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“And finally,” Alexander McDonald said, coming to the end of his exceedingly grim update, “we believe the suppressants are losing their effectiveness. We suspect it’s the temperature. They’ve never been stored this cold for so long.”
Doctor Stanley sat unmoving beside Alexander, his gaze blank and focused on the middle of the table.
It had been two weeks ago when Stanley had sent a note over to Terror, asking his counterpart if he had noticed anything about the suppressants. The note had been vaguely worded, but Alexander had known Stanley long enough to understand what he was indicating. Alexander and Dr. Peddie had set out to subtly check in with the few omegas who were on board, to see if anything was awry.
The men on Terror by and large trusted Dr. McDonald, and so Alexander did his best to take them at their word when they answered his questions. Mr. Armitage seemed confused by the prodding. Mr. Genge reported nothing amiss. Mr. Peglar did the same, but Alexander could spot the crease of anxiety between his brows, and pulled a curtain across to separate Peglar from the few other men gathered in the sick bay.
“Are you certain there’s nothing wrong, Mr. Peglar,” asked Alexander, voice low.
Peglar’s eyes darted to a gap in the curtain, then back to the surgeon. His dark eyes were heavy with anxiety. “I think,” he started, his tongue coming out to touch his lips. Then he frowned. “I think something’s not quite right, Doctor.”
Peglar pulled his red jumper off over his head, then began to undo his shirt buttons as Alexander watched, stopping midway down his chest. Looking in the opposite direction, he pulled his collar to the side, exposing the place where his scent gland lay just below his skin. On suppressants, it should have been entirely invisible, but Alexander could see the faint pinkness of the skin that indicated an inflammation.
He worked to keep his voice even. “May I?”
Peglar nodded at Alexander’s outstretched hands.
The skin was hot to touch where it had gone pink. Upon applying the slightest pressure with the tips of his fingers, Alexander heard Peglar’s sharp intake of breath.
Then there was the scent. It was faint, but unmistakably present. Cocoa and coal dust, a strange combination but not displeasing. It wouldn’t be, of course, displeasing. Alexander was an Alpha, as were most of the higher ranking officers on the expedition. He knew well enough from experience there was very little an Alpha could find complaint about when it came to the scent of an omega reaching their heat.
“You’re taking your suppressants?” Alexander asked, knowing the answer. Peglar was a responsible lad, a highly competent and trusted seaman. He would never act recklessly.
“Yes, Sir. Every day. But I think…” He trailed off.
Alexander stared at the place Peglar’s neck, his own collar starting to feel too tight. “Yes, Mr. Peglar?”
“Is there a chance they’re not working quite like they’re supposed to?”
The two men met eyes then, and Alexander could see the fear in Peglar’s. He wondered if Peglar could see the anxiety in his own.
“Aye, there may be.”
They stood in silence for a moment, Alexander casting hopelessly about his brain for something reassuring to say, and coming up empty. The Alphas on board the two ships outnumbered the omegas at least three to one. The ratio was more skewed on Erebus. It had only been in the last decade and a half that omegas had joined months-long sailing missions, and that was only because the formula of suppressants had changed to increase their stability. They could be stored that much longer. Something had gone wrong here though, and if each of the expedition's unmated omegas were reaching a long overdue heat, they were approaching the threshold of chaos.
“I haven’t had an, ah, event in eight years,” said Peglar, breaking the silence.
Alexander almost laughed -- an “event.” The words people came up with to not call this thing by its name. -- but stopped at Peglar’s heartbroken expression.
The omega began to do up his shirt. “But then I had the suppressants.” He shrugged helplessly, his shoulders sagging in defeat.
You probably had suppressants that didn’t come from a fly-by-night manufacturer chosen by a skinflint Admiralty more concerned with ledgers than the health and wellbeing of the men they sent to the edges of the earth, thought Alexander.
“We will,” started Alexander, not at all confident with what he was about to say. “Find an unobtrusive solution.”
But they hadn’t. To try to negotiate and dream up possibilities with Doctor Stanley was to try to draw blood from a stone. This complication had clearly unmoored him, the problem unlike any he had seen on the battlefield.
“It will be madness,” was all he would say, in response to each of Alexander’s ideas, which in fairness were all flawed and largely unable to be implemented for a variety of logistical reasons.
And so Doctor Stanley was no help in the wardroom as the Captains and Lieutenants looked on, their faces losing colour by the second.
“We must find a way to manage the safety of our omega crewmembers,” said Alexander, leaning forward heavily onto his knees.
Sir John looked as if he’d been invited to his own funeral. “Do you only bring us bad tidings, Doctor, or do you offer us a solution as well?”
Alexander glanced over to Stanley, whose eyes closed. His mouth twitched. They had only identified one surefire way to prevent the kind of desperate response that so many omegas coming to heat all at once would inspire. There could be violence, even mutiny, if it were not managed.
Alexander looked away from Stanley, and cleared his throat. “We must allow the omegas to be mated-” There was a furious shifting in the room, chairs scraping against the floor. A breathy Good Lord from Lieutenant Hodgson. “At least temporarily. If we allow them to choose a suitable, amenable Alpha-”
“Absolutely not.” Sir John sneered from his place across the table. “The Admiralty will never allow it.”
“All do respect, Captain, the Admiralty hasn’t the faintest-”
A solid hand came down on Alexander’s shoulder. He looked up to the face of Thomas Blanky, concerned and warning all at once. “Watch yourself, Alex,” he muttered.
“In all my years at sea,” the Captain continued, the corners of his mouth turned dramatically downwards, “we have never allowed mating on our ships. It is simply not done. We should have never allowed omegas on board to begin with. It is against God.”
The room went quiet. Silent glances heavy with unspoken arguments were exchanged across the table several times over.
“But they are allowed,” began Captain Crozier, uncharacteristically careful. “Because they are as able as the rest of us. They are some of our finest crewmembers.”
Alexander watched Crozier’s delicate machinations with a desperate interest, these careful negotiations a skill he knew Crozier to have, but that he so infrequently displayed. He knew that Crozier had memorized the name, the age, and hometown of each man on Terror and Erebus. He suddenly realized that Crozier must know their classifications as well. Had he predicted something like this, Alexander wondered. Might he have suspected something could possibly go wrong?
“I am not enthusiastic about this solution myself. It is not..” Crozier searched for the word, “Dignified. But there are perhaps ways it could be managed discreetly, if for nothing else to avoid problems later on. We do not know how long we will be here.”
The last pronouncement, as it always did when it surfaced, took the air out of the room.
“We are stuck here in the ice with no sense of when leads may open, and our supply of suppressants is rapidly losing effectiveness. One of these problems has an immediate solution. As distasteful as it is, we cannot risk the safety of our men any further.”
Alexander wished Francis had left off the “any further” which was simply a knife twisted in Sir John’s wound of ego. However, before their captain could respond, Commander Fitzjames had leaned forward onto the table. He’d been unusually quiet through most of the conversation so far, his pale face gone sallow.
“Sir John,” he said, gently. “We cannot let this go unaddressed.” Fitzjames pressed his lips together, then cast his glance in the direction of the doctors.
Something about Fitzjames’ intervention inspired Stanley to action. “There is no alternate course of action,” he said in that voice of his that didn’t invite argument. “If we do nothing, if we allow nature to take its course, we are looking at injuries at best, mutiny and death in a worst case scenario.”
Alexander believed that it was the mention of mutiny that finally swayed Sir John.
After a brief, and deeply uncomfortable conversation, it was decided the doctors would oversee what needed to be done. As few people were to know as possible. Sir John wished to know nothing at all.
Alexander and Stanley left the wardroom, and Stanley pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and middle finger.
“How many omegas are on board Terror?” he asked, voice low and strained.
“Seven,” replied Alexander. “On Erebus.”
“Three.”
Alexander shot Stanley a skeptical look. “Three?”
“Three have self identified.”
A dull throb of frustration thudded behind Alexander’s eye. “Right.” Men would have concealed their status. The numbers would grow in the weeks to come.
“I have to get back to the sick bay.” Stanley said, turning away from Alexander.
“Let’s discuss this a moment longer, Doctor Stanley, if you please? I’m sure Mister Goodsir can oversee things for a few moments longer.”
“Mister Goodsir is not in the sick bay,” snapped Stanley.
Alexander looked on expectantly.
“He is unwell.” Stanley caught Alexander’s eyes and something passed between them.
There were three omegas on Erebus.
Alexander’s breath caught in his throat. “Where is he?”
“His berth.” Stanley’s face took on an expression that Alexander couldn’t read. “The smell is unbearable.” At that, he parted from Alexander, his aggressively tall form disappearing down the corridor.
Erebus’s assistant surgeon was an omega. It wasn’t that shocking of a revelation now that Alexander knew, but he’d never had opportunity to think of it before, what with the suppressants.
He liked Mister Goodsir. He found it strange when someone didn’t. There was an open kindness about him, an enthusiastic curiosity that made conversing with him a joy. When Goodsir spoke of climbing icebergs, crustaceans, or his family back in Scotland, he invited whoever listened in to his world. His compassion could be overwhelming, but when balanced against Doctor Stanley, Goodsir’s way was sorely needed.
So it pained Alexander to know that of all the omegas on this expedition, Goodsir appeared to be struggling first. He was the warning sign. And Stanley saw little to do with him but put him in his berth.
Without him making a conscious decision to, Alexander walked quickly to where he knew Goodsir’s small room to be. As he got closer he began to feel as if he were walking into a fog. The air was becoming progressively thicker with each step. So profound was the change in atmosphere, that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t felt some hint of it the moment he had boarded the ship.
The smell was like pine needles and fresh sap, like a wood burning stove. It filled Alexander’s throat, his lungs, his mind. Goodsir. Stanley had said it was unbearable. Alexander was still a good ten feet away with a closed door between them. If it had been like this in the close quarters of the Erebus sick bay…
Stanley was an Alpha, and Goodsir wasn’t weeks away from a heat. He was days, perhaps hours. Stanley had sent him away for his own protection. But the flimsy door on Goodsir’s berth was not going to be enough.
There were two able seamen standing not far from Goodsir’s door. Hovering, watching.
“Move on, gentlemen,” Alexander said, trying to hide the fact that he was choking on Goodsir’s scent, trying to hide the fact that his blood had started to run hot.
If Stanley didn’t have the wherewithal to deal with Goodsir, to protect him, then Alexander would have to.
He watched as the two crew members moved away, and knocked abruptly on Goodsir’s door. He didn’t wait for an answer.
Alexander was wholly unprepared for the sight he was confronted with. Goodsir was sat up in his berth in only his shirt sleeves. A sheen of sweat cast in the candlelight made him glow. A sheet was draped over his pulled up knees. His face, his face was contorted in what could have been pain if Alexander didn’t know any better. One arm was beneath the sheet, clearly pressed to the apex between his thighs.
When he saw Alexander, he startled, his arm coming out from under the sheet so quickly he struck the wall of his berth with his elbow. “Doctor McDonald,” he gasped, but it came out so much like a whine.
There was a heat radiating off of Goodsir the likes of which Alexander hadn’t felt in years. Thick, humid. He could taste the air. “Mister Goodsir.” Alexander had come here to help, but he realized then that he had no plan. Nothing that would leave Goodsir unscathed and much as he was before.
“Please, I’m-”
“Are you alright?” Alexander barely recognized the sound of his own voice. Husky and rough. He took a single step towards Goodsir, but with it he crossed half the small room. Goodsir’s scent rolled over him in waves.
“No, I’m-” Goodsir’s words broke off into another whine, and he covered his face. His colour was high. A red flush crawled down his neck and into his shirt.
“I know,” said Alexander, “I know.” In Goodsir’s presence he was running out of words. His thoughts were toppling over one another, mixing up. He needed to tell Goodsir the plan.
“I’ve never before,” cried Goodsir. “I didn’t know it was like this. It’s humiliating.”
“You’ve never gone into heat,” said McDonald, realizing how likely that was. Goodsir’s family had been well off. He’d been well taken care of. His family would have tried to prevent his every discomfort. “Mister Goodsir, we need, I mean to say you need…”
Goodsir uncovered his red rimmed eyes, and Alexander again found himself scrambling for words. It struck him, not for the first time but especially now, that Goodsir was lovely. The dark curls, the lips that looked wonderfully soft, his lithe little frame. He was small, and sweet, and Jesus bloody Christ his scent was going to make Alexander froth at the mouth.
“You need someone to take care of you, Mister Goodsir.” Those were not the words he had intended to use.
“Harry,” he said, looking up at Alexander, eyes dark and wide and pleading. “Please call me Harry.”
Alexander took another step and with it the front of his thighs were pressed up against the berth. He placed his hands on the wall on either side of Harry’s shoulders, boxing him in. If he were to brush Harry’s unbuttoned collar to the side he’d be able to see where the gland was swollen, right under the skin.
He swallowed, hard. Concentrated. “You need someone to claim you, Harry. Soon. You need to tell me who might be acceptable to you, at least for the duration of the voyage. An Alpha that you trust. Is there someone, lad? Tell me now.”
Harry whimpered. “I didn’t want it to be like this. I’ve never, no one has ever had me.”
Alexander’s prick throbbed in the leg of his trousers. Harry was a virgin. “We’ll find someone gentle then. Someone who will be good to you.”
Without thinking, he pushed his fingers into the hair on the back of Harry’s head, inspiring a moan from him that made Alexander ache. Harry stared up at him, his breath coming in little pants.
“You need to choose someone, Harry.” Alexander ached for him, his whole body pulsed with want. “Now.”
Harry reached out and touched Alexander’s chest, grabbing hold of his jacket, and he was done for. It had been a foregone conclusion the second he walked into Harry’s room. If he’d had any hope of real intention of Harry having another Alpha, Alexander would have talked to Harry through the wall, slipped a note under his door. As it was, the second he laid eyes on Harry, it was only going to be Alexander. He thanked whatever higher power there was out there that Harry had chosen him, even if it were out of desperation or lack of other options, and even if it was just until they got out the other side of the Passage, and could restock on suppressants.
Alexander captured Harry’s mouth with his own, moaned low in his stomach at the taste of their joining. With the hand not gripping Harry’s hair he pulled at the sheet draped over Harry’s legs. An anxious whimper escaped Harry’s lips and tumbled into Alexander’s mouth and he tried to soothe it away, his hand stroking the back of Harry’s neck firmly.
“I have to see,” he said. “I have to, lad.”
With Harry exposed, the air in the room got impossibly thicker, and the sight of it was enough to nearly bring Alexander to his knees. Harry’s sweetly pink cock, hard and leaking against his tummy. Then beneath him, sheets soaked with slick.
“Poor thing,” Alexander murmured. “You need it.”
He began to make work of his own uniform, cursing the buttons and flies, every hitch and layer that got in the way of claiming his omega, his Harry. All his. All of him, for as long as it took them to get out of this place.
In the end, he got his jacket open and off, and his trousers down before he decided he needed his hands back on his boy, to feel him, all of him. Alexander brought his hand down to where Harry was leaking, wet and viscous onto his berth.
Harry whined high in his throat and grabbed at Alexander’s shoulders. “Someone might come in,” he whispered, eyes darting to the door.
It was true that privacy was in limited supply on a ship, and there was no way this was happening entirely undetected. But Alexander also knew that the men would smell his scent mingled with Harry’s now, Alpha and omega. In hours, Harry would start to smell of Alexander too, rendering him untouchable to the other men on board for as long as they were mated. With Alexander in here no one would dare come in. Harry's room would be given a wide berth.
"Not while I'm here," he whispered, in that unfamiliar voice.
Then words left him entirely. He submitted to the fog that he and Harry had created, the primal, animal thing that everyone in polite society had always worked to resist. Alexander had been told before that he was more than an Alpha. That he was not to give into the hulking, aggressive drive that consumed him when encountering an omega in heat.
But with each second that passed an Alpha was all Alexander could feel himself being. His thoughts were on the edge of recognition, at risk of slipping away from him entirely.
He slipped his fingers into Harry, the silken wet of him. Tight, yes, but ready. Aching for it.
Harry's slim-fingered hand grasped at Alexander's collar. He grimaced, and his narrow hips tilted towards his Alpha, like a magnet. "Please," he whined. "I need you.”
If he’d had his right mind about him -- and he absolutely didn’t -- Alex would’ve thought to prepare Harry more, to let him adjust to this new intrusion. But there wasn’t time. He couldn’t wait.
Alexander grabbed Harry’s thigh and pulled, so his back met the mattress. His shirt slid up, revealing his belly, covered with dark hair. Alexander wanted to see all of him, explore each and every square inch of skin, but not now, all he could focus on was-
He placed both his hands on the back of Harry’s thighs, pushing them up and open, and was met with an answering moan. Harry leaked, another line of warm slick trickling down onto his blankets.
Alexander hoisted one of his knees up onto the berth, placed one hand at the back of Harry’s head so he wouldn’t bang it violently against the wall, and thrust in.
Harry’s cry could have been anguish in any other scenario, but Alexander knew it to be relief, coupled with pain and shock. He called out Alexander’s name, as if all fear of someone coming in or overhearing had ceased to exist. His hands pulled at Alexander’s waistcoat.
Alexander growled, too lost in Harry to even say his name. He bent forward, and kissed him. It was clumsy as their mouths met, with their mismatched heights and Alexander fucking into Harry with a wild desperation and Harry’s inexperience. Their teeth clicked together. Alexander bit down too hard on Harry’s lip, the omega yelping in response.
Alexander’s mind cleared for a moment, and he surveyed Harry’s face. His green eyes were rimmed with tears but there was wonder in them, a rightness too. He was a lovely, pretty thing. Alexander couldn’t think of a finer omega on these ships, or on land.
He nosed along Harry’s cheek, the tender spot under his ear, his neck, until he came to the place where his throat curved into his shoulder. Alexander salivated.
It was possible, back on land, to reverse a mating bond, heal a mark. It was deeply uncommon, but possible. If, when the ships returned to England, Harry asked for the bond to be broken Alexander could hardly hold it against him given the circumstances, but in this moment, as he pressed his teeth into the pale skin of Harry’s shoulder and broke it, tasting his tinny blood and hearing Harry’s wild release, he prayed Harry wouldn’t. He could feel Harry everywhere, smell him and taste him, and they were meant to have this, Alexander felt.
He fucked into Harry, who braced himself against the wall with the flat of his palm and wailed and sobbed through all of it.
Everyone would know, Alexander thought, who Harry belonged to.
With that, he spent, his knot forming and fitting firmly in place. He filled Harry, doing what the two of them were meant to do. Spurred on by Alexander’s moan of completion, Harry came between them as well, Alexander’s name dying on his parted, raw lips.
Alexander drew up from being tucked into Harry’s neck and looked down at him, at the sweat on his brow, at the fresh wound on his shoulder. They were connected now, would be for some time.
“Sweetheart,” he murmured, and Harry smiled an exhausted smile.
His mind momentarily clear, Alexander pictured the following: bundling Harry up and leading him back to Terror, the heat Harry radiated keeping them warm on their trek across the ice; putting him up in Alexander’s berth, finding some way, any way to make it more comfortable for him; fucking him absolutely bowlegged until he could barely walk; filling him, until he had Alexander’s pup inside him (a stupid thing to want, in these conditions, but Alexander couldn’t help himself).
Once Harry had completed his heat the two of them would work together to arrange solutions for the rest of the men on board. Other omegas wouldn’t shy from Harry. They’d trust him, making all of this so much easier. The two of them together would sort it, Alexander and his bright, clever, beautiful omega.
But first-
“Alpha,” Harry whispered, his ankle coming up to tuck behind Alexander’s thigh. “Again.”