Chapter Text
Ghost was brutal and efficient, and always kept to himself. Nobody would even know he was a werewolf if it wasn’t for his glowing eyes and giant, hulking body that left him towering above any human. He kept his urges and instincts locked away, the beast inside him carefully contained beneath his skin, with very few exceptions. He was the perfect soldier to lead a charge, able to do the work of at least four regular humans all on his own. As long as he didn’t lose control, he was well worth the risk he posed to his fellow soldiers.
Soap, on the other hand, was a ball of pure energy, equal parts chaotic and brilliant. He was the quintessential dog hybrid, with a tail that was constantly wagging, his ears twitchy and expressive as he reacted to the world around him. He loved physical touch, and was always snuggling up to the other soldiers to get praised. His high level of energy mixed with his unwavering desire to do good made him especially valuable in the field, often taking charge and letting his instincts guide the team. His friendly and outgoing nature made him a favorite among his fellow soldiers, who all adored him.
Well, most soldiers, that was.
Ghost hated Soap. Of that, Soap was absolutely certain. He had a nose for these things- quite literally.
But he didn’t understand why Ghost despised him so. Soap had been nothing but friendly to him- offering to share his snacks, and even trying to lend him his favorite plushie one time.
Ghost hadn’t appreciated the gesture, and Soap had been left alone behind a closed door with his tail tucked between his legs, and his ears pressed flush to his head.
He knew that werewolves were very different from other hybrids, of course. Because they weren’t part animal, but rather part beast. Soap would love to know more about them, to know more about Ghost. Like what his likes and dislikes were, or if they had anything in common apart from the ability to howl and bark.
And to be fair, he had asked him, plenty of times, but Ghost never gave any answers.
It was because Ghost found him to be annoying, Soap reminded himself. It was because Soap had too much energy, and because he always tried too hard, even though it was clear that his fascination with Ghost was painfully one-sided. He didn’t care about Soap’s favorite scents, or the new treats Gaz had got him to try, or his latest chew toy that was so good at sharpening his canines.
And although Soap had gotten the hint that Ghost didn’t want to get to know him, he still kept talking and pushing.
It all came to a head one day after a mission that only the two of them had been sent on. The trek to the extraction point was long, leading them over rough terrain and through biting icy winds, but that wasn’t much of a problem for a werewolf and a dog hybrid. Ghost kept a steady pace, back perfectly straight and head held high, his eyes focused on the path ahead.
Always watching and listening, never letting his guard down. Soap wasn’t even certain that he ever blinked.
Soap was the complete opposite. He did try to match Ghost’s stride, to just walk in a straight line for hours, in complete silence. But it was impossible to. How could Ghost stay so calm and collected when there were so many sounds, and smells, and pretty little leaves falling from the trees?
That was when Soap spotted it. He gasped out loud, making a beeline for one of the nearby trees.
“Stay focused, Sergeant,” Ghost warned him, voice lowered.
“Oh calm your tits, Ghost. If anyone was nearby we would be able to smell them from kilometers away,” Soap said, not a care in the world. He dug through the little pile of leaves at the bottom of the tree, pulling out a stick that looked strikingly similar to a sniper rifle.
A stick and a firearm, all in one! What could be better? Nothing! Even someone as boring and uptight as Ghost would be sure to appreciate it.
“Ghost, look!” Soap called out as he jogged over to him. “I found just the thing for you. See, it looks just like a rifle, doesn’t it? But it’s a stick! During the next full moon you could bring it with you when you-”
“Stay fucking quiet,” Ghost growled, the sound unlike anything Soap had ever heard from him before. He swore he could feel it rattling through his bones, coldness seeping through his skin and causing his entire body to shiver.
Soap’s reaction was immediate- he dropped the stick, his ears pressing flat against his head while his tail wrapped protectively around one of his legs. Before he could stop himself, he let out a small whimper, low and needy and terrified.
He knew that he’d been playing with fire. Ghost had been on edge all day, but Soap had kept pestering him, kept poking at him, when he knew how annoying Ghost found him to be even on a good day.
Soap knew that he was annoying. Ghost wasn’t the only person who thought he was, he could see it on the others' faces sometimes too. The way they would look away, pretending not to see him. The annoyed little sighs and eye rolls when Soap started talking with no signs of slowing down.
And they were only human, while Ghost was a werewolf. It was easy to forget sometimes. Because while Ghost could be intimidating in the field, he never really acted on that part of himself.
He wasn’t the horror story Soap had been warned about, so he had grown too comfortable around him, forgetting that Ghost was a dangerous beast, while Soap was just a silly little dog.
“Sorry,” was all he managed to force out of his mouth. Not that Ghost would want him to say anything else, he’d surely be even more annoyed with him if he attempted to come up with any half-assed excuses.
Soap slowed his pace a little, putting some distance between them and allowing Ghost to take the lead. The stick lay forgotten on the ground.
Ghost sighed, and Soap couldn’t help but tense up at the sound.
“One hour to the extraction point,” he said, this time in his normal voice.
“Understood,” Soap responded.
The silence that followed felt stiff and unnatural, but Soap made no move to break it.
He’d been witness to Ghost letting his inner wolf loose only a handful of times before. It had always been out in the field, when they were in the gravest of danger, when he was facing an enemy he couldn’t handle in his human form.
He had never snapped at Soap like that before, and Soap didn’t know how to deal with it now that he had.
Soap understood that Ghost was different from him. Werewolves were rare and kept to themselves, so Soap didn’t know much about them apart from what he’d learned growing up.
Werewolves weren’t playful and easily excitable like Soap was. They weren’t people-pleasers obsessed with receiving praise. They were dangerous. There was a reason why they had been hunted to near extinction, and why most of them ended up either in the military or in prison. It was the only way to ‘keep the beast in check’, or so the stories went.
Soap hadn’t believed them, but perhaps he’d been wrong in that assessment.
The waiting helo was parked in a clearing, awaiting their return. Soap didn’t greet the personnel the way he usually would, and ignored the candy bar that always awaited him next to his seat.
He didn't deserve it today. He’d disobeyed Ghost’s orders when he’d been told to stay focused, and he’d even made Ghost angry enough to snap at him.
Ghost sat down next to him, one seat left empty between them.
The silence wasn’t quite as noticeable when they were up in the air, all thanks to the loud clattering of the helo.
“I’m sorry,” Ghost said suddenly, causing Soap to blink and look over at him.
“What?”
“I said I’m sorry.”
“What about, sir?”
Ghost frowned at him. Soap fought the urge to look away.
“For allowing the wolf to take over. For yelling at you.”
“I was pestering you, it was only fair,” Soap argued back. It wasn’t like he’d never gotten yelled at before. It had just never been as intense as it had been with Ghost. Hadn’t rattled his bones and made him cold to the very core before.
“That’s not an excuse,” Ghost said, his tone sharp. “You shouldn’t have to deal with that shit just because I was struggling to control myself.”
Soap wanted to ask him to clarify what he meant, but stopped himself at the last second. He didn’t want to push his luck any further than he already had.
“It’s alright,” Soap reassured him with a small smile. The frustrated grunt Ghost let out in return told him that he didn’t feel the same way.
This time the silence that followed wasn’t quite so oppressive. Soap closed his eyes, close to drifting off to sleep when Ghost spoke again.
“You not gonna have that?” Ghost asked, nodding to the candy bar still left on the seat separating them when Soap cracked an eye open to glance at him.
“Ah? No, I can’t,” Soap said.
Ghost raised an eyebrow at him. “Why? Don’t you love those things?”
“Well, yeah,” Soap paused, unsure of how he was going to explain this to Ghost. “But they’re a reward for when I’ve been good. So since I don’t deserve to have it, I can’t accept it. It wouldn’t be the same.”
Ghost nodded slowly, eyeing him thoughtfully.
“Is that why you do the whole ‘give paw’ thing and stand around waiting for people to call you a good dog?”
Soap laughed nervously, itching at his nose in an attempt to hide his flushed cheeks.
“Kinda? It just calms my brain, I suppose. When I know that I’ve done a good job. Makes all those bad thoughts go away. Makes me feel like myself again.”
“I see,” Ghost said. A brief silence followed before he spoke again. “Isn’t like that for me. For me it’s all about aggression.”
“Oh?” Soap was practically holding his breath. This was the first time he’d ever heard Ghost talk about his experiences of being a werewolf.
“That’s why I like fighting. Calms down the wolf part of me. But if I don’t get that outlet, it can boil over.”
“Like it did back there?” Soap asked.
“Usually gets a lot worse than that, but yeah.”
“What stopped it from getting worse?” Soap couldn’t help but ask.
Ghost turned to look at him, his expression unreadable as always. “You, probably. You reacted badly, and my wolf didn’t like that, so it stopped.”
Soap’s eyes widened slightly.
“Oh?”
Soap wanted to push further, to ask why Ghost’s inner wolf seemed to care about how he felt. But he bit his tongue. He didn’t want to push too far, not now that Ghost had finally opened up and talked to him.
They both looked down as Soap’s tail began to rhythmically thump against the seat. Soap quickly gathered it in his arms in a feeble attempt to stop it from wagging, while Ghost’s eyes crinkled at the corners, something close to a laugh leaving him.
Soap laughed as well, bright and loud, as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulder. Ghost didn’t hate him! One might even go so far as to say he tolerated him.
Ghost held out his hand toward him, palm up. Soap tilted his head to the side, looking between it and Ghost’s face a few times.
“Give paw,” Ghost clarified.
Soap’s tail began to wag again when he immediately placed his hand in Ghost’s. His smile widened to the point that it was nearly painful, beaming up at Ghost as if he were the sun itself.
“Good pup,” Ghost said, lightly petting his ear with his free hand.
If Soap could purr, he would have vibrated so hard that the helo would have fallen out of the sky.
“Good pup,” Soap repeated dreamily, as if he needed the reminder that he was, in fact, a good pup.
The candy bar was placed into his hand, and this time, Soap accepted it.
~~~~~~
Two weeks later, the relationship they’d had before Ghost snapped at him seemed so far away that Soap could barely recall it.
Soap had learned to give Ghost a bit of space when he needed it, while Ghost had learned that Soap was a lot more manageable when he caved and gave him exactly what he wanted. Their dynamic out in the field had blossomed, with Ghost barking orders, and Soap scrambling to follow them with his tail wagging behind him.
“The last couple of missions have all been pretty quiet,” Soap commented, falling into step beside Ghost. They had just completed their latest mission, and Soap was still buzzing with energy that he hadn’t gotten a proper outlet for. “You doing alright? You haven’t gotten to do any serious maiming for a while.”
Ghost only shrugged. “I suppose I found a better outlet for it.”
“A better outlet? Then hunting? What do you mean?”
Ghost didn’t answer, busying himself by digging through his pack.
“Here. Found this and thought of you,” he said instead, holding out a stick toward Soap.
Not just any stick, but a really good stick.
“That’s one good fucking stick, Lt,” Soap grinned, his tail already beginning to wag behind him, hard enough to make him nearly trip over his own feet.
“You want me to throw it for you?” Ghost offered.
Soap rolled his eyes. “I’m not that much of a dog, Lt.”
“Would you rather have a treat, then?”
“...Can I have both?”
Ghost pretended to think it over for a moment.
“Just this once. And don’t tell Price.”
“I won’t if you don’t,” Soap grinned as he smuggled the stick into his own pack. He wanted to save it forever, maybe place it on an empty spot in his bookcase and gawk at it in awe whenever he thought about Ghost. Which happened a lot more often now that Ghost had started allowing him to get closer.
“You sure you don’t need something to kill or maim, Lt?” he turned to face Ghost, only to find Ghost already watching him, his eyes soft.
“I’m positive.”