Chapter Text
Roach sat slightly hunched, hands clasped between his legs, his palms having turned sweaty at least five minutes ago, although he can’t find it in him to tear them apart and wipe them off on his pants.
He’s uncharacteristically nervous, jumping despite the fact he’d heard the approaching footsteps and can barely flash his usual charming, toothy smile as the door opens and he’s ordered to enter the office.
He comes to attention at the doorway, salutes, enters and takes a seat. The man across from him wears a dead set expression, glancing him over and Roach becomes acutely aware of every hair atop his head that sticks out.
Roaches nose ached and radiated deep within his head, settling someplace behind his eyes and resting between the free space between it and his top teeth, cradled by every Fiber of calcium in his skull despite the fact it had been set back and his nose had healed within a few minutes after both the initial break and the surgery.
He could only wish he were more human and less partial, then he could gain sympathy points and heal slowly to either play the poor-victim or feel he deserved the ache that rattled when he shook his head. Not that he understood the feeling, let alone imagine it.
The second he heard the crack, only a drop of blood squeezed out before it healed. He could hardly recall the pain, let alone the fact there was pain.
He finally wipes his hands on his pants, sitting stiffly like a bullied child awaiting his parent’s arrival after standing up for themselves for the first time. And perhaps that was exactly what he was, although his parents would never arrive nor would they be made aware of his fuck-up.
His captain did not speak for a few moments, simply sat straighter, eyes trained on the Sergeant the whole time.
“Due to the situation and your demotion,” He began, picking his words carefully and watching every twitch or hesitation in his expression, as if awaiting Roach to go postal at any moment.
“You have been suggested to be placed in a program, of sorts” He finished, leaning back and opening a drawer.
He retrieved a manila folder, a name scrawled on the tab in poor writing Roach couldn’t quite make out. It slid over the smooth wood of the desk and turned to face him right side up.
Roach stared at the folder, then glanced up at his superior and began to open it, skimming the details, then scrutinizing the image attached.
“It’s this new thing for bat-partials and wolf-partials, they’re paired up and the expectation is the bat-partial feeds off the wolf-partial” He paused, as if awaiting an objection, or maybe getting annoyed at the amount of times he’d already said ‘partial’.
“And the werewolf keeps the vampire in check, more specifically ‘round other vamps” He finished, clearly giving up on the proper terms.
Roach studied the folder, an image of a masked man wearing sunglasses peered back at him. The only name present being ‘Ghost’, first and last left blacked out. The only way to tell he weren’t human was a simple label beneath his blacked out name reading ‘wolf-partial’.
Roach spoke for the first time, “Im forced to go through this program? How long does it last?”
“Firstly, yes, and secondly, indefinite” His captain answered as he sat leaning back, his arms crossed.
Roach stared back then returned his gaze to the folder, trying to find the reasoning behind why he was in the program. His captain seemingly read his mind as he spoke again.
“This is the.. guy they’ve stuck you with” He retrieved a printed paper and handed it over.
It detailed the mission and why Ghost had ended up in the program. Although many of the details were blacked out, the main points were left for anyone to see.
The man had gone berserk and nearly killed a teammate. Wonderful, Roach bitterly thought.
It seemed more extreme compared to what Roach had done, especially when all he’d done was a petty brawl. And yet the page noted the man hadn’t been demoted and this was the furthest disciplinary measure he’d receive.
So Roach fights one guy and his own nose is busted in, he’s demoted, and this guy who he once shared a rank with, nearly kills his own men and all he gets is a program? Roach kept from scoffing and instead ran his tongue over a long sharp canine and bit down. He relaxed his jaw as he finally found something he could say.
“Why am I expected to feed off this guy?”
“There have been issues in the past when sending supplies out to vampires on longer missions, which have caused incidents and injuries, especially when it is a vampire on a..” he paused, trying to remember the correct terms, “non-partial team,”
“Plus, werewolves, have increased health issues due to the fact they’re consistently required to have stored energy so their diets aren’t.. fully sustainable. A vampire would help out in the aspect of ‘draining’ excess energy and keeping incident like this” He enunciated by tapping the incident report with his index twice, “from happening”
“How’s drinking his blood meant to help exactly?”
“It’s something to do with keeping a wolf-partial consistently on the edge of going full one way - from going full ‘wolf’, y’know?” He paused, checking Roach was still following along before continuing, “It’s also meant to help blood flow and decrease the excess amount of iron and cholesterol, and other shit like that in their systems that would normally sort themselves out on a normal cycle,” He made vague gestures with his hands as he spoke.
The ‘regular’ cycle of a wolf-partial would consist of excess energy building, before doing a full transformation for a full night, then returning to normal and having the cycle repeat. In the military, however, it was discovered they could, if needed, shift before the monthly occurrences, although it would consequentially leave them exhausted.
So, to make up for it, wolf-partials are expected to essentially, constantly bulk to make up for the consistent shifts. Many of them end up dropping out of the military due to the demanding physical and mental toll it takes, including large drops in weight.
However, many partials are expected to have regular shifts, Roach included. Wolf partials are more expendable. They’re not exactly hard to come by and they’re the most common partial.
Roach decided this was the greater good - helping out a fellow soldier, one he had never met but would be working closely with indefinitely.