Chapter Text
Within the first week, Roach had gotten adjusted and was beginning to enjoy the new dynamics and the people he’s met. He and Soap have gotten somewhat close and he and Gaz bond over shared interests, He gets along fine with Captain Price, and Ghost is just odd and mildly anti-social.
However, Roach has come to learn he cannot stand wolf partials habits.
Initially, Roach had been convinced it was just Ghosts weird habits, and then he realized Soap did similar, or the same odd things Ghost did.
Neither of them have any sense of personal space, they consistently get unreasonably close or will straight up hang off each-other or anyone unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity. Of course, the personal space issue became increasingly obvious with Roach specifically, at first trying to explain why personal-space was important to him, and bat-partials in general, before giving up and telling both of them off by either shoving them off or single word responses, usually ‘No’ or ‘Don’t.’
It mostly worked, although the first instance Roach had been minding his business, walking to the mess hall and keeping himself tucked away from the sun, he had not heard the approaching steps of a certain wolf-partial and was taken off guard by Soap pouncing on him, making him stumble forward a few steps, nearly getting caught in the sun, only barely catching himself and pressing back against the wall furthest from the light.
“Jesus Christ!” He cursed, clutching his hand over his heart before standing up straight and running his hands over the front of his shirt with a deep breath. He turned to face Soap who looked guilty for nearly getting him burnt.
“Sorry, mate, I didn’t mean to shove you that hard” He apologized and Roach sighed before waving him off.
A similar incident had played out not much later, a week or so after, when Soap had done the same, and although Roach hadn’t been pushed under sun, he had been shoved into Ghost.
The man had only turned his head to look at Roach, then Soap equally unimpressed before telling him to ‘sod off’, then, without a second thought, put a hand on Roaches head to flatten his hair, trying to be nice.
Roach slapped his hand away and scowled at him and Ghost was just left confused while he walked off, Soap had shrugged, just as clueless as he was.
Another thing Roach came to hate, was how Ghost didn’t care how people perceived him.
He claims he’s ‘just’ direct but more often than not, its just being rude. He tells people that are speaking to him that he doesn’t care, and repeatedly does so until they get the message and stop trying to talk to him, or will do things without getting proper permission, poking and prodding at personal belongings if he decides he’s curious enough.
He and Soap together is a horrible duo, all they do is egg each-other on if they’re paticularly curious about something, Soap usually charming his way into information or Ghost snooping around and reporting back to each-other for whatever they found out about some drama they overheard and had nothing to do with in the first place.
It could be considered impressive had Roach not seen how stupidly lucky they both were and somehow got off scot-free whenever they got caught.
The next issue Roach has with him, is that he does the bare minimum of maintaining his side of the room.
Every time he sees Ghost kick something under his bed when Roach asks him to organize and calling it ‘clean’ puts a minor sense of fear in him, partially from past sudden room inspections and he’d been punished for not folding the corners of his sheets properly. Although, its overall just a vampire thing to keep your space clean, and while he keeps himself from meddling with his side of the room, he can’t help but get unreasonably annoyed whenever he throws things atop his bed or doesn’t organize his wardrobe.
He has watched how he interacts with other people, he doesn’t care to be liked or viewed positively aside from the bare minimum in manners, to the point it stresses Roach out watching him interact with people with varying levels of visual distain. One time full on telling someone he had no interest in continuing to talk to them and telling Roach he was going to leave.
However, just as similarly Ghost had begun getting annoyed at Roaches vampire tendencies.
While Ghost has stayed attempted to stay understanding and has helped Roach navigate base during the day, helping him out when needed, it gets to a point.
The first thing he had gotten annoyed by that he still thinks could, possibly be a joke, is the fact Roach takes the liberty of requesting to be invited into any room. He will either wait just outside or knock and wait for a verbal affirmation that he can enter.
Another thing, is that Roach frets over how he portrays himself, saying he should try being ‘nicer’. Which makes no sense to him, and when he’s asked any other wolf-partial, has agreed with him that being straight-forward is simply better and even if its ‘rude’, is better than being nice.
In fact, he could claim Roach is the rude one with how often he complains about the way he does things, the one time they’d been forced into formal uniforms, Roach had claimed his tie was not done correctly.
But it had been done correctly, a double Windsor, although it weren’t fully even, you only ever saw the top of it because it was hidden under the coat that always stayed buttoned-up. Who would care?
Vampires, apparently.
In the end, he had let Roach do his tie, much easier than arguing with him over it.
Ghost felt he was beginning to understand why Roach had been demoted, sure he’d gotten into a fight with some bloke, but maybe he had been sent off to be paired with him because he had been annoyingly pestering everyone he crossed paths with.
Turns out, his assumption was wrong as the event they had gone to, Roach had suddenly gone stiff as he saw an unnervingly recognizable face.
“Ghost” He spoke up as he turned his face the other away from the entrance.
“Huh?”
“Don’t look, but the guy I punched is here”
Ghost immediately turned his head in said direction, about to make a snide remark before he took sight of who he was talking about. He stared for a few moments, before looking to Roach, then looking back as if he wasn’t looking at the right person.
“The blonde?” He asked, as if he weren’t the only person to enter when Roach spoke, although a few people trailed in behind him.
“Yes, the blonde”
The man Roach had gotten into a fight with was fucking Commander Graves.
“Are you being serious?” Before he could get an answer, the voice he had come to associate with nothing good had spoken up.
“Ghost, its great to see you..” He trailed off as he stared at Roach, and he stared back.
“Commander” Roach smiled, trying to be polite, he stretched a hand out to shake his hand.
“Oh,” Graves hesitantly forced a smile, and almost offended, looked down at his hand.
He glanced between Ghost and Roach, before putting a more genuine, albeit condescending smile, on his face.
“Im sure you keep a short leash, Lieutenant?” He slyly commented, “He’s definitely got a short fuse” He glanced down at Roaches dress uniform discontentedly, probably finding something minuscule to correct him on.
“I do not have a ‘short fuse’” He corrected, dropping his hand back to his side.
“You attacked me, unprovoked” Graves spoke as of it were the most obvious thing in the world, looking around the room as if there were bystanders watching or listening in.
“It wasn’t unprovoked”
Graves looked to Ghost with an expectant look, as if awaiting him to step in and correct Roach, but Ghost was looking at Roach and didn’t spare a glance in his direction, so he continued on.
“So you’re saying Im to blame? Thats not nice, Roach. Besides, the report says otherwise”
“Im just saying you provoked me -“
“You broke my nose and cracked my rib, if i weren’t a bat partial, i’d still be injured”
“Yeah, and you’re lucky-“
“You’re threatening me now?” He sighed melancholically before turning back to Ghost.
“Short fuse” He stated, enunciating each word with a pause “Also, you should check your tie” He spoke once more, who it was directed at was unclear although he didn’t stick around to explain as he was already walking away, immediately being pulled into a new conversation.
Ghost stared at where the commander once stood, before processing the interaction.
“What?” He finally asked, the only thing he could conjure up in the moment.
“Wait, what?” He repeated, looking to Roach as if he had some kind of answer for what Graves claimed he did.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds” Roach defended, before looking to his tie and scowling at it as if it had condemned him to lose the argument.
“You cracked his rib”
“Barely”
“You don’t ‘barely’ crack a rib”
“I punched him in the face, and when he fell, I kicked him and miscalculated where his stomach was, hit one of the lower ribs, then got a second kick in, before I got pulled away” He explained, “Also, when i said he was ‘lucky’, I wasn’t threatening him, I was just gonna say he’s lucky to be a bat partial with all the healing attributes.”
Ghost nodded, and Roach finally excused himself for the bathroom, and Ghost followed.
He watched leaning against the edge of the sink counter, his back to the mirror as Roach began re-doing his tie, cursing after a few ‘sub-par’ attempts, as he put it in his annoyed, mumbling rant.
“I’ll do it” Ghost decided, not caring as Roach tried to argue with him, finally going silent as both ends of his tie were taken in one hand and he was pulled to stand in front of Ghost, getting a bit closer than necessary, not taking in how close he was as he put his hands on the counter, either side of Ghost.
Roach avoided looking at his face and watched his hands, or maybe the ground, Ghost couldn’t exactly tell looking down at him.
“There” He said as he tightened the final loop, two fingers still rested between the tie and Roaches throat, he stared at his neck before pulling his hands away and Roach took a step back, running a hand over his chest, down to his stomach as if doing one final check.
Ghost kept from look at his face as he crossed his arms, before realizing he probably looked a bit odd staring at his chest, and finally looked to the door past him as it swung closed behind someone leaving.
“Thanks” Roach nodded, adjusting the tie himself, wanting to continue meddling with it but feeling it was rude to do so with Ghost standing right in front of him.
“Sorry” He spoke up, still looking at his own tie.
“For what?”
“I got into an argument and now you’re stuck cleaning up my mess”
“Its hardly a mess and i’m not cleaning it up, besides I didn’t realize you could be rude”
“I wasn’t trying to be rude” He defended, more offence in his tone than he meant to let on.
“Sorry, I just mean you shouldn’t take his shit”
“And I don’t” He sounded just as annoyed as he did before, probably some sense of hurt pride as he furrowed his brows and tightened a grip on his own tie. Ghost decided to just shift the subject away from his faults.
“What were you even ranting about?“ He asked.
“Huh?”
“You were ranting and i caught a few things but you were going faster than I could keep up, I think you switched to french in some parts” He joked
“Oh, yeah, I did, and he was being rude to you too, in a vampire way” Roach explained and honestly, Ghost hadn’t actually caught that fact.
“You speak French?”
“French-Canadian”
“I thought you were American”
“Split citizenship” He answered again, clearly relaxing.
He nodded, “Back to Graves”
“Alright, first thing he did was get into your space, then when he grimaced at my uniform, he also did it to yours, and the tie comment was directed at you, and he called you dense every time he directly talked to you”
“Oh” He looked down at his own tie, beginning to scrutinize and was going to pull it apart himself before remembering he didn’t actually care.
“He was being passive aggressive but the only people that ever notice are other bat-partials, so you know, we have a reputation for starting things out of nothing” He gestured between him and Ghost “hence the program”
The rest of that night he stayed close by Ghosts side, and so Roach had him over his shoulder the rest of the night.
A few present wolf-partials gave him questioning looks, most of the looks being from Soap who looked like he desperately wanted to tease Ghost.
He, however, eventually got his way when the two were sparring and were predictably talking down to each other.
“Are you serious?” Soap condescendingly asked when he finally got the upper hand against Ghost and was able to sweep his leg, pin him and get him to tap out.
He clearly had won due to the fact they’d been fighting for nearly an hour and a half because Soap just couldn’t quit on a losing streak, and the win was partially for Ghost actually starting to get tired of being begged for another round because he was a sore loser.
“No offence, but i’m pretty sure your ass is bruised, and not in a fun, kinky way” He spoke as he retreated to the bench to grab his water bottle.
“Fuck you” He desperately snapped.
“Yeah, you’d like that” He joked and Soap, picking up on the fact he wasn’t winning this conversation, decided to try and lowball him.
“I’m sure Roach would” He slyly commented and although Ghost didn’t look at him, he visibly tensed, a tall, dog-like ear twitching in his direction.
Soap barely caught it and had to double take, before smiling to himself, he knew exactly what he had to do.
“What?” Ghost asked, looking over at him.
Despite never wondering if they were dating, let alone question how straight he was, Soap began by asking “Well, aren’t you two..?” Then made a vague gesture with his hand.
“Aren’t we what?” Ghost stared at him, waiting for him to continue before it registered, “God, Soap! We’re not dating”
“You two are always together” He defended.
“Yeah, we are too” He pointed out, “also, me and Roach are forced to be close”
“Well, lot of people think we’re gay, and also, I don’t hover over Lea’s shoulder” He pointed out, Lea was the bat-partial he was paired up with.
Although even before being paired up, he clearly had a slight crush. If it had gone away was outside of Ghosts knowledge, and he had stopped caring when it became clear his infatuation was going no where, whether because Lea was uninterested or unaware didn’t matter.
“Yeah, because she’s a medic so your duties don’t exactly overlap the same way me and Roaches do, and you got banned from the med-bay unless you’re dead or dying because you hovered” He pointed out, crossing his arms,
“I hovered because I liked her”
“We hover over each-other, we lean on each-other, and we do a bunch of other stuff, you aren’t proving anything romantic going on, its just how any wolf-partial would show affection” He explained as if speaking to a child.
“Well, you went to the bathroom with him”
“To help him with his tie”
“So you were in his space?”
“How else am I meant to tie a tie?”
“I bet you couldn’t take your eyes off him” He was trying to see if he could make Ghost slip up with his wording and be misinterpreted to affirm his, albeit fake, suspicions.
Instead of an answer, he was surprised to see Ghost press his ears back against his head as he looked away from him, grabbing his balaclava and tugging it on in some attempt to be nonchalant.
“Fuck off” Ghost finally spat.
“Wait, are you serious?” He was in genuine disbelief and couldn’t find a way to convey in words how insane this was to him, he could barely contain his excitement and felt he had struck gold, nearly grabbing his own tail to keep it from moving wildly.
“If he finds out, I’m going to kill you” He stated and genuinely looked like he’d follow through on his promise.
“You sound like an edge-lord” Soap scoffed, before asking “Why do you like him?”
“I don’t know”
“Come on”
“For all I know, this might not actually be anything and I just think I like him because we’re around each-other all the time and he’s nice to me and tells me off when he needs to”
“So you like him cause he’s nice and yells at you sometimes? Thats your type? Like, genuinely?”
“You make me sound pathetic”
“Maybe don’t sound pathetic then”
“Yeah cause you are the master of not sounding pathetic” He spoke deadpan and looked at him unimpressed. “Besides, I don’t even know why I think I like him”
Soap was going to defend himself before letting it slide due to the fact Ghost would bring up plenty of examples. He always came with a gun to a knife fight, whether or not the gun was loaded, you shouldn’t take your chances with him, a valuable lesson he learnt early on in his friendship with him.
He did, however get the message, and finally dropped the subject and let the man run off to the locker room.
Upon returning to his room, he carelessly tossed his bag of dirty clothes atop his bed to deal with later, usually whenever Roach got back and started telling him to deal with it sooner than later before departing again.
He found said man as soon as he opened the door as he was returning.
“Oh, hey” Roach smiled, and Ghost hardly processed it before giving him a nod and an answer.
“Hi”
“You getting food?” He asked, despite the fact he only went to meals to spend time with people, or occasionally try whatever supplement was directed at bat-partials as some kind of substitute for real blood, always giving a detailed review like he were wine testing, although the reviews usually consisted of ‘This barely passes for a supplement’.
“Mhm” He nodded.
“Wait up for me” He ordered and walked past him into the room and side-eyeing the bag on his bed and dropping off his work journal atop his dresser.
“You going to deal with that?” He asked, scrunching his face in distaste.
“Was hoping you’d find me later to remind me” Ghost jokingly answered.
“Mhm” Was his response before leaving the room and leading the way, Ghost trailed behind the same way he was getting used to, had his tail not been cropped, he’d have wagged it.