#09ghostsoap

It’s muffled. By the mask and Mactavish’s neck. There’s a thread through his voice, one that stirs a deep, primal part of him. Makes all his instincts turn to high alert. Your omega is hurt. You hurt your omega.

Never mind that his claim on Riley is unofficial. A single night where he snapped after Riley, with purposeful button-pushing and snarky comments pushed him over the edge. His alpha has decided. Or rather, had decided. Mactavish can admit to himself it happened long before that night.

Mactavish wraps an arm around Riley’s waist, rubbing his thumb in little circles. Riley’s shoulders don’t loosen but he does rub his nose over Mactavish’s scent gland.

“Smell like him.”

“Aye, had to carry him over my shoulder. Wouldn’t stop bleating like a wee lamb the whole time.”

The snort Riley lets out is strangled, smothered against his neck. Despite Riley’s amusement, his scent is still muddy with a sharp bitter tinge.

Can’t have his omega smelling like that now, can he? Mactavish fits his unoccupied hand around Riley’s jaw, cradling his cheek and tugging him out into the open. The little sound Riley lets out at being dislodged is disgruntled and his eyes, blue like the loch Mactavish grew up visiting, are shuttered.

Riley stares at him a long moment, jaw ticking like he’s grinding the words down to powder. Then, quietly, with the same lethal calm he uses when a target’s in sight—

“If you even so much as look at another omega,” Ghost says, “I will end them.”

And it’s Ghost speaking, not Riley. Cold steel and deadly precision. The same tone of voice used to threaten targets and hardware that refuses to cooperate. Eyes glacial, jaw tight.

“I mean it,” Ghost says, close enough now that his breath curls under Mactavish’s jaw. “I don’t care if they’re bleeding out. I don’t care if they’re on fire. Don’t touch them.”

“Tryna get me court-martialed?” Mactavish asks.

Riley scowls. “Not joking.”

“I know yer not,” Mactavish reassures, soft and sure as his thumb strokes just under Riley’s right eye. The dark circles are back, he’ll have to make sure Riley gets some proper sleep.

Riley’s hand fists in the front of Mactavish’s shirt like he’s trying to hold him in place — like he’s afraid Mactavish might vanish if he doesn’t. His gaze has dropped down to Mactavish’s neck and if he were to draw a dotted line from Riley’s eyes to it, he’s pretty sure he’d end up at his scent gland.

“Saw me carry him off the field, didn’t ye?”

Riley doesn’t respond.

“I was doing my job,” Mactavish says, wrapping his other arm around Riley’s waist. “Getting a kid out of danger. That’s all.”

Riley stays silent. But his grip doesn’t loosen, fingers clenched so tightly in Mactavish’s shirt the knuckles are white.

“Simon,” Mactavish says, finally. “You know I’m not looking at anyone else.”

Riley makes a small, sharp noise and shoves away from him.

“Don’t patronize me,” Riley says as he stalks over to the bed and drops down to sit on it. Mactavish’s heart clenches as he watches Simon curl into himself, hands cradling his face.

Mactavish lets him go. Lets Simon retreat and have a moment.

“‘M not patronizing,” he says after a minute. “I’m telling you the truth.”

Simon’s quiet for a long time. Mactavish watches his alarm clock tick over to 22:45, to 22:46, to 22:47 before Riley drops his hands with a sigh.

“Shouldn’t smell like him. Smells wrong,” Riley mutters.

Mactavish should have addressed this earlier, should have made it clear to Riley. Clearly, he’s dropped the ball if Riley doesn’t realize he’s wanted, been claimed. Riley’s a brat, sure, and he drives Mactavish up the fucking wall half the time — but that’s just the surface. Underneath, he’s never been good at taking what’s his, let alone believing he deserves to keep it. Not when so little in his life was ever his.

Mactavish takes the few steps over to the bed. He may be a Captain and have quarters to match, but that doesn’t mean they’re big. He sits on the bed, thigh pressed up against Riley. Leaning in with one hand bracing on the bed behind Riley, the other he uses to tilt Riley’s chin up. Locks their gazes, so Riley can see the sincerity. Because talk has always been cheap to Simon. Actions are what matter.

“Then fix it,” he says quietly.

He can feel how Riley’s muscles tense, how his breath hitches.

Mactavish presses closer, ducking his head down to nuzzle into Riley’s neck. To scent him. “Go on. Make me smell like you again, sweetheart.”

Riley shoves him back into the bed. Jostling him up the bed so that Mactavish is propped up against the pillows near its head.

“You’re such a bastard,” Riley grits out, nuzzling furiously against his neck, trying to bury his scent there like it’s a claim and a punishment all at once.

Mactavish wraps him in a hug, pulling him in tight and hums, content. Rubs his neck against any part of Simon that he can reach with it and the scent glands in his wrists over the rest.

“Told you before,” he murmurs, “I’m yours, Simon.”

Riley slumps at that, resting his forehead against Mactavish’s collarbone. He’s trembling a little but his scent is clearing, bitterness receding under his usual metallic-petrichor scent.

“You’re mine, John,” he says, and it’s not a threat this time, but a need and a want and a truth all wrapped into one.

Mactavish strokes a hand down his back. “Yours, sweetheart.”

They lie in the quiet for a long while, Riley sprawled half on top of him, breathing heavy against Mactavish’s neck, still gripping at his shirt like someone might come and pry them apart.

Mactavish keeps his hands moving, petting lazily up and down his back, just touching. Soothing.

Then, calm and low so as to not disturb this little bit of peace they’ve carved out for themselves:

“Could make it official, y’know,” Mactavish offers.

That gets a reaction.

Riley stiffens—not much, but enough for Mactavish to feel it. He doesn’t pull away, doesn’t speak, but his scent flares, filling the room with the scent of an omega staking a claim.

Mactavish doesn’t push it. Just keeps petting him.

“You’d like that,” Ghost mutters eventually, voice muffled and sulky.

Mactavish snorts. “You’re the one actin’ like we’re bonded already.”

Ghost huffs but doesn’t deny it.

Mactavish shifts, just enough to press a long kiss to the side of his head.

“You’re mine, too, y’know. Have been for a long time.”

Ghost makes a small, pleased noise.

“No looking at other alphas?” Mactavish teases, voice warm with laughter.

Ghost grumbles something unintelligible, face burrowed deeper into Mactavish’s chest.

Mactavish grins, all teeth and affection.

“Nah.” Riley leans further onto the counter, one bare foot resting on the crossbar of the stool. There’s a dark stripe across his sole already, his toes pink from the cold. His scars extend even there, pale crosshatching over his heel, a darker line traced just beneath his toes. 

MacTavish fumbles his slippers off, hissing beneath his breath at the cold tile, and kicks them over to Riley. One goes wide, skidding to a halt next to the far end of the counter, but the other knocks against the stool. “Then don’t bitch about the way I’m doing it.”

“Pity the poor woman you wind up clubbing over the head and dragging home with you.” Riley does pause his oozing to slide the slipper onto his foot, dropping back onto the stool to hook the other one with his foot before he draws it on also. “Too much of the army in you.”

MacTavish snorts, wishing — and not for the first fucking time since this recon mission was shocked into life — for a smoke. Too much exposure to their targets could send them scurrying back into hiding, ruining a ten month long intel trail, one very intricate daisy chain of pardons and protection details, and countless hours of overtime that would be peeled from MacTavish’s pound of flesh if he spooks the neighbours too badly. As arms dealers go, MacTavish has spent more than enough time next to worse and if his only complaint at the end of this was that they listened to some shitty soap operas too loudly then it would be two weeks well spent. Riley is starting to get opinions about the fate of poor Gabriella and MacTavish will kiss his own service pistol before he admits that he is as well. 

Might have to slip the techs something nice and strong to get the name of the programme after the mission. 

“Never had to drag anyone into my bed before, don’t think I’ll start now, Riley.” MacTavish straightens, cracks his knuckles before the want for fresh air begins to tear through tendons, and does it again just because. Riley’s eye roll is audible, barely blanketed by the blonde curls that MacTavish scuffs his palm over as he retreats back into the sitting room, a smidge quieter than the snap of Riley’s teeth on thin air.

Riley follows him a moment later, too-large slippers smacking against his heels with every step. It’s too much like MacTavish’s litter of nephews and nieces, down to the overly-serious weight of his gaze, the slight bend to his knees as he walks before Riley tips himself onto the armchair head first. MacTavish takes the sofa, swings his legs up onto it and relaxes back, shoving one of the decorative pillows behind his head. Some bastard had too much fun with the backstory budget for a place that no-one's meant to see and the pillow is pink and frilly, some tripe about love picked out across the front.

Riley had nearly laughed himself sick when they’d first seen the place in the light of day, deliberately being sent the previous night so they wouldn’t turn tail immediately.

MacTavish had sworn at Price over their secure line the instant it had been deemed safe to do so.“S’all well and good making us fucking newlyweds to explain why we’re reclusive, but the fucking pink, Price? Fuckssake.”  

“Ever think about it?” Riley asks, legs draped over the arm of the chair, his torso wedged into an impossible curve across the seat. His head is half falling off the edge, but his gaze is sharp, locked onto MacTavish like he’s starving, already carving out his liver. 

“About what?”

“Wife. Kids.” Riley waves one arm, a load bearing one by the way he slides three inches down. “House with a garden.”

MacTavish lets his gaze go half-lidded, studies the hatch marks of the sunlight filtering through the cracked and dusty blinds over Riley’s form. It is the kind of image that would make a Renaissance painter chisel his hands bloody against a marble block to capture the harsh angles of his limbs, the soft haze of his curls, the intensity of his gaze. 

“You offering, Riley? Angling for a nice patch of grass out the back to piss on, warm blanket in front of the fire at night?”

“Going to throw me a bone, sir?”

Laughing, MacTavish throws his forearm over his eyes, sinking back into the soft creaking cushions beneath him. It’ll be easier to confess this if he isn’t looking at Riley directly, the remembered bruise of a cushion beneath his knees in the confessional, musky incense clogging every breath. “I had thought about it before, younger man, big dreams, ‘s what’s expected of me after all with my parents and sisters. Never felt like quite the right fit and I doubt I’d find someone willing to put up with a bastard like me now.”

Riley shrugs, nearly entirely upside down now, one leg hooked over the back of the chair as a final effort to halt his slow descent to the floor. Won’t be helping the newer recruits assumptions that he’s a vampire. “I’m sure there’s someone out there. Bound to be some poor sod with some good qualities, y’know, like head trauma—”

MacTavish launches himself across the room with a curse, swinging the pink plush pillow in a telegraphed arch as Riley hits the floor with a snarling laugh. 

They’re meant to be newly-weds, after all, some noise is to be expected. 

⁂

The harsh glare of the neighbour’s brake lights dip out of sight around the bend of the cul-de-sac before MacTavish nudges the door open, his keys hooked around one finger. Again, curated for the life they’re living and, accordingly, someone’s had a bit too much fucking fun with it. Not enough for the techs to monitor chatter in the field or whatever bugs they’ve got embedded up some terrorist’s arsehole, but they had to stretch their creative sides.

He didn’t even know there could be pink glittery leather keyrings before now.

“Come on, babe,” he calls back into the maw of the house, swinging the keys into his palm and back out again. Stings a little, metal not yet body-warm, all useless except for the house and the car key. One, MacTavish thinks is someone’s locker key, coughed up for the greater good.

Riley snarls, barely audible except for the comm woven around his ear, against the puckered line of his mouth beneath his mask. “Go fuck yourself,” he hisses, each syllable crisp enough to be imprinted on MacTavish’s tombstone, shining marble and all. He pauses at the door, one hand braced against the frame as his gaze swings from one side to the other, a crease in his brow. 

Soldier’s instincts. No, close match but not entirely. MacTavish chews his cheek as he considers it, the raised curve of Riley’s shoulders and the swell of his cheek beneath his mask, teeth bared when the only blood they hold is his own. When MacTavish had been younger, one of his neighbours had a dog, or at least, they had the sound of a dog chained up behind their high fence, announced by the yellow warning signs they plastered over every inch. They’d make a game of it as kids left alone would always do, seeing who could get closest to the fence before the never-seen dog would charge, fragile wood trembling beneath the weight of it, barking loud enough to chill blood in the very marrow it was made in.

Riley’s a screaming yellow beware of the dog sign.

MacTavish holds his hand out, palm up and fingers splayed, and he might get bitten for this strange communion but it’d be worth it. “Riley?”

“Yeah.” A pause, sunlight splintering through the clouds that had descended to illuminate the golden band on MacTavish’s finger and fuck, he’s already damned several thousand times over but this will be the sin he’d nail himself to the cross for. His answer to Riley before hadn’t been a lie, close enough to the truth to slip inside its skin and cosy up for body warmth. 

Riley curls his fingers into MacTavish’s, corpse-cool like he always is, a stubborn refusal to follow any orders he doesn’t seem important, and falls into step at his side.

The car ride is unimportant, mundane, except when it isn’t.

MacTavish drives, too familiar with Riley’s assumption that civilian road signs were nothing more than suggestions, and the radio crackles as they slide between stations. Riley taps at the controls with jagged fingers, twists the volume loud to the fading sting of a drumbeat and keeps it loud when the next song starts, some crooning pop ballad about broken hearts. MacTavish knows the scar that curls over the far edge of Riley’s right wrist, the dark line that follows the jut of his tendon before it moves into the meat of his palm like a bastardised fortune teller. But now he also knows what it looks like when Riley taps his hands against his knees along with the beat, his sleeve coming up just enough to expose the scrap of skin, and MacTavish is starving, devouring what he shouldn’t want.

“Tech’s say to pick up a few things and tail from a distance in case they meet a contact here,” Riley reports as they park the car a few rows down from their neighbors. MacTavish nods, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel before he swings himself out of the car and makes his way around to Riley’s side. The other man is already out, door shut behind him, and it’s an easy job to wrap his arm around Riley’s waist as they walk towards the store. There’s a moment of hesitation, Riley’s arm raised and ready to drive his elbow into MacTavish’s torso, then he relaxes into the hold. If he had been a stray cat, MacTavish thinks he might have even been purring, a jagged chainsaw rumble, too large for such a slim frame.

“Sounds like a plan.” MacTavish isn’t an accomplished home cook by any stretch of the phrasing, but he can boil water well enough and follow the instructions on the back of a packet. There’d be a meal deal or two they can pick up to supplement the stock in their fridge and wouldn’t stretch the slim budget on their cards until it snaps. Not a trolley, too bulky to use effectively. A basket shoved into MacTavish’s chest until he grabs at the handles, letting it hang at his side. 

It’s a dangerous taste of what he could have, the sheer domesticity of it. MacTavish keeps one hand on Riley as they wander the aisle, the harsh fluorescents overhead humming vaguely and turning Riley’s face skeletal, the purple stain beneath his eyes devouring his features. MacTavish speaks without registering what he’s saying, his gaze slipping over the matched sets of the other couples as they move past, formless, shapeless, inconsequential, some mindless story about his sister’s kids as they’re too close to his thoughts. Heavy fruit dipping low from the boughs.

“It’s sweet,” the lass at the checkout remarks, all of sixteen with all the brashness her age allows. She blinks deliberately at Riley, a dark smudge of mascara in the corner of her eye from when she’d rubbed it, and he matches the expression with a brow raised. “He the protective sort?”

She’s talking about him, one elbow propped against the register like they’re housewives gossiping at the letterboxes, her grin wide as she catches MacTavish’s gaze. 

“Yeah. He is.” Riley’s fingers brush against MacTavish’s hold at his waist, the scrape of his shoulders at his back. “‘S sweet though.”

“Yeah, totally. Anyway, here’s your change.”

“Come on, babe.” Riley turns in MacTavish’s hold, steering them both and MacTavish is helpless to obey, more fucked if Riley realises exactly what he could do with a single word. It would be worth it, burning the universe down for a smile. “Let’s go home.” 

⁂

Evening falls quickly, the sky plump with the same shade of purple as a fresh bruise. 

MacTavish breaks first, a yawn rumbling through him as they lounge in the small sitting room after some scran. He’s reminded again of his da, dozing in front of the telly in an evening, arms folded across his chest and eyes closed but not yet asleep, as attuned to the signal of the remote as the set in front of him. 

“Any plans for the evening, Riley?” he asks, tipping his gaze sideways to the same chair Riley had claimed earlier. 

The other man is hunched down into it, a blanket twisted over his shoulders and one of MacTavish’s hoodies sacrificed to the cause. He’s pulled the slippers back on when they’d returned from the brief surveillance in the supermarket, and one dangles from his foot extended over the arm of the chair. A blade flickers over his fingers, the flash of metal just visible as an advert plays, some shite about cleaning products or a new tv show, in a string of pinks and greens. “Same as usual. Bother the techs, keep an eye out, sir.”

Closest thing to civilian life they’re likely to get this side of the dirt. Double bed in the house but only one of them has used it at a time, or, at least, that MacTavish knows about. Limited surveillance in the house at Price’s insistence and MacTavish isn’t going to think anything more about that. 

Sometimes, in the early hours of the morning, MacTavish will wake in pale grey denial with the bed indented just beyond his reach.

The space will be cold when he wakes fully. 

But he will keep leaving a space for Riley, crack open his ribcage for him to burrow inside if it would provide just a moment of comfort. 

“Night, Riley.”

"Been pawing at me for weeks," Mactavish growls, rucking up Riley’s fleece so he can get at the waistband of his leggings.

His ridiculous, skintight leggings that he insists on calling "tactically beneficial due to increased ease and range of movement" every time Mactavish calls him out on them. Never mind that Riley only started wearing them when he went off his suppressants.

Mactavish gets his fingers under the waist and yanks. The fabric rips down the front.

Right over Riley's crotch.

Riley’s bare fucking crotch.

Mactavish whips down his hand. Hard. Strikes his cunt dead centre like he was lining up a shot on a target. Riley arches with a moan, head knocking back into the arm of the sofa.

"Fucking slag."

His cunt drips and clenches around Mactavish’s fingers as he thrusts in two of them.

“Can’t wait to get my cock in yer cunt, stretch it out,” Mactavish says as he watches his fingers disappear with a wet, obscene squelch into the omega. His other hand drops to his belt, undoing it with a rough yank.

He’s too wound up to draw it out. Maybe another day. Maybe in some other universe where Riley doesn’t drive him up the fucking wall and blue ball him for three months.

Mactavish practically rips his fingers out of Riley before he slams his cock inside. He pants into Riley’s neck, giving them both a moment. Wet heat is wrapped around him like a vice. Riley is wriggling under him, pained little whimpers at the sudden stretch of such a large cock.

“Bit off a bit more than ye could chew, eh Riley?” Mactavish groans into the omega’s neck, biting at it through the mask. He slips his fingers under it, pulling back to gauge Riley’s reaction to the silent request.

Mactavish tugs at the edge of the mask again, rough fingers slipping under the fabric, waiting. Riley shivers beneath him, eyes dark and hazy. He doesn't pull away. Doesn't resist. Just stares up at Mactavish through his lashes, lips parted, panting softly.

Silent permission.

Mactavish rips it off.

Riley barely gets a breath in before Mactavish crushes their mouths together, swallowing the sound of it.

It’s a messy, bruising kiss, all teeth and desperation, nothing slow or sweet about it. Riley moans into his mouth, hands fisting in Mactavish’s shirt, like he’s been waiting for this just as long.

Mactavish groans, licking into his mouth, devouring him like he's wanted to for months. His stubble scrapes against Riley’s skin as he tilts his head, deepening the kiss, swallowing every little noise the omega makes.

Riley’s hips roll up, chasing friction, and Mactavish growls, shoving him down, grinding their bodies together hard enough to bruise.

"Little fuckin’ tease," Mactavish pants against his lips, "All that baitin’, all those looks. Ye just wanted this, didn’t ye? Me on top of ye, fuckin’ ye open, makin’ sure ye never even think about lettin’ some other bastard touch ye."

Riley’s eyes flutter, a fresh wave of slick spilling between his thighs. Mactavish grins against his mouth, nipping at his bottom lip. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

He presses one last, filthy, wet kiss against Riley’s swollen lips before dragging his mouth down. Biting at his jaw, his throat, his collarbone. Leaving marks that won’t fade anytime soon. Will never fade if he has anything to say about it.

Then, without warning, he snaps his hips forward. Hard enough to jostle Riley up the sofa and make sure he feels every fucking inch. "Bet that other Captain can't give it to ye this good."

Riley gasps, back bowing, hands gripping at Mactavish’s arms like he doesn’t know whether he wants to push him off or pull him closer. "That why ye let him sniff around ye, huh?" Mactavish growls, angling his hips searching for the perfect angle to make Riley scream. "Tryin’ to make me fuckin’ lose it? Make me claim ye just to keep yer bratty arse in line?"

Riley whines, the sound breathless and wrecked, but Mactavish isn’t done.

"Should break ye in right now," he mutters against Riley’s ear, voice rough, hands gripping his hips hard enough to bruise. "Knock ye up, make sure every cunt on base knows exactly who ye belong to."

Riley shudders before his cunt’s clenching down, soaking the front of Mactavish’s trousers and making a fucking mess of both of them.

"Knew it," Mactavish snarls, burying himself to the hilt. Riley chokes on a moan, fingers clawing at his back through his shirt. "All that attitude, all that teasing and yer just a desperate little omega lookin’ to get fucked proper."

Riley doesn’t argue. Can’t. Still blinking up at the ceiling with vacant eyes.

But Mactavish still isn’t satisfied.

"Say it," he orders, rutting into him, sharp, punishing thrusts that make Riley whine at the overstimulation. "Say who fucks ye best." Riley whimpers, shaking his head like he’s still got any pride left to cling to.

Wrong answer.

Mactavish grabs Riley’s thighs and hauls him up, forcing his knees nearly to his chest, folding him open completely. His next thrust is brutal, knocking the air from Riley’s lungs.

"Say it."

Riley gasps, wrecked and shaking beneath him. "You, fuck—John, only you—"

Mactavish grins, all teeth. "Damn right it is."

He doesn’t slow down. Doesn’t let up. Just keeps fucking into him, sharp, punishing thrusts that force broken moans from Riley’s throat. The omega’s legs tremble, trying to lock around Mactavish’s waist, trying to drag him deeper. His hands scrabble at his shoulders, nails biting through the fabric of his shirt.

Mactavish watches him. Takes him in.

Flushed and panting beneath him, skin slick with sweat, lips swollen from rough kisses, eyes hazy and unfocused.

A proper fucking mess.

His mess. His brat. His lieutenant.

Mactavish growls, driving into him harder, making sure he feels it, remembers it.

"This what ye needed?" he taunts, voice rough and low. "Me fuckin’ ye open like ye’ve been beggin’ for? Or do I need to fuck ye even harder, hm? Make sure ye can’t walk straight tomorrow?"

Riley whines, head tipping back, mouth parting, an offering.

Mactavish grits his teeth. His control is hanging by a fucking thread.

But it’s not enough.

Not yet.

He slows just enough to grind deep, rocking against that spot inside Riley that makes him jerk beneath him with a sharp gasp.

Mactavish grins, hands tightening on his thighs. "Not so mouthy now, are ye?"

Riley glares at him, cheeks burning, but he’s too far gone to pull off any real attitude.

Mactavish chuckles, low and dark, before dipping down, breath hot against Riley’s throat.

His omega’s throat. His brat's throat.

His teeth graze over the scent gland, over soft, vulnerable skin.

Riley moans, head tipping back that last final bit.

Mactavish doesn’t hesitate.

He bites down.