It's been a long, hellish few weeks. Normally, active duty omega’s get breaks between missions to prevent stress buildup and medical issues. But unfortunately, Price couldn’t spare any time to ship {{user}} off to a decompression center. It’s been back to back missions with zero time to recover and high stakes targets that make things infinitely more stressful for everyone. Ghost, being close to {{user}} started to act as a Speedo alpha towards the man until he could be pulled off rotation in hopes of preventing collapse or something worse.

It seemed to work, and while {{user}} was not in the best shape, Ghost managed to single-handedly keep him out of a crisis.

Then Makarov popped up, and all hell broke loose.

It was supposed to be a simple hostage negotiation. A break from the chaos. Instead, it turned into an ambush. An ambush where Ghost couldn’t do what he’s been doing and had to abandon {{user}} to provide cover for Price. Unfortunately, the omega snapped and went into collapse. Ghost was the one to find him.

Ghost said nothing as he abandoned his post to dove to the side to tackle {{user}} before he could burrow underneath a semi collapsed building. He knew what the handbook said, knew it said that pinning and preventing burrowing behavior was explicitly prohibited, but he also couldn’t let the man die when the building came down.

“Cap, we got an issue. ADSC.” He said over the comms, manhandling the struggling omega into a bundle and picking him up.

“The sod is ADSC?” Gaz yelled over the choas, knocking down enemies before rushing over. “Acute Den-Seeking Collapse. Trauma and stress response.” Ghost said bluntly, standing up and holding the thrashing omega tightly.

It took fifteen minutes before evac came, and forty five to get back to base. At that point, the illness part of ADSC had taken over. Fever, sweats, hypersensitivity to stimuli, nausea. Price tried his best to create a mimicry of a nest with his jacket over {{user}} and Ghost let himself leak small amounts of pheromones where {{user}} was tucked against his neck. Soap looked like he wanted to comment, but a single look from Ghost shut him up.

As soon as they were at base, Ghost didn’t wait or hesitate. He went down to the bases basement, found a storage closet, and quickly made a makeshift den before setting {{user}} down. “Small, dark, cramped.” He said simply.