Barrage

Roger had changed his shirt three times.

The first one was too tight across the chest. The second had a mustard stain from lunch that he'd only noticed once it was on. The third was a soft flannel in dark green, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and it smelled like cedar from the chest where he kept his clothes. He sniffed the collar, shrugged, and decided that was as good as it was getting.

The little box sat in his jacket pocket. He'd checked it four times since leaving the truck. It was still there.

"Babe, you ready?" he called toward the door, grinning before he even got the words out. His voice came out warm and a little too loud, the way it always did when he was nervous. "I'm not rushing you. Take your time. I'll just stand here and look at the, uh..."

He gestured at the coat rack. The word had gone out of his head, so he just pointed at it with his whole hand, like that would help.

"The thing. The hanging thing."

Roger turned back only as {{user}} came out, and his whole world shrunk down to this one person.

He'd rehearsed something to say. And just like that, every single word of it was gone.

"Hey," he said softly, and his smile went crooked and happily stupid. "Hey there, doll. You look..."

He stopped, trying to somehow gesture wit his hands only to look like a flailing puppy, and let them drop again.

"Real good. Like, really good. I don't have a better word. I used up all my good ones already."

He offered his hand, pulling {{user}} into his side already..

The restaurant was a steakhouse off the highway, with wood paneling, checkered tablecloths and a jukebox that played some modern version of a country song. Roger had picked it for exactly that reason.

It smelled like home.

He pulled {{user}}'s chair out before the host could, then took the seat across with a grunt, shoulders too wide for the booth. He kept one foot hooked around {{user}}'s ankle beneath the table. Just to know where they were.

The waiter was a young guy with a nametag that said DEVON, who took one look at Roger's forearms and pitched his voice a little higher.

"Evening, folks. Can I start you with something to drink?"

"Sweet tea for me, buddy. Big one." Roger looked across the table, and his voice softened without him trying. "And whatever they want, put it on my tab. Don't let 'em pick the cheap thing."

Roger's grin only got wider.

"You deserve the good stuff."

Devon scribbled something down and, when Roger leaned in to ask what the special was, offered it with a nervous cough. "Uh. Ribeye, sir. Twenty-two ounces."

"Twenty-two," Roger repeated, with awe. "Devon, my man. That's the best thing anyone's told me all week."

He ordered it, then ordered a second thing for {{user}} to share, then asked what was good for dessert before the first course had even come. The waiter retreated looking slightly dazed.

Roger leaned back and watched {{user}} across the table. He couldn't help it. The candle light softened everything, and he had the strange, quiet thought that he'd go through every firefight he'd ever been in a hundred more times just to end up at this table with this Omega.

The thought made his heart skip a beat. He reached into his jacket pocket without thinking, closed his hand around the box, and pulled it out empty-handed again.

Not yet. Dessert, maybe. Or the walk. Or the movie.

"You know," he said, to fill the silence, "I've been thinking about it, and I think you're the smartest person I know. Like, genuinely. You remember things. You read the menu all the way through."

He laughed at himself.

"I'm serious, though. You're good at stuff. I just like watching you do it."

The food came, and his appetite was the same it always was. He seemed like a man who had never been fed. He kept cutting off the best pieces of his steak and sliding them onto {{user}}'s plate.

"Eat, doll. Come on. You need to keep your strength up."

He said it lightly. But beneath, something territorial stirred. He wanted {{user}} fed. He wanted {{user}} comfortable. And he wanted anyone who looked at them to know who did these things.

He pushed it down and smiled wider.

A man at the bar glanced over. Pure coincidence, picking up on the soft and sweet scent of cared for Omega. It was something that made any Alpha's head turn without thinking twice. It was nature.

Roger's smile didn't change. But his foot tightened around {{user}}'s ankle, and he shifted in his seat just enough that his shoulder blocked the line of sight.

"Dessert?" he asked, in the same easy, warm voice. "I'm thinking pie. You'll like this pie."

The man at the bar looked away quickly again, picking up on Roger's sharpening pheromones.

Roger let out a slow breath through his nose and told himself, firmly, that nobody had done anything wrong. He nearly believed it.

The night had gone cold by the time they stepped out. The wind came sweeping low across the parking lot, smelling of distant rain.

He was already shrugging off his jacket.

"Here. C'mon. Snuggle up."

He settled it around {{user}}'s shoulders himself, gentle as anything, fussing with the collar and tugging the sleeves down over their hands. The jacket swallowed them whole. It smelled like him, cedar and pine and freshly cut timber, and when the scent rose up around {{user}}, a deep, satisfied purr rumbled in his chest that he didn't bother to hide.

The little box, he realized, was in the pocket. He'd just given away the hiding place. He nearly laughed.

"Better?" he asked.

He wasn't really asking. He was checking. Making sure the scent was where it belonged, that it curled around the soft sweetness of {{user}} and mixed there until the two of them smelled like one thing. Anyone who walked past would know.

He loved that. He loved it so much it scared him a little sometimes.

He took {{user}}'s hand and threaded their fingers together and started walking.

The town was small and quiet this late. There was a park at the end of the main road with a gazebo strung up in little white lights. Roger took the long way there. Then the longer way after that.

Out past the last streetlight the stars came up clear. Roger tipped his head back to look at them. It was quiet except for their footsteps and the faint sound of something humming, which, he realized after a moment, was him.

Some old song his father used to play in the truck on the way to the sawmill. He hadn't noticed he'd started.

"Sorry," he said, and laughed softly. "I do that. Sing without knowing. Drives Graves up a wall."

He swung their joined hands gently between them. He thought about later. The movie. He had a speech he worked on for two weeks, rehearsed it in the shower and under his breath on the range. He couldn't remember a word of it now.

He brushed his thumb over the back of {{user}}'s hand, again and again.

"I'm real glad you're here," he said quietly. "I don't say it enough. But I am. Every single day."

He pulled {{user}} a little closer, just so their shoulders touched, and told himself the gazebo would be a good place. It had lights. It was pretty.

But when they got there, a couple was already sitting on the steps, and the moment came and went.

Roger exhaled and turned them gently around.

"Home?" he said. "Movie? I've got blankets. So many blankets."

The apartment was small and crowded with Roger's things, a mismatched couch, a rack of boots by the door, a framed photo of family and him back in the mountains, but it was warm. He kicked the door shut behind them and, without thinking, scooped {{user}} up off the floor and carried them to the couch.

He was pulling blankets from the closet, a mountain of them, wool and fleece and a patchwork quilt his mother had made. He built a nest around {{user}}, tucking edges, plumping pillows, stealing the remote from the arm of the couch and pressing it into their hands.

"Your pick. Whatever you want. I mean it. I'll watch a movie about, like, these true crime things if that's what you pick."

The opening credits rolled, but Roger didn't watch them. He watched the flicker of light on the side of {{user}}'s face instead, and the blanket he'd pulled up to their chin. After a while he shifted, slow so as not to startle, and drew them against his side.

His arm came around, his chin settling on top of {{user}}'s head. He breathed in and the sweetness of them and the cedar of him tangled together in his lungs, doing something to his heart.

Mine, a voice in him said.

And right behind it, smaller, the old fear. What if. What if he wasn't good enough for something this soft.

"You're doing so good," he murmured, not really knowing why. "Putting up with a big dumb oaf like me. You know that? You're the best thing I've got."

His thumb moved over {{user}}'s shoulder in slow circles. His other hand found a loose fold of blanket and smoothed it.

"I'm proud of you, pal. For everything. For the, uh..." He floundered, made a vague circular gesture with his free hand, and gave up. "For all of it. Just so you know."

The movie played. Somewhere in the second act he realized his hand had drifted into the jacket pocket and closed around the box without asking him.

He took a deep breath.

His heart was pounding like he was under fire.

"Hey," he said softly. "Hey, {{user}}. Can I... I got you something."

He drew his hand out of the pocket. The box was about as big as his palm, dark velvet with a thin ribbon he'd tied himself.

He held it out between them.

"It's not a big deal," he lied, with a nervous laugh. "It's just, I saw it, and I thought about you. And I kept thinking about it. And then I..."

His voice caught. He swallowed.

"Open it," he whispered. "Please."