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prouddogboi · 1 year

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Stray dog (Part 2)

To find the most recent chapters, please go to @doggoboigaugau 's masterlist

Sorry it took me quite long lmao TToTT School and work deadlines are killin' me.

Pairings: Ghost x Soap x Male Reader

Summary: Male Reader is traumatized and refuses to open up to 141. Soap found out something horrible going on with him and told Ghost about it.

Word count: 1910

Warnings: Smoking. Mention of attempts to self-h@rm.

The next morning you woke up with a throbbing headache. It was so bad that you felt like hundreds of needles were jabbed into your eye sockets and every time you blinked, those needles plunged into your brain, sending a sharp and chilling pain to the crown of your head. This was by no means a strange occurrence for you though, given the fact that every night the base celebrated a party you always indulged in this self-sabotaging habit.

Still, no matter how bad the situation was, you still had training to attend to, tasks to get done, reports to compile, and a miserable life to live. You turned your head to look at the clock, silently praying that it wasn’t too late.

It was 13:00 in the afternoon already.

“Shit!” You threw an arm over your forehead. Nice, you missed the morning training session. It was your responsibility today to train the new recruits and now you messed up the whole Task Force’s schedule once again just because you could not handle your pathetic emotions properly. The thoughts of giving up flooded your mind yet again since it was no use in waking up anyway, it was too late to do anything useful. The other team members were already aware of how irresponsible you were as you continuously failed to be on time for training the newbies. And what about the newbies’ impression of you? Probably an unreliable man who was no longer fit to be a member of a special Task Force that was particularly famous for its efficiency. Or maybe you were never fit to be one to begin with.

Why didn’t the others wake you up? You had worked here long enough to know how scary and irritated Ghost could get when people missed his training session. There were even times when he immediately had the unpunctual soldiers pack their things and get sent to another department because he couldn’t fuckin’ stand people disrespecting his schedule.

“Maybe they forget about my existence. Maybe I wasn’t that big of a part of this Task Force.” You mumbled to yourself, trying to pull your tired body out of the heavy blanket. As much as you wanted to give up, the desire to be important to someone, something, or some organization, …just anything, urged you to wake up and keep trying. You wanted yourself to be seen.

Upon opening the door of your stuffy room, you instinctively covered your eyes as they were attacked by rays of blinding sunlight. Your room was too dark and gloomy, doors and windows tightly shut all day and night, no wonder you would react so unfavorably to the bright sunlight that is often associated with positive moods by most people.

The base was unusually quiet. You didn’t meet a single soul on your way to the kitchen to fill your hungry stomach. No Soap cracking stupid jokes with his heavy Scottish accent and laughing loudly to them himself, no Gaz cursing at his jokes, no Roach laughing at the two dumb manchildren, no Price sighing and telling them to at least be less raucous. You tried to shrug the nasty nagging feelings off, but it soon became unbearable when you walked into the kitchen and saw all the dirty dishes in the sink.

“They have finished their lunch.” And they had it without you. The people you considered to be your own family, much closer than the biological family that you had cut all contact with, didn’t wake you up from your drunken sleep, totally forgot your existence, and enjoyed a meal together like there wasn’t anything missing. You knew damn well that you were overexaggerating the seriousness of the situation, but you just couldn’t help it.

‘What am I to them?’ That question kept spiraling inside your brain, worsening the headache that you were already having. In a brief second, all the nagging feelings were anthropomorphized into a disgusting creature with multiple heads and mouths by your ailed mind, shrilly screaming out your deepest thoughts that were fraught with insecurities. Your legs were rendered weak and you collapsed on the floor. Supporting your weakened body with all four limbs, you took heavy breaths, trying to calm yourself down.

A few minutes later, you managed to put yourself together enough to stand up and get out of the base, on the way you didn’t forget to grab a pack of cigarettes. You felt stupid to resort to nicotine as a way to fight against all those feelings, but you didn’t know a better way. There were times when things were so bad that you had no energy left to hide your conditions from your teammates, and Price was concerned. He used to have you talk to some therapists, and not surprisingly to you at all, they could not handle you for long. No one ever could.

You were now standing in the parking lot with a cigarette in your mouth. You sighed, clearly satisfied with how strongly its bitter taste stimulated your taste buds. When you first arrived here as the newest member of Task Force 141, Soap and Gaz always joked that you’d become Price’s smoking buddy, but that did not happen. The image of you standing with Price awkwardly because you two couldn’t find a mutual topic for a conversation made you feel too uncomfortable to even try, so you kept avoiding the older man or pretending to not hear his offer until he just stopped inviting you. It was so obvious that the men wanted to get closer to you, they wanted to earn your trust, to make you feel at home and be yourself among them, yet you kept pushing them away. And now perhaps they had stopped trying all together. It was not their fault. It was yours.

But why it was so painful? You were supposed to feel relieved that they had given up so that you didn’t have to blame yourself every time you turned their kind offer down and saw the sadness drawn on their faces. ‘Why do I keep feeling like shit no matter what I do?’

Feeling that the intense emotions that were barely suppressed by the nicotine started to get out of hand again, you cupped your head with both hands, the half-burning cigarette fell to the ground. Suddenly, your eyes caught the red burning tip of it, together with how the paper wrapping around the nicotine was slowly burnt to black. At that very moment, a dark but familiar thought popped up in your mind. You bowed down to pick up the cigarette, blankly staring at it resting between the two fingers of your right hand. Then, your eyes turned to your left hand, examining your spotty lower arm. It was full of the small round scars that were caused by burning your arms with the burning tip of a cigarette. You had noticed Ghost looked at these scars of yours many times; luckily he never asked about them. The army was a place filled with people who had different background stories and bore numerous scars, so it wouldn’t be abnormal for you to have some that were a bit funny-shaped.

‘Should I do this again?’

Maybe you should. It helped with the emotions. Well, temporarily, but that was good enough.

Just as you were about to press the burning tip into your lower left arm, someone threw their whole weight into you. You were hugged by two strong arms and the cigarette was again dropped to the ground.

“There you are! I’ve been finding you everywhere!” It was the Scot man. “Are you smoking? Gosh, I hate this smell! Price’s cigars are much better!”

‘The ones that smell good are never bitter enough.’ You thought to yourself.

“Have you had lunch, pretty boy?” Soap pinched your dumbfounded face.

“Not yet.”

“What? Unbelievable! Get to the kitchen with me right now, Sergeant.” The man literally manhandled you straight from the parking lot into the base, leaving you no time to object.

As you two arrived at your destination, Ghost was already sitting there, sipping some coffee. Soap forced you to sit down right next to him while he proceeded to walk to the fridge and pulled out a dish, putting it inside the microwave oven.

“Here you are, babyboy~” He put the hot meal in front of you. You chose to ignore the pet name and his flirtatious voice simply because he had started doing it to you ever since you start working here. It was just one of his signature thing, you should not fall for it and mistake it as a sign of interest that could develop into romantic feelings.

“Thanks, Soap.”

“Aw, don’t be so all worked up and formal, babyboy. Ya’ welcome~”

Silence fell over the three of you, until you just felt so awkward that you had to speak up, “So… how was this morning?”

“It was fine. Ghost stepped in your place and took care of the training.” Soap replied.

You carefully glanced at Ghost, just to find that the man already looked at you, which made you tremble slightly. The skull mask on his face made him too difficult to read, you couldn’t tell whether he was annoyed or he just gave up on expecting something greater from you.

Soap laughed at your reactions, “It’s okay. You were drunk so Price agreed to let you sleep. Also, Ghost volunteered to help you with the training so he probably doesn’t hold a grudge. Am I right, Ghostie?”

The masked man didn’t answer; instead, he turned back to his cup of coffee.

You quickly finished your meal and left, saying that you should do training by yourself. The truth was you couldn’t stay there any longer, you didn’t want to disturb Ghost and Soap’s rare peaceful time together. You had already made too terrible an impression on Ghost, it’s best that you did not mess up again. As a result, you also missed their conversation. It was not intended for you to listen to anyway.

“You’re right. He did it.” Soap’s voice was solemn, with no sign of flirt or unseriousness like a few minutes before.

“You mean the scars?” Ghost looked up at him from the cup.

“Yeah, the round scar marks that you’ve told me many times.”

“It was just my guess. How do you know he really did it?”

“I found him in the parking lot. He was holding a burning cigarette and about to press it into his left arm.”

A few minutes of silence passed until Ghost spoke up, “Fuckin’ hell.”

“I asked Price about his past, I know it’s a nosy thing to do, but I wanted to help. Unfortunately, Price knows nothing either. Y/n… the boy never opens up to us.”

The two men sat quietly, exchanging worried looks with each other. If only you could know how much they cared for you, maybe you would find it easier to accept their love and help. Yet, even if they told you, even if they desperately showed you so many times that they cared and loved you so much, would your brain allow your heart to welcome them just like how it used to welcome other people you had met earlier in your life, the ones who left you wounded and made you the way you were today?

If someone asked you that question, you’d just offer them a weak smile and simply say: “No”. You're now too tired to hold on to any crumbles of hope left in your broken soul. You'd like to give up.

to be continued i guess :")

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