up the rear while Soap, who has commandeered Mint Sauce, heads them up. This mainly means that Ghost spends the next several hours with the excruciatingly gorgeous view of Soap's back moving under a very thin shirt.

Well, that and the way Soap barks out commands to Tablet in a voice that oozes authority and makes Ghost briefly and inexplicably jealous of a dog.

A few miles back Soap had set Mint Sauce on the ground to walk with the flock for a while, she seems to have fallen into company with a few of the other lambs and a particularly forgiving ewe and she's making good progress. Ghost distracts himself from the Soap of it all by watching her instead.

He'd set a limit in his head a while back. Told himself that as long as Minty needed him he'd stay on the ranch. Once she was big enough that was his cue to move on.

Except.

Except now that the time is nearly here he truly doesn't know if he can move on. Not in a way that won't damage him in ways he isn't sure he'll ever recover from.

Then again, he has enough scars on him already, what harm is there in having his heart match the rest of him?

They stop for lunch in the shade of a huge cottonwood tree, settled with their backs leaning against a gnarled log. Ghost, who is frankly a little sick of jerky and apricots, disappears for a short while and when he comes back he's proudly holding up a particularly meaty rabbit for Soap's inspection. There's something dark and pleased in Soap's eyes when Ghost drops it at his feet telling him that he can clean it, since Ghost caught it.

They eat roasted rabbit rubbed with salt and sage and drink cool water from their canteens. Soap pulls out a flask of Scotch he'd had hidden somewhere this whole time and Ghost takes a long pull from it, without bothering to hide his grimace.

"I know your reasons." Soap starts and Ghost's head whips round so fast he feels something in his neck pull. Soap continues as though he hadn't noticed. "Or rather; I know you have your reasons." The clarity is as much a relief as it is a knife wound, excising the panic but still painful when Ghost wants nothing more than for Soap to know. To understand why-

"I know that you have them and perhaps I'm being unfair." Soap ploughs on, heedless of the way Ghost's heart is hammering inside his chest. "But you told me we could have until we got home, you got my hopes up. Simon, you hunted for me." Soap moves his head and the brim of his hat stops shielding his eyes, that bright, sparkling blue is more liquid than usual. "I know it isn't fair, I know you said you didn't think you could handle more if you had to give it up, but please."

His eyes are filling with tears now and there's this terrible, collapsed sort of expression on his face. Ghost could no more abandon him in that moment than he could give up air.

"I can give you an hour." Ghost says, sounding scraped thin and the offer so desperately paltry. "I wish- If things were different I'd offer you so much more, but I can give you an hour."

Soap loops a hand around Ghost's wrist and tugs him closer, Ghost allows himself to be moved. Keeps moving until he's slung his leg over Soap's lap and sits cradled between his thighs and his body. He's much taller than Soap like this, Soap's head tipped back to look at him. He doesn't seem to mind how much larger Ghost is, seems thrilled by the solid bulk of him filling his space. Soap leans in, fangs already growing, and presses his face into Ghost's throat.

Ghost does nothing to stop him. Tips his head to expose his throat more and knows that he can trust Soap with this. Soap could rip his throat out if he wanted to. He could force a mating bond to keep Ghost with him. He could do anything he wanted, but he won't. When he presses a kiss to the ridge of Ghost's Adam's apple he doesn't even let his fangs touch the skin.

He trails kiss after kiss down Ghost's throat and around to the side of his mating gland and Ghost is trembling with the warring feelings in his body. His Omega is screaming to be touched, to be held by his imprinted Alpha. His mating gland aches with the scars of his old prebond, his body fighting its wants versus its biology.

Soap places a single, gentle kiss to Ghost's mating gland, entirely chaste, and then slides to the other side of his neck to mouth at his scent gland.

The relief of this kindness, the knowledge of just how much control that must have taken on Soap's part, purely in the name of Ghost's comfort, renders him utterly speechless.

Soap's tongue laves long and hot across the small bump at the juncture of Ghost's shoulder and throat, lets the flat edge of a fang chase after it until a tremor wracks Ghost's body.

Ghost lets his hand flail outward, searching until he can find Soap's and wind their fingers together, pressing the scent glands in their wrist together firmly. Soap brings his other hand in to do the same until both of their hands are intertwined, their scents smearing together across their skin.

Soap moves his head until he can catch Ghost's in a long and desperate kiss, both of them have dropped their fangs and the kiss is careful because of it. If Ghost concentrates he thinks he can taste a hint of venom on Soap's fangs, sweet and cloying but buried beneath the overwhelming scent of them both. Ghost can feel Soap achingly hard beneath him, knows Soap must be able to feel the same pressed against his stomach.

The sun is high and even in the shade they've found they're both sweat slick and flushed. The heat around them is dry but their bodies are trapping their scent around them in a humid cloud, the strength of it fogging Ghost's mind until all he can think of is more, more-

Soap breaks the kiss and leans even closer, hooks his chin over Ghost's shoulder to finally, finally press the scent glands on their throats together. The moment they touch lightening shoots through Ghost's body, every nerve ending alight as the tension snaps and he comes hard in his jeans, hips jerking helplessly forward against Soap's as his buck up to meet him. Soap is growling, a loud snarl ripping through him and Ghost is startled to realise it's the kind of growl that comes with a knot.

Neither of them say a thing in the aftermath, faces buried against each other's throats but too sensitive to let their glands touch any longer. Ghost reaches between them and fights his way into Soap's trousers, wraps a strong hand around his knot to help him reach enough pressure for it to go down. Soap whines, his growls turning into contented chuffs as his knot finally finds some relief.

Soap rummages beside them for a while until his hand comes back into view with a fresh canteen of water. He holds it up to Ghost's mouth and waits as Ghost takes several long pulls. He turns it so he can take a drink himself before finally upending the rest over both of their heads, cool, fresh water streaming down over the both of them.

The water is enough to finally break through the fog in Ghost's mind, but not so well as to have him release Soap, not until Soap is ready. It does mean he manages to catch the purr in his throat before it can escape, though his whole chest aches with the force of holding it back. Soap presses a kiss to Ghost's cheek, his pulse, his shoulder. He presses kisses everywhere he can reach until he gets back to Ghost's other cheek and he can turn his head to catch it on his mouth.

Soap makes a surprised noise into Ghost's mouth but Ghost just kisses him again.

"I promised you an hour." Ghost mumbles and revels in the smile Soap breaks into, his next kiss is mostly teeth, still a little too long for their mouths.

Soap reaches into Ghost's pocket and pulls out the pocket watch, clicks it open as the sunlight reflects gold onto his tanned skin.

"We have another thirty five minutes." Soap says, a little sadly, though he's trying hard not to show it. "Will you let me hold you for the rest of it?"

"Anything you want." Ghost tells him. "Anything."

-

They untangle themselves with one minute to spare, quietly righting their clothes and sluicing off in the water from another canteen. Soap has accepted what Ghost is telling him - this is all they can have - no matter how much it hurts him. It doesn't matter the reason, it doesn't, but when they start to head towards their separate horses at an hour and one minute it's Ghost who reaches out, who pulls Soap in by the wrist to give him one last fervent kiss.

It's beautiful and it's painful, and for all that he knows Ghost doesn't mean it, all it does is cradle the embers of hope that Soap thought he had trampled down to ash, and gently fan them back to a flame.

By the time Soap is mounting Thistle all he can think about is the fact that yesterday, when Ghost had told Soap that he didn't think he could give him up, he'd called the ranch 'home'.

Soap lets Ghost lead the rest of the way with Minty planted happily in his lap. Soap brings up the rear, calling and whistling commands to Tablet, who is almost apoplectic in her excitement to have so much to do. It's fun, watching her work, weaving through the legs of the herd and cajoling them onwards. Ghost is fun to watch too, always is a hell of a view watching him ride, and now Soap knows what it's like to have Ghost doing those same graceful rolls of his hips on him.

"Soap?" Ghost calls back from the front, twisting in his saddle to allow their eyes to meet.

"Aye?" Soap calls back.

"What do we have in the way of oil back at the buildings? I'm sure we were low when we left, and I'm sure we'll need some food for the next couple of days at least." He's right, goddamn him, and Soap is so bone tired and ready to bathe properly and sink into his bed that he'd chosen not to think about it.

Gaz will be at the ranch when they get back, he'd agreed to watch over the rest of the sheep in Soap and Ghost's absence, but he won't have brought much of anything with him to stock them up. Not anything they hadn't asked him to beforehand anyway.

"Fuck." Soap says succinctly, instead of any of that.

"I don't mind going…" Ghost trails off when Soap shakes his head.

"You're much better at fence mending and once these girls are back in you'll have to get em penned back up proper." Soap reminds him, and tries to keep as much of the disappointment out of his voice as he can when he says, "I'll go."

Ghost nods at him, corners of his eyes creased in pity over the top of his bandana, that ridiculous skull marked on it grinning away.

They part at the crossroads, Tablet knows her way home from here and is already pretty much herding them without any instruction at all. Soap trusts Ghost with the lives of his flock more than anyone else, and if anything worse happens than an errant sheep in the next four miles then that's what Ghost's gun is for.

"Last one back at the main house has to cook dinner while the other gets his bath." Soap throws out as he turns Thistle away.

"I'll take that bet." Ghost tells him and his eyes are smiling as he puts his heels to Last's sides and urges her on to reach the front of the flock.

Soap watches until he rounds the corner, and heads in the direction of town. It's quiet out this evening. It's a work night and the saloon isn't nearly as busy as usual, most of the shops are already closed and shuttered.

Soap is just walking past the town noticeboard on his way into the General Store when he sees it.

He thinks it has to be a coincidence at first, impossible that it could be anything more, but no.

In the centre of the board is a poster, that reads:

WANTED

Sir Simon William Riley, Ω

To be considered armed and dangerous. Riley is wanted for the crime of abandoning his bonded Alpha and fleeing his responsibilities, in the process of doing which he committed multiple offences.

To be returned ALIVE.

Reward: $1000

And there, in the centre of it all, is a stiff and grainy image of Simon Riley, in his full upper class English grandeur.

Soap isn't thinking at all when he tears down the poster and storms into the General Store, locking the door behind him. He's moved past the ability for thought and straight into action.

"Talk!" Soap shouts at a surprised but unruffled looking Price, who is still behind the counter. He slaps the poster on the surface between them. "Now!"

"Ah." Price frowns down at the poster and then back up at Soap's furious face. "Shit."

Chapter 7: And now I know it's true

Notes:

What's this? It can't be...answers???

"Shit." It lands between them like a lead weight, Soap's chest heaving with panic and rage as Price seems to take a moment to watch Soap, assessing him for his reactions. Soap actually isn't sure he can even speak any more, settling instead for glowering grimly and hoping Price stops looking at him with a strained expression that looks increasingly like pity.

It makes Soap want to punch it off him.

They stare at each other for long, silent seconds before Price finally sighs and looks away, scrubbing a hand across his face. He looks tired suddenly, weary down to his bones. Soap wonders just how much Price has been hiding from him, and for how long.

"Let me lock the door." Price says, edging out from behind the counter and giving Soap as wide a berth as he's able to while he does. Soap knows he must stink, the scent of rage and fear and sorrow rolling off him. He's impressed Price's hackles haven't come up, there aren't many alphas who could keep their cool in the face of that. Not least because now that Soap thinks of it, he can feel that his fangs have dropped.

When Price returns, his fangs have dropped too. Nothing but instinct, that, and he's not doing anything else that gives Soap a reason to get any more riled than he already is. Price even tilts his head a little to show he's not a threat which Soap appreciates almost as much as he resents, he's spoiling for a fight and as much as he loves Price he wouldn't have minded the excuse to start one.

Instead he has to make do with childishly noting that his fangs are bigger than Price's.

Soap's chest is still heaving, panic threatening to take over and Price, scent radiating calm, brings over a chair and encourages Soap down into it. Pulls up one of his own beside him.

"What is this?" Soap finally manages, pushes the words out through too big teeth, grateful when Price doesn't mention the lisp.

"I can't give you all the answers you want, Soap." He holds out placating hands as Soap's face moves into a furious snarl, makes it clear he wasn't done. "I don't know all of it. I know some."

"Explain. Better." Soap grits out and bites down the flare of anger he feels when that makes Price laugh softly.

"He used his Wiles." Price huffs a laugh so full of reminiscence and memory that it makes Soap's chest ache. "He was just sixteen and so powerful. You can't even imagine it Soap, he was the most perfect omega you've ever seen." The growl that pushes out of Soap's chest is wholly involuntary.

"He still is the most perfect omega I've ever seen." Soap snaps. Price looks at him out of the corner of his eye but doesn't answer.

"I was eighteen and enamoured by him and already fantasising about courting him when we were older." Price sighs. "But he was the eldest son of a fucking Duke and I was the under-butler in his damned parents' house." Price isn't looking at him so much now as through him. "We grew up together, you know? My mother was their housekeeper and I grew up playing with Simon. His brother too."

This is news to Soap, that Simon has family, has a brother, but he's not about to say anything that will stop Price now he's finally giving him some answers.

"Anyway, his parents banned me from being alone with him, once I presented. Any teenager will tell you that doesn't do shit though, just makes for sneakier youths. Instead we just met up in secret spots, it wasn't hard; the entire estate was about ten thousand acres and the house alone would have fit this entire town inside and had rooms to spare."

Soap's face does change now, to one of shock. He'd known Simon was rich, and in the old money sense too, but he'd clearly underestimated that actual scale of it. From the sound of it Simon grew up in a damned palace.

"Jesus."

"Indeed. Anyway when he's sixteen he comes to our meeting spot and he tells me-" Price grunts and his face twists in discomfort as he does. Soap is shocked and concerned enough that his fangs recede but Price just waves him off. "He tells me something, and he makes me swear not to tell anyone, not ever." Price sighs, long and low. "Simon has never trusted easily, he has good reason not too, but this was something else. He used his Wiles on me to make sure I could never tell anyone else."

Soap inhales sharply.

He used his Wiles on Price?

Omegas are not as helpless as many of the old texts might have one believe. There's a reason that the Greeks lauded them as deities and held them in high esteem. A reason Romans used them as status symbols; if an Alpha could win over an Omega then they surely must be noble indeed.

Alphas have their Voice and omegas have their Wiles.

In reality it's a scent release they can use to put alphas into a suggestible and hypnotic state, one that can convince alphas to make promises or swear oaths they aren't able to break even once released.

They're a little less reliable than an Alpha Voice though, plenty of tricks alphas can use to get round it, and it requires time and trust to work effectively, since the Alpha must be calm to be receptive.

Still. Wiles can be a formidable tool, and the idea that Ghost would have used his on his friend is more than a little surprising.

"Jesus, John." Soap manages. Price pats his hand gently but otherwise he continues on as though Soap hadn't spoken at all.

"I still can't, Soap. I can't tell you what happened after that. All I can say is that his parents were powerful, extremely so. Families like that don't operate in a normal way, and definitely not when the Omega inheritance law states that Ghost cannot inherit the Dukedom unless he is mated."

Soap can read enough through the lines there that something like cold dread pools in his stomach, twists and rises up through his gullet.

"He won't tell me more." Soap says, a little despairingly.

"Is that what he said, Soap? That he won't tell you more?" Price's gaze is a sharp-edged thing now. Soap has never really been the object of John Price's scrutiny before and he's certain he isn't keen to again, something so knowing, so assessing in the way he's looking at him.

"Yes, Price." Soap bites, irritated by the staring and the way hes asking like it matters. Like the words Ghost used to push him away matter. "He told me about the herbs and then cut himself off, said 'I can't' and clammed up."

"Can't." Price says, with all the weight he can pile onto it.

"Can't?" Soap asks and then, "Oh…" It sighs out of him on a breath, the realisation so big that it releases the tight bands of pressure he's felt around his chest since he found the poster. "Can't." Soap says again. "Not won't."

Price is smiling at him.

"Jesus fucking Christ, how stupid have I been-"

"I don't even know all of it, Soap. Only what he was able to tell me before-" Price cuts off with a grimace. Price seems to reassess for a moment, weighing his words carefully. "There is only one way for you to find out Soap, we both know it."

"I won't do that to him." Soap says sharply, hardly able to accept that Price could be suggesting that.

"You're the only one who could." Price shrugs. "No other alpha could override the Voice of his pre-bond, but you're-"

"We're imprinted." Soap finishes for him.

'I want you to push' Ghost had said.

And 'I wish'

And 'Anything…'

"He can't ask you to." Price says, the hand on Soap's squeezing tight enough to hurt. "But I can."

Soap lifts his head to meet Price's eyes, to take in the desperate and flayed open look Price is giving him. "What if this hurts him in ways I can't fix?" What if this breaks all of that fragile, delicate trust he's worked so hard to build?

"There is nothing you could do to him that could hurt him worse than he has been." Price says, and breaks Soap's heart with the honesty of it.

Soap doesn't have any words that would soothe the pain in Price's expression, wouldn't even know where to begin.

Instead, he uses the hand Price is holding to haul him in and wrap his arms around him, the two of them pressed tightly together in an uncomfortable embrace, perched on rickety wooden chairs.

That's how Gaz finds them, when he gets back to the store. Price is late to open the Saloon and the sun is well and truly set but all Gaz does is sigh out a breath of relief when he sees the two of them, takes in the poster on the counter. Then his warm arms come around Soap's shoulders as he joins them both and presses a kiss to each of their foreheads.

-

Gaz had left just enough food behind for Ghost to have made a pretty serviceable dinner by the time he's done. He'd seen Gaz, who had stopped to scratch fondly behind Minty's ears and let Ghost scent him before he left. He seemed pretty eager to get home, Ghost isn't surprised, he and Price have been all but inseparable since they met and it must have been killing him to spend two whole days apart.

There were a couple of potatoes in the cupboard, a fair chunk of cheese and slab of butter. There was also, as there always is on a sheep farm, plenty of mutton.

Ghost makes a shepherd's pie, adds shavings of the cheese to the top of the mash to ensure a crisp, golden topping. He makes a thick stew for the filling, rich gravy and tender meat which he loads with herbs from the small garden Soap has outside. He'd even, excitingly, found an onion and half a carrot which he'd thrown in with the rest. It's only when it's done, piping hot and on the counter to cool a little, that it occurs to Ghost he should probably worry a little. Or a lot.

Soap had only been nipping to the general store, there's no way that it should have taken much longer than it took Ghost to get the sheep fence repaired and himself back to the ranch. It certainly shouldn't have taken the additional length of time it took to cook a full shepherd's pie.

Anxiety curls in his stomach and twists itself around his chest.

Something isn't right, there's no way that Soap would have left him this long without sending word somehow.

Ghost is preparing to go out to the barn when he hears the hoof beats. They're not galloping, not doing anything but a steady walk, so it's likely not an emergency. Ghost doesn't know why that doesn't make him feel any better.

He knows the rider is Soap the way one knows when a storm is about to hit; pure instinct.

Ghost distracts himself by setting the table. He places the large dish holding the pie in the centre of the table, between the places that have somehow become theirs. It's still steaming slightly, the cheese golden and crisp, with dark brown gravy bubbling up from the sides of the potato. Ghost stares at it and finds he doesn't feel nearly as hungry as he had before.

Doesn't feel nearly as good about the bath he'd run for Soap either.

"You made dinner?" Soap says from behind him and it makes him jump. He'd been so lost in his own thoughts he hadn't heard him come in.

"Shepherd's pie." Ghost answers around the lump in his throat. He steels himself and turns around. Soap looks terrible, wrung out. "What-" Soap holds up a hand to stop him and Ghost snaps his mouth shut.

"Could we eat first?" Soap asks, staring between Ghost and the dish and looking dangerously close to tears. "Please."

"Okay." Ghost nods, uses a large spoon to scoop a hefty portion from the pie and serve it up on Soap's plate. He serves himself a slightly smaller one and brings it to his own seat. "The sheep are all in and accounted for. Their wounds look good too, we'll not lose any more because of this little excursion." He says, and Soap looks so terribly grateful for Ghost taking the lead that he continues, fills the silence with rambling about how he made the pie and how he fixed the fence and how he had to chase a stubborn raccoon out the barn.

Soap even manages a smile, when he takes the first bite of the pie.

They both finish their meals eventually though, Ghost covering the leftovers in wax paper. When he's finished with that, Soap takes his hand.

"I found this, in town." Soap says, and then Ghost's blood runs cold. He is looking down at his own face, one he hardly recognises anymore. He's in the standard uniform of the British upper classes: white tie and top hat. He's even wearing the same damned Inverness cape he'd leant to Soap.

Ghost flounders for anything to say but Soap forges ahead.

"I went to Price and he told me. Well. Everything he could." Ghost looks up at him helplessly, hopelessly. "Would you forgive me-"

"Anything." Ghost says, and means it.

"Tell me." And Ghost's mouth drops open on a shocked inhale because Soap is using his Voice. "As your natural Imprint, disregard the Voice of lesser alphas. Tell me everything that you wish to tell me, keep secret anything you choose to conceal."

And that…

That is not what Ghost had expected him to say. That is not what Ghost had expected but he should have because of course Soap would find away to still make this choice. Despite everything Ghost has put him through of course Soap still makes sure that Ghost's wants and comforts are prioritised.

Even more surprising, for the first time in fourteen years, Ghost is able to speak utterly freely.

"His name is Everett Robidoux." He begins. Soap squeezes his hand reassuringly. There's a hint of tension on his face, like he still thinks Ghost may turn around and leave because he has dared to use is Voice. If Ghost weren't so desperate to explain himself he thinks he might kiss him senseless.

"When I was sixteen," Ghost continues, "my parents told me they had found me an alpha. I had known, since the day I presented, what it would mean. Any child of a noble house knows what will happen, dependent on their designation, I wasn't any different. I always knew that if I was an omega I would need to mate in order to inherit and I knew it was likely that my parents would choose for me to ensure a good match." Ghost's hand is trembling a little under Soap's.

Soap releases his grip and Ghost panics for a moment, fears that Soap has already heard too much. Instead, Soap reaches to slide up his sleeve and work at the knot tying the purple handkerchief, Ghost's handkerchief, around his wrist. When he has freed it, Soap reaches for Ghost's hand again, winds the scented handkerchief around his wrist and ties it directly over Ghost's scent gland.

The relief is immediate, a wave of calm washing over him as the warm scent of the both of them, blended together, cocoons him.

"I know that name." Soap says, and Ghost scoffs.

"It's unlikely there's anyone in the country that doesn't." He shrugs. "He's one of the richest men in the world, that I know of. Inherited money from the plantations, then made his fortune in the railway."

Soap's mouth has dropped open, pure shock painting his face, as one might expect. Everett Robidoux is a powerful man, famous, ruthless.

"He was nice." Ghost says. "The first couple of times he came to call. Handsome, too. I'd never met an American before and he seemed so… different, from what I was used to. He had none of the formality or polish of the Alphas of the British upper classes. Price didn't like him." Ghost can't help a tiny, helpless laugh as he says that, Soap winces. "I just thought he was jealous."

"You weren't wrong." Soap says and Ghost nods in acknowledgement.

"No. But it was more than that. I was infatuated, a handsome, rich, older Alpha who was to be promised to me. I thought I was so lucky, I'd seen the matches some of my peers had made after all, loveless marriages to frail old men. Everett was only forty."

"When did things change?" Soap prompts, his scent is cloyingly thick, oozing tension and protection. It makes Ghost feel a little nauseous.

"I accepted, too quickly. Our visits were supervised, in theory, but he was charming and convincing. I was naïve. I'd snuck out to meet him a couple of times, and he was gentle with me, right up until the contract was signed." There's a snarl to Soap's lips, not about the sex, it only appears when Ghost mentions the contract.

He supposes, to an Alpha who grew up in a working class family, to parents who met and fell in love the old way, it must sounds strange and clinical. It must rankle, to someone so in tune with their biological imperative, to hear Ghost so casually talk about something as crass and base as paperwork in conjunction with mating.

"My mother had been so happy for me that I was pleased with the match. She and my Father weren't close. She even gave me her Father's pocket watch to celebrate." He pulls out his watch and lets Soap inspect it, the bright gold gleaming in the firelight as he turns it back and fourth to get a better view of the monogram.

"Your fucking grandad was an actual Prince." Soap says, sounding vaguely faint. Ghost waves him off with an eye roll.

"I'm a member of the high nobility, Soap, all of us are related to some royal or another." Soap hands him back the watch which Ghost tucks away into his pocket again. "After the paperwork was signed it was like a switch had flipped." He continues, "I had to go with him, we were mates in all but the most official sense and I was his property, to do with as he would."

Soap's grip tightens until it's almost painful, Ghost runs soothing fingers over the back of his hand, tries to ground him as best he can.

"I was taken to his hunting lodge and there I was kept. I wasn't allowed to see anyone else, except for the days he would send for me. He used to use me for parties, put me on display. He did worse than that. The scars are-" Ghost cuts himself off, he doesn't need to finish, Soap understands him perfectly.

"He hurt me in every other possible way, but he never touched me sexually again. I was too far beneath him for that, and I think he feared that touching me might allow me some form of control, might allow me to use my Wiles, never mind that I wasn't even eighteen yet and barely even knew I had them."

"But…" Soap starts, he seems unsure how to ask but Ghost already knows where he's going with it. "you were already pre-bonded then?" Soap asks.

"No." Ghost says, his voice low and grave. He knows why Soap is confused, bonding, mating, even the pre-bond. These are all inherently sexual acts. It's not possible to do any of them without.

It's not thought to be possible to do any of them without.

"I wrote to my mother. She convinced my Father to insist on a visit to see me, and when they came, Price came with them, acting as a Valet. She cried, when she saw me." Ghost squeezes his eyes shut as the memories come flooding back. "It had only been six months, but the damage was already severe. Some of the scars on my face had been inflicted just a week before. He never left me alone with them, but Price snuck in to see me one night and I told him everything. Everett tried to kill him when he found out, Price had to flee the house."

"Your parents?"

"My Father washed his hands of it. He did seem sorry to do so, but legally Everett had every right to do whatever he wanted with me. My mother tried everything to convince him, but he dragged her from the house when she refused to leave and I never saw them again. I think he must have had something on them." Ghost shrugs, "Information or money, I never found out what."

Soap is crying, fat tears rolling silently down his cheeks as he listens, never pushing or probing for more than Ghost is willing to share. Ghost can't stop now, won't until he has said everything he needs to.

"That was when Everett decided to give me my final punishment." He swallows thickly, his brain vividly bringing to mind how cool it had been that evening, the way the crackling fire had disguised the sound of the boots of the hardwood floors. The way Simon had no idea it was coming.

"Everett wasn't even in the house." Ghost scoffs, eyes focused somewhere on the back wall of the kitchen. "He wasn't even in the county when he pre-bonded me."

Soap's gasp is deafening in the quiet of the room.

"How?" He asks, and his voice breaks in the middle of it.

"It took three men to hold me down." Ghost says. "And the fourth one to use the needle. I was smaller then, these days you'd need twice that." And he knows it comes out as though he thinks it's some form of failing on his part. He reaches up to undo his bandana from around his neck, undoes the first few buttons on his shirt until he can pull it to the side enough to show Soap his mating gland. "Give me your hand."

He guides Soap's trembling fingers up, settles them over his skin and pushes down on them, rolls lightly until he hears a soft 'oh' escape from between Soap's lips and knows he can feel it. The scar tissue, the spiders web of painful texture below the surface.

"They injected his venom into me, while I was scared and vulnerable, but they used the same plant that I take now for my scent. It turns out in the right dosage it can make an omega receptive to a pre-bond without any sexual stimulation at all. Without any affection either. When he came back a week later he used his Voice to ensure I could never tell another soul about any of it."

"Why didn't he-" Soap cuts himself off with a wince.

"Mate me? He didn't have to. Once I had signed and agreed to a pre-bond the deal was done, he didn't have to lower himself any further than that. Mating me is a better way of ensuring it, my inheritance was only if I was mated, but my father was young and he saw that he had decades yet until he would have to debase himself by mating me."

"But you escaped."

"I did. My mother and Price made a plan, snuck me notes through the sympathetic cook. I packed a trunk and a duffel bag and I escaped, had to use my Wiles and Price used his Voice on I don't know how many people, but we got out and travelled through Europe for a decade, until Everett caught up with us. After that we got on the first ship to America that we could. I haven't heard from my mother since, but I know she's alive. My brother too."

"Jesus, Ghost." The hand had never left Ghost's mating gland but now it slides up his neck to cup his face, pulls him forwards until their lips meet is a chaste but hard press that encompasses everything Soap can't seem to say aloud; grief, comfort, care.

Ghost presses back, can't help it. For the first time in as long as he can remember he has been able to speak openly about everything he knows, his experiences. It hasn't made anything better, not really, but all of it feels lighter, easier to bear.

"Simon." Soap whispers into the quiet of the kitchen.

"Hm?" Ghost feels so drained he can't even summon a real answer.

"Simon?" Soap repeats; this time Ghost can hear the slight thickening of Soap's speech that tells him his fangs have dropped, just a little. "I can't-" Soap pauses and swallows, takes a few deep breaths like he's measuring his words carefully. "I'm struggling to keep my alpha down." He says finally. The concern is thick in his voice, as if he thinks there is a world in which Soap's alpha could ever scare Ghost, where Ghost might not trust even the basest parts of him.

"Okay?" He keeps his tone interested but not dismissive.

"Could- May I scent you, please?" Ghost grins then, couldn't stop if he tried.

"I already fucking reek of you." He says. "Can you at least wait until after I've had a bath?" There's the rumble of a disgruntled growl in Soap's chest that he looks mortified by. Ghost decides that no matter how it may have been for his own good it's high time he took a little revenge for Soap daring to use his Voice on him.

He lets his body soften, his eyes narrow. He summons the venom into his fangs, which aches like flexing a muscles that's been long ignored, and once he has some on his tongue, blows softly into Soap's face before hooking the back of his head and hauling him down to bring them forehead to forehead.

"I think." Ghost says, injecting a silky resonance into his voice that finishes off the glassy haze that is already sliding into Soap's vision. "I think that maybe you should boil some water so I can bathe, wouldn't that be nice?" Soap nods eagerly, blissed out and languid. "That would make me so happy. Once I've washed then you could have a bath too, so that when you scent me afterwards I don't smell of anything at all but you, wouldn't that feel good?" He lets go of Soap's face and pulls away, watches as the film of his Wiles slowly clears from Soap's eyes.

Soap very slowly and wholly unsubtly reaches down to give himself a hard squeeze through his trousers, his cock visibly hard. "You're a cunt." Soap tells him, but he's smiling and he can't quite seems to stop himself standing to go and tend to the bath anyway. "I've never felt anything like that." He says as he works while Ghost spreads out on his chair, long and languid and sprawled in a way he's certain Soap will enjoy.

"My Wiles are pretty unusually strong." Ghost shrugs. "Never worked on Everett but I only tried after he changed, and by then he'd gone back to doing so much snuff I don't think he even had a sense of smell anymore. Never let me get close enough to use the venom either." Ghost sighs, "The first time I tried I got this one." He gestures to the long scar that runs through both of his lips.

"I know it probably isn't what you need to hear, Simon." Soap says, still topping up the bath with hot water and a fragrant soap. "But I swear to you I'll kill him if we ever see him."

"No you won't." Ghost says, a little of his Wiles creeping back into his voice unintentionally. "If we ever see him, I will kill him." When he looks back over at Soap, his head is tilted to the side in unapologetic submission.

"You will kill him." Soap repeats, and it sounds like a promise.

The bath is divine.

Ghost has felt filthy for two days now, the grime of rain and riding and sweat and everything else all still clinging too him.

Soap had worked diligently and the water is almost too hot, exactly as Ghost likes it. He relaxes into the tub, water up to his chest, and lets the heat melt away his tension.

He can hear Soap moving around the place, Tablet too. There's a brief bleat that must mean Soap is giving Minty one more evening feed. There's rustling outside which Ghost takes to mean Soap is letting Tablet out for her evening run, though she doesn't give her usual chorus of enthusiastic barking. Ghost is honestly glad for the peace.

With Soap distracted and his body finally able to relax from the pulled-taut feeling of the rest of the day, Ghost let his mind drift back to using his Wiles. To the way Soap had relaxed and allowed himself to be pulled under. The way Soap had squeezed himself after, cock hard and aching.

The way Soap had submitted so easily to Ghost, had bared his neck-

Ghost wraps his hand around himself, strokes luxuriously, a long and slow pull that feels almost unbearably good. He gives himself another, and another. He focuses on his cock, takes his time squeezing and teasing the head, runs his thumb across the slit.

His eyes drift shut and he pulls his lip into his mouth, worrying it with his teeth. the sound of his hand moving near the surface of the water is obscene. It's loud too. He almost misses the gasp from the open doorway.

Soap's eyes are fixed at where Ghost's arm is working below the waterline, staring as though he can see through the bubbles and rippling surface.

Ghost doesn't stop. Instead he runs his eyes slowly down from Soap's face, his chest, his stomach. They land at his crotch, pointedly eyeing the obvious outline of Soap's hard cock beneath the denim. Soap looks torn for all of two seconds before his hand slides across the front of his trousers and squeezes hard. It's a challenge, the way he pauses then, one that Ghost meets with a quirk of his eyebrow.

"Fuck…" He lets it slip out, long and low, paired with a hard squeeze to the head of his cock on the upstroke that coaxes his hips into bucking up. It gives Soap the briefest glimpse of his cock but that's enough to urge a punched-out groan from him as his hand starts to move with more confidence.

Ghost is totally naked, unarmed, clearly vulnerable as he arches his back and strokes himself off under the watchful eyes of Soap, who is still fully dressed and has a knife sheathed on his hip. Still, he's never felt so powerful as this. The way Soap looks at him, like he'd give Ghost anything, do anything.

Like he would kneel and bare his throat for Ghost's teeth.

Like he will take only what Ghost will give him.

Soap grunts and speeds up the way his hand is rubbing along the ridge of his cock. Ghost changes his own rhythm to match.

"Show me." Ghost says, and watches as Soap's hands fly to his belt, to that ridiculous ram's head buckle, and yanks everything open just enough to pull himself out, hot and huge and leaking so much that Ghost's mouth waters. Neither of them speak then, both panting heavily as they try to match the other's rhythm, neither wanting to be the first to finish.

It's Ghost, who does in the end. He feels the heat building, low and dark, coiled and drawn tight. All it takes is one word from Soap, one softly whispered 'Simon' to have Ghost hurtling over the edge.

He bucks his hips up enough that he's out of the shield of the water, enough that Soap can watch as he spills come in long streaks across his own chest.

"You said you wanted to scent me?" Ghost challenges, voice thick and lazy with orgasm. "Come on then." Soap seems to trip and fall over the edge, orgasm taking him by surprise. He stumbles forward the few steps until he can brace himself against the edge of the tub, come shooting in part across Ghost's chest to blend with his own mess, the rest drifting away as it's lost in the bath water that's now infused with their shared scent.

In the end Soap does bathe, after Ghost. When he's done he smells clean, but also like them. Ghost has dressed and Soap is wrapped in a towel when they quietly begin the unspoken ritual of a proper scenting. Soap rubs his wrists in perfect synchrony down both sides of Ghost's body, passing over each one of Ghost's scenting glands. He runs his hands along the lengths of Ghost's arms until he can align their wrists and gently twist them before beginning the return journey. When he gets to Ghost's throat he stops, waiting for permission which Ghost grants with the tipping back of his chin to leave himself vulnerable.

Soap brings his wrists to rest over each of the glands and presses down. Ghost can pinpoint the exact second that Soap feels the textured scarring beneath his mating gland, because he presses his thumb into the skin a little more firmly, moves around as though he's mapping it out.

When he's finished, Soap's hands drop to his sides and he chuffs lightly, makes a pleased trill when he catches the smell of his scent blending properly with Ghost's, in the old ways.

Ghost relishes the look of absolute shock in his eyes when he brings his own hands up to return the gesture.

It is incredibly rare for an omega to do this. To brand an alpha as theirs so thoroughly.

It didn't used to be, but as with most things, time and tyranny had its way. The Old Ways had mostly died out, recorded only in pure instinct and the writings of the earliest people.

As Ghost moves his hands, he begins to purr. He follows his movements with his eyes, never daring to look away from them in case this bubble of instinct and adoration bursts. When he finally finishes and dares to meet Soap's gaze, he finds that he's crying.

"Johnny?"

Soap kisses him.

Ghost kisses him back. Until he's dizzy with it, he kisses back.

"Goodnight." Soap says, when they separate.

"Sleep well." Ghost answers. He doesn't move until Soap has turned and disappeared up the stairs.

Ghost tidies away the last of dishes, folds Soap's clothes which he'd left in a heap on the chair. He spends his usual time cleaning and finishing all of the small tasks in the house that have, over the last months, somehow fallen into his routine.

He collects the lantern from the side and lights it; the moon is hidden tonight and his path to the barn all but invisible. Tablet is asleep in her bed beside the backdoor, Minty snug in her box by the stove. Ghost, for the first time, lets himself consider spending a night here one day, under the same roof as three of the creatures he loves best on this planet.

Spending a night in the place he considers home.

With the man he considers home.

It's with a far lighter heart than he's had for a long time that he sets out for the barn.

Maybe that's why he doesn't think twice about the latch already being up on the door. Maybe that's why it doesn't occur to him that if Soap had taken Tablet out earlier, the lantern should still have been warm.

Maybe that's why he doesn't notice anything is wrong at all until he closes the barn door behind him.

"Hello, Simon." Says a calm voice from the shadows beyond the lantern's reach. The scar beneath Ghost's mating gland roars with white hot pain as cold dread slips in icy tendrils across every nerve ending.

 

"Hello, Everett."

Notes:

I'm sorry, I promise I am. Now is the time to really be clinging to that happy ending tag, I promise it will all be okay...eventually. Come yell at me in the usual places if you want xx

Chapter 8: And in the hour of darkness

Notes:

Sorry this one took so long! Writers block has been menacing me, but I really hope you enjoy it!!!

The sun is high when Soap wakes up. He's usually up with the birds, a natural early riser, but he thinks the conversation with Ghost last night unlocked something within him. Had released the albatross around his neck so that he finally felt free for the first time in weeks. The way Ghost had kissed him last night… the way he had spoken to him, touched him. Well. It was enough to make a man hopeful. Maybe even downright optimistic.

He takes his time getting dressed; lets himself stretch languidly and enjoy basking in the rays of sun beaming through his window for a little while. The sun on his bare skin reminds him of that first day he and Ghost had met. Him fully naked, Ghost dressed to his most menacing and trying as hard as he possibly could to be terrifying. An omega so perfect he was bigger than any alpha, with both the cock and the attitude to match.

Ghost's Wiles last night had felt like nothing else, They moved over him like liquid gold, gentle as the tides washing across his body until he felt like nothing bad could ever happen again. He'd been so eager to serve Ghost, so desperate to do anything he wanted that he thinks he might find a way to stop time if he had to. Anything to keep Ghost near him and using that silky voice. He reckons if he is really lucky he'll be able to convince Ghost to use them again.

He won't be using his voice though not unless Ghost asks him to and he doesn't think that's likely.

Soap is starting to suspect he owes Price some sort of apology at the very least, if not perhaps a small fortune and any other treasures he might be able to bestow upon him. If he had the power to give him Gaz's hand then he would.

When he dresses, he chooses to wear his least ripped jeans and cleanest shirt, which is definitely nothing to do with the fact that it's the one that best highlights his waist. When he's finally picking his hat up off the dresser, he hears a scrabbling outside of his door; Tablet usually knows better than to do that. She's a good girl. He can normally trust her to sit quietly downstairs, although by this time she's usually following Ghost around on his morning chores.

Apparently today she's decided she's going to be naughty for the first time in months.

"Get doon, ye silly bitch." Soap waves her off as she immediately dives between his legs as he swings the door open. She's persistent though and keeps nosing at his pockets and knees in the way she always used to do when she was hungry. It's rare that Soap is up early enough to be the one to feed her these days so he's surprised she's so keen for food. But he figures maybe Ghost has decided to start further out on the ranch and simply hasn't been up to the house yet.

The kitchen is quiet when they get there and Soap immediately finds a scrap of food to hand down to Tablet to quiet her yapping.

From the corner comes a plaintive little bleat.

Soap whips around, somehow still surprised when he sees Mint Sauce sitting in her box just the same as she was when he left her last night. By now Ghost should have fed her bottle and taken her out the box to toddle around the living room until Soap arrived. Soap has never once known Ghost to sleep late in the morning, but he supposes there's a first time for everything and last night had been utterly exhausting for the both of them.

Given what a rarity this is, Soap decides it actually just grants him an opportunity to do something nice for Ghost. He gathers a few items to create a small breakfast and piles it all up on a tray. He makes up a bottle for Minty and feeds her first; Ghost would never forgive him if he found out he'd been happily enjoying a late breakfast while Minty was sitting hungry downstairs. Once done, Soap collects his tray and heads out to the barn.

The note, pinned by a knife on the ladder to the loft, is visible from about ten feet away.

This is again unusual but the conversation with Ghost last night had been fragile ground and Soap had somewhat expected that he may retreat. He won't be surprised at all if Ghost has gone out on a ride to clear his head. The handwriting is neat cursive with it's embarrassingly upper-class letters that Soap recognises from his mum's time in service, receiving notes from her employer.

Soap, the letter starts.

Johnny.

There isn't much I can say that I think you will believe. I know that you will struggle to understand why I have made this decision, but I have thought long and hard about this and I cannot stay. Our time together has been deeply important to me, if I felt that I could say goodbye I would have come and said it to you directly, but I knew that you would try and convince me to stay and I knew that I would not be nearly strong enough to resist if you did.

I am sorry for the things that I will miss out on, first and foremost being your company but also the next lambing season, which is sure to grow your flock and make your ranch even more successful. I'm sorry I won't get to see the lamb we are raising together grow to slaughter weight; she would have made an excellent gift for Price.

I know you are not likely to listen, but please don't look for me. I am doing what is best for me, for us both, and if you love me in the way that you say, then you will leave me be.

My heart remains yours, though I cannot be.

Ghost. Simon.

Soap dumps the tray onto a barrel, bounds up the ladder two rungs at a time. There's almost nothing left, barely a trace of the man who had so easily made himself the centre of Soap's entire life.

Almost, because in the centre of the bed is a tiny package wrapped in lavender cloth. Soap's fingers are trembling as he flips the small bundle open and takes in the contents.

A handkerchief, a watch, a hat charm and a knife.

These are all the things that Soap has left of the man he loves.

Soap picks up the hat charm first, curls his fingers around the smooth edges of the ivory. The skull and crossbones grins up at him mockingly and Soap just barely resists the urge to turn and whip it against the wall as hard as he can. The watch works, the ticking so loud it seems like it echoes through the room. The gold is bright and almost glows in the poor light of the hayloft. Soap is achingly careful when he clicks it shut and slides it into his pocket.

The knife had been left with the note but its usual sheath had been in the package. Supple leather with weaving patterns embossed into it, matching the same patterns that adorn Last's bridle. The thought of Last opens a new pit in Soap's stomach, the idea that when he walks into the stable he will find her gone, Thistle stood there alone, or perhaps worse is the thought that she might still be there. That Ghost might have left her in some weak attempt to make up for the lack of himself.

Soap can't even move to go and check. Instead he picks up the handkerchief and bundling the fabric up, presses it to his face and begins to cry.

The scent of Ghost hangs thick in the silk and Soap loses himself in it for a long while, the sun growing high. He isn't sure how he makes it from the hayloft to his kitchen but he is aware of the cabinets against his back, the small bundle of wool inserting herself into his lap. It hurts, Ghost being gone. There's a physical ache that Soap had been given no chance to brace for. It's a result of the imprint, he knows, the chemical dependency he has developed for Ghost's scent. The intense biological demand that tells him to claim, take, hold.

Protect. Preserve. Cherish.

The note is balled up in his palm, creased and crushed but still painfully legible.

"Soap?" Gaz's voice rings from outside the door.

"Open the door, one of you, your delivery is getting too hot." Their tone is enough to tell Soap that they have probably been out there for a while. Still, he can't seem to gather the energy to stand, or even to shout back to them. Maybe, if he stays quiet and still for long enough they will simply leave him be.

Luck is apparently not on his side, there's the thick clunk of a lock turning before the two of them are strolling into the kitchen. They only stop when they catch sight of Soap, curled up on the floor with his back to the cupboards, Minty nestled in his lap and Tablet curled protectively at his feet.

"Soap?" Gaz asks, tone carefully neutral. Soap watches his boots move across the floor until they stop in front of him, before he lowers into a crouch.

"John?" Price says, voice much tighter. "Where's Simon?" Soap can't speak, can't even bear to look Price in the eye. The idea of trying to stand toe to toe with Price, this Alpha who protected Ghost so well and for so long, and explain to him that he is the one who drove him away-

It's unthinkable.

Instead, Soap lifts a trembling hand and holds out the note. Gaz ignores it in favour of sliding to the ground and along the floor, propping himself against the cabinets, snug against Soap's side. The scent of warm amber wraps around Soap, it should be comforting but in this moment he simply feels stifled. Still, he's grateful for Gaz all the same.

Price snatches the letter, the stink of acrid anxiety radiating from him as he does. He reads it in silence, a small wounded sound punching out of him as he gets to the end.

"It's his handwriting." Is all he says.

"Aye." Soap agrees, though it hadn't been a question.

"He barely even mentioned me." Price says, and he sounds hollowed out, the words ringing far too loud for the room. Price brings the note to his face and breathes in the traces of Ghost's scent that cling to it, Soap should know, he did the same.

When Price drops to his knees Soap reaches out enough to gather him up and drag him close, the need for his pack overwhelming his self preservation but Price lets himself be gathered, presses in to Soap's side and hangs there like a puppet with his strings cut.

Gaz moves, gathering the note up off the ground and bringing it in to his own chest, inhaling deeply.

"What the fuck." Gaz pushes out of Soap's hold until he's standing, his long legs carrying him in sharp paces back and forth across the room. "What the fuck." He says again. "Simon didn't write this."

Price and Soap both growl in unison, long and low and utterly threatening to anyone who isn't Kyle Garrick, apparently.

"Of course he did." Soap snarls.

"His handwriting, his scent." Price adds, voice the kind of dangerous Soap has never heard it before. Gaz doesn't even blink.

"He wrote it." Gaz says, acquiescing. "But he didn't choose to." And then, under his breath, adds "Fucking alphas can't see the woods for the trees when there's an omega involved."

"Careful." Price warns and it actually makes Gaz scoff.

"You both have met Simon, yes?" Gaz asks, tone firm enough for Soap to force himself to listen. "Other than you two what did he love most in the world?"

"You." Price says instinctively at the same time Soap says "What?"

Mint Sauce takes that opportunity to remind them of her presence with a plaintive little bleat. Soap blinks.

"Damn right Minty, you." Gaz tells her, then stares at them like they should know where the hell he's going with this. He grunts in exasperation when neither of them gets it. "Thick as pig shit, you both are. So, does this sound like something Simon would write in a goodbye note: 'I'm sorry I won't get to see the lamb we are raising together grow to slaughter weight; she would have made an excellent gift for Price.'" Gaz looks at them pointedly, "He wouldn't even let Price babysit her alone because he made jokes about eating her. Not a chance he ever references bloody slaughtering her, Jesus."

"He would never have left her without saying goodbye, giving her breakfast." Soap says, slowly. Heartache slowly beginning to morph into cold dread. "But why, and why didn't the letter or the gifts smell like anyone else-"

"What gifts?" Price asks sharply, the fog of despair somewhat faded from his eyes.

"He left me a few things. A handkerchief, his watch. The little skull from his-"

"Hat band." Price finishes, face pale as snow. "Ivory?"

"Yes?" Soap feels the tension pull taught in his belly as Price stands to join Gaz.

"That little fucking charm. It was a gift, early on from Robidoux. Young Simon had a bit of a yen for tales of piracy." Price's face is twisted darkly. "He kept that fucking thing on him the last two decades, a reminder, he called it, of what comes from trusting too easily."

"Everett." Soap rears back. "You're saying Everett found him? Took him? There wasn't any scent-"

"Those plants that Ghost takes?" Gaz says, "I'm guessing they work both ways."

"He didn't choose to leave." Soap says, in that singular truth both a stitch and a knife.

"He didn't choose to leave." Price agrees, and turns to press a fierce kiss to Gaz's mouth.

"He wouldn't." Gaz adds, kissing Price again.

Soap sprints from the room, takes the stairs two at a time as he throws together things he might need. He pulls his gun case out from beneath his bed and pulls out both of his rifles to join his usual revolver, loads ammunition into a bandolier too. He may be a ranch hand now but Soap isn't a stranger to the darker sides of the west, he moved here with little to his name, just the hope that maybe he could make enough money one day to let his mother be comfortable. He rolled with some bad characters, did jobs he wasn't proud of.

When he made enough to finally buy the ranch he'd been doing some protection work for some very questionable types. The type that needed heavily armed men to watch over their wagons. The kind that had asked Soap to kill to protect their cargo, and he had.

Gaz walks through the door and silently takes one of the rifles from Soap's hand, slinging it over his own shoulder. He helps Soap's shaking hands close the buckle on his satchel and gives Soap a once over before he nods soundly, content that Soap isn't actually losing his grip on reality.

'An angry man?' Gaz had said once, reminiscing about he and Soap's time on the wagon protection detail, 'Him I know how to deal with, but a heartbroken one?' Then he'd let out a long, low whistle. Soap had laughed, then, punched Gaz's arm and said something showy like 'A bullet'll treat em both the same.'

He gets it now, he thinks. He isn't sure that there are enough bullets to stop him now. Not in the West, maybe not all the bullets in North America.

"Price is readying the horses." Is all Gaz says now and Soap knows that he means for all of them. Gaz would follow Soap to the end the same way Price would follow Ghost, for all that in this moment Soap wishes he wouldn't. He wishes the two of them would go home and leave Soap to his work, distance themselves from the danger of what's coming.

Soap reaches out then, wraps a hand behind Gaz's neck and hauls him in so he can press their foreheads together, his wrist gland pressed to the one on Gaz's throat. His best friend, since that first day on the boat from Liverpool.

"I can't lose you too." Soap tells him, squeezing tight enough that it must hurt. Gaz doesn't move.

"I'm not going anywhere, Tav." Soap holds him closer anyway and Gaz lets him. The sound of hooves outside finally drags him away and the two of them gather their things and head downstairs to join Price.

Last is there, along with Thistle and Price and Gaz's two horses. "If we bring them all we can rotate them and ride longer." Price shrugs. "And Last will be there for when we have Ghost back." Soap resolutely does not let his breath catch at the certainty of Price's statement but he does allow himself to hope just a little bit more.

They don't have to talk about it to know their destination. All of them are aware that Robidoux owns half the railways this side of the nation. He's not likely to travel by horse when he doesn't have to, not least when the distance he's planing on covering is quite as large as he is. Chances are good he's planning on dragging Ghost back to England, locking him up in that same hunting lodge as before.

Soap mounts Last, he's ridden her a couple of times before, usually because it always made Ghost laugh to see how small Soap looked balanced on her massive frame. Thistle can be the spare horse for now.

Besides, if they're lucky then the first train won't have left for the day. Everett may be rich, he may own the railway, but even he can't make sudden changes to the timetable without risking a crash further down the line.

The other two mount up and nod solemnly at Soap. The train station is in the centre of town, a small ramshackle thing but it handles more freight than one might think, given the number of ranches in this area. It's noteworthy and connected enough that Soap is quite sure that Everett would have bothered to use it, rather than riding further down to one of the larger, fancier stations.

When Soap glances over he sees that Price's hands are trembling on the reins, his scent enough to tell him it's a mix of fear and rage that any man should fear when it's rolling off John Price. Soap quietly reaches out and hands Price the knife Ghost had left. The handle is imbued with his scent, the blade wicked sharp and only slightly less fatal in Price's hand than Simon's.

Price's fingers curl around it until the knuckles turn white.

They don't speak, but Price lets out an affection chuff, tilts his chin down in a way so submissive Soap isn't sure he's ever done it before, it doesn't appear like it comes naturally to him, stiff and experimental.

Instead of acknowledging it, Soap rewards it in the best way he knows how; he digs his heels in to Last's sides and urges her on down the road, beginning their pursuit.

 

-

 

Ghost glares out the window, his face flattened into his practised mask of stoicism. He still has the mask, Everett doesn't bother to be cruel, even now, if he did that might imply that Ghost had ever meant any more to him than he does: a title and a fortune. He hadn't even used vile words or violence when he had greeted Ghost in the barn. Instead he had simply used his Voice, no preamble or small talk. He had told Ghost, calmly, that he had armed men with him in case Soap caused a fuss. Ghost wasn't worried about that though, Soap has always slept through the night, and he had been more at peace last night than all the rest of the time Simon had known him.

The Voice had done its job, icy tendrils sliding like knives beneath his skin, probing and pressing into the folds of his brain. When he'd told him to write the letter, Ghost had simply obeyed.

Soap must be up by now, by Ghost's reckoning. The sun is high enough. If he is then he'll have found the note, or will any moment.

Ghost had felt sick doing it. His imprint snapping and whining in his chest as he attempted to sever their connection.

"Honestly, Simon, you always were painfully miserable, but this is something else. You must have known I'd catch you eventually. I was never going to just let you go."

"I wish you had." Ghost grits out.

"And I did, in Paris and Berlin and even your little adventure in Cairo. But now is the time for you to come back into the fold, Simon. Now that it looks like you're almost ready to be of use to me."

"Wha-?" Ghost's brow furrows and he allows his gaze to move from the horizon and finally land on the smug, handsome face of his captor.

"Your father is ill." He says, as blandly as if he was telling Ghost what day of the week it is. "Rumour has it, unsurvivably so."

Ghost clenches his jaw beneath the mask, bites back any reaction that Robidoux might be looking for.

"So cheer up. You're about to be a Duchess, Si." His voice is the same smooth rumble he had used when he was first seducing Simon, thick and sweet. Now he just finds it sickening.

Ghost slides his eyes back across the train carriage and lets his focus once more fall outside the window. Steam is belching out of the stack at the front of the train, whistles and honks and the tell tale engine growl that tells him she's about to pull away.

Then the whistles change tone and the engine dies back down, there's the sound of shouting on the platform. When Simon looks back at Everett, for the first time, there's sweat on his brow.

 

-

 

The horses are covered in sweat, hooves pounding the dirt of the road as the three of them race to the station. None of them has said a word since they left the ranch, all focused on the road in front of them, keeping the horses steady. The pounding drumbeat of hoof beats beneath them.

They already know, by the time they throw themselves off their mounts and march into the offices, that it's too late.

The clerk startles, a nervous stammer echoing his words as he tells them that the first train of the day left at eight am that morning, some hours ago, and is likely on the other side of the mountains by now.

Soap doesn't recognise the growl that rumbles out of his chest, but he feels the way it synchronises with the matching one from Price.

"There was an omega on that train." Gaz's eyes flash gold in the hazy light of the timber building. "One for whom you didn't look at the papers." There's real fear on the clerk's face now, and he's right to be afraid. Soap and Price are both near feral, Price already having turned over the heavy wooden table that held the schedules, and Gaz is something almost worse. A cognizant predator. A beta looking out for his pack and a powerful one at that.

Price had told Soap once that Gaz was a powerful beta and Soap hadn't understood what he'd meant until now. It's wrong, what people say about betas not producing a scent, it's just not the same as other designations. The clerk is a low grade alpha, already nervous about the feral pair in front of him but still willing to stand his ground.

As Soap watches though Gaz takes a deep breath and as he breathes out his scent floods the room, cool amber reaching out and filling the space, smothering all else beneath it. It's so stifling Soap almost chokes on it, he's only saved by Gaz being his pack, the scent that of family. For an entirely unfamiliar alpha it must be like having the lights turned off, his keenest sense snuffed out by the cloying cloud of beta neutrality.

"Where was the train headed?" Gaz says, face inches from the clerk's.

"It was the eight o'clock to East Riding." It's not true, anyone could see this man has been told to lie. Gaz's scent increases until Soap's back teeth hurt with it, his vision clouding at the edges. The acrid stink of urine fills the room and Soap realises the clerk has pissed himself.

"Tell me the truth." Gaz says and he hasn't even raised his voice.

"Mr Robidoux had it redirected further east, he's heading for the coast but it will take them a few days to get there with refuelling and necessary stops." The scent disappears in an instant and Soap heaves in the cool air. Price is no less angry than he was before but he also looks dark and aroused, dangerous pride simmering in his eyes. Soap's not surprised, his mate just put on an incredible display of power.

"We chase the train." Soap says, into the quiet.

"Course we do." Price agrees.

"We find Simon." Gaz confirms. "We bring him home."

 

-

 

"Sorry sir." A porter has stuck his head into the carriage, he looks harried and apologetic. "One of the cargo crates arrived late and needed to be loaded." Even as he's speaking Everett relaxes. The whistles begin again and only a minute later there's a lurch as the locomotive heaves its way out of the station and begins to roar along the track.

"Time's up." Everett says. He isn't even gloating, just stating the facts.

Time is up for Ghost, and no one is coming to save him.

Notes:

I'm sorry! Please feel free to shout at me in the comments or bsky/twt, it's good to let it out. Shoutout to my beloved Murphs for betaing this chapter.

Notes:

Thank you for reading! I hope you are enjoying, I have big plans for the rest of this fic :)

Thank you so much to Tenz for cheerleading this into existence and to Aessedia for betaing for me!!!

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