and his _Alpha_ raises its head with a deep inhale, pupils expanding to swallow golden brown in blackest pitch as he raises his head to see the person hurrying across the room towards him skid to a sudden stop.

Ghost goes to his knees with a stuttering snarl, fighting with everything he has —

losing —

Going *under* –

Squads quietly rearranged like he wouldn’t notice, Omegas kept far away from him, *no soft-sweet scents to soothe, no one to take care of, Omega here right here, *finally* right here in front of him, Omega, Omega, Omega – *

he could practically still taste Omega-sweet copper on his tongue, smell the bitter reek of Omega fear in his pores, sticky and clinging as any skunk-spray, the wary looks following him from anyone who got close enough to scent him.

He had to stay in control.

He had to protect Soap.

Had to protect the *Omega*.

*Omega needed him.*

No!

No, the last thing any Omega needed was *him,*

inducers weren’t meant to be inhaled and he’d gotten more than a few lungfuls of them too. He could feel himself slipping, feel himself losing himself, feel the *Alpha* he’d kept chained and locked up slamming against the bars of its cage, and he couldn’t.

Ghost shouldn’t have let him talk him into coming back to the safehouse at all.

Arrogant, overconfidant, stupid. He’d thought he could fight it, thought the suppressants would neutralize it, but not only had he gotten some in his bloodstream,

Not to Soap.

Never to Soap.

He had to get Soap out of here. Get him somewhere else safe.

There wasn’t anywhere else safe to *go*.

Or *he* had to leave, no matter how fiercely Soap had argued against that idea.

deserved rest, for the two of them to settle in, to take a couple quiet days, hidden, watchful but not truly in danger, even while the ant nest boiled outside.

The threat wasn’t supposed to be *inside with them.*

The threat wasn’t supposed to be *him.*

Soap, who is watching him, quiet for once, wary and still on the far side of the room, like *prey* – no, no, no.

Ghost snarls, teeth snapping as he paces near the door, locked, triple locked, all the windows covered, this little bunker supposed to be safe and snug, a spot for a well

who was fierce and bold and *fascinating*, willing to meet Ghost, huge and hulking, with humor and challenge and open welcome in equal measure, who smelled like smoked honey and fresh-cut pine.

and a new wariness in the eyes of everyone around him. Since Price signed off on his suppressants and it took nearly three *years* before the Captain was willing to let him anywhere near an Omega.

Let him near *Soap*, who was the furthest thing from delicate,

He couldn’t be, not when Ghost can feel the burning sliding through his veins, acid burning away every trace of the suppressants he’d been on since that first terrible rut after Roba had seen him waking from it strapped to a table in the isolation ward, with blood on his teeth and under his nails

when he was already dizzy from that first unexpected inhale. Hadn’t expected any of it.

They’d done it though: finished the mission, and then made it back to the safehouse, because they were fucking professionals.

But they weren’t safe.

Soap wasn’t safe.

They hadn’t expected the way Ghost had gotten thrown back into a puddle of them, glass dripping with thick serum slicing shallow, damning cuts in the scant few places skin showed. They hadn’t expected the lucky shot that had taken out Ghost’s hastily donned gas mask,

Because they hadn’t expected the drug trafficking they were investigating to be rut inducers. They hadn’t expected the body falling right into the crate of them, the way the vials had exploded out in a cloud of broken glass and serum and fumes.

The tension between them that hadn’t existed since their first mission together. The edge of wary caution that Soap has *never* directed at Ghost before, that cuts like dull, serrated knives: slow and *jagged*.

They’d expected the following few days of laying low, secret and quiet and hidden, as the situation settled before they could be extracted.

They hadn’t expected the silence on the double-time march back to tentative safety.

They’d expected the usual cocktail of adrenaline and various other chemicals and hormones in their blood that came with a job well done, expected the retreat back to the safehouse they’d been holed up at for the better part of the week.

#Ghoap #omegaverse AU, feral, rut-induced Alpha Ghost and Omega Soap trapped in a safehouse together. But somehow we're at 3.5K and there is no smut yet so this might end up just being feels lolol.

Part 1
~
In the aftermath of the mission they’d expected the exhaustion.

Yay! I’m glad you’ve been enjoying it!!

¡Gracias! ¡Me alegra mucho que te haya gustado! Gracias por el cumplido 💕💕 Diría que lamento haberte hecho llorar, pero...

(Hopefully google translate didn’t mangle that too badly lol)

He diiiiiiiiid. And there is definitely more! I'm alllllmost done with part 6, and there are at least 10 parts in the outline, I think.

Part 5! bsky.app/profile/shad...

Because his mother is right.

But she’s not going to be right forever.

He also can’t just *let* himself be hurt, because if he gets hurt his soulmate hurts.

He’s not sure how to tread that line, but he is going to have to try.

He hopes his soulmate will forgive him: for all the pain that has come before, and all the pain that is still before them.

He did it to protect someone who couldn’t protect themselves, but all he did was provoke Nigel and make it worse.

All he did was *hurt his soulmate worse.*

So, she’s right.

He can’t speak to his father like that, can’t fight back.

He nods, squeezing her hand once to show he’s heard her, before he lets it go to grab the bundle of ice and press it to the swelling eye.

She’s right, after all.

He spoke up, he fought back.

He pulls one hand away to spit another mouthful of blood and pooling saliva into the tissue he’d discarded on his lap.

Looks at the bloody mess in his hand and just… aches, tired.

He’s so tired.

Simon looks up at her, one eye already bruising shut, and fury tries to spark up his spine, tries to wrap around his throat and crawl onto his tongue and spit venom like one of Nigel’s snakes, but –