COD Shifter AU
Series Metadata
Listing Series
Pages Navigation
-
Tags
Summary
Price takes one look at him and Soap knows he’s been made. He doesn’t know how the man can tell, but it’s there. It’s in the way the gleam in the Captain’s eyes turns curious and contemplative, his head cocking just a titch to the left while they sweep Soap from head to toe.
“I assume you have your reasons,” he says, and it’s not a question. It’s an oddly-worded order, but not one that makes Soap’s hackles bristle. He stands square at attention, eyes trained forward like a good soldier. For a moment — just a split second — he thinks about playing stupid. It’s in his file already — charming, cocky, friendly, human. A plain but pretty silver seal with a stylized H right there next to his name. He and Price have never officially met before today, have run similar but different circles. Soap is on the Captain’s radar because he’s damn good at what he does, and he’s even better at playing pretend when eyes are on him.
Series
- Part 1 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
Ghost was never interested in forming bonds. He accepted his place in Price’s pack because there was nowhere else for him to go — because the Captain was the one who found Ghost after he erupted from a rotting man’s grave and spent the necessary time teaching the feral Wolf to accept touch again. John Price put his own career on the line to re-tame a monster, and to hell with what anyone else said. Ghost owes him a debt he can never repay, one they will never talk about, but it’s there.
Series
- Part 2 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
It’s no secret that wolves are pack creatures. Familial packs in the wild are so, so much different than packs formed in captivity, but wolves will always be drawn toward a group. Will always build bonds and defend their packmates with a respectable amount of beautifully chilling violence when one of their own is threatened. Wolves are territorial creatures. They’re possessive. What’s theirs is theirs, be it land, company, mates. And when push comes to shove, they will do what it takes to defend what belongs to them.
Gaz is Price’s, through and through, but he’s Soap’s now too. Ever since the day they met, when he branded the man puppy in his perception. They’re the unholy menaces of the 141; the jokesters, the pranksters, the ones who keep everyone loose and laughing and relaxed. Whenever trouble erupts amongst the rank-and-file, it’s a safe fucking bet that Price’s rowdy boys are at the center of the mess, laughing and swinging fists and chairs while their eyes sparkle like kids who’ve woken up on Christmas morning still believing in Saint Nicholas.
Series
- Part 3 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
Months ago, prowling through the blood-drenched streets of Las Almas, Ghost had made a terrible joke that wasn’t really a joke at all.
I won’t watch ‘em, at least not more than once, he’d said, referencing the enemy’s love of filming the torture of their victims. Johnny had scoffed, had called him sick without meaning it, and they’d continued on. Ghost had let the memory fade like so many others, had let it be put to rest in the graveyard of his mind. Just a quip, something to keep his boy hungry and angry until they were free of the living nightmare Graves and his Shadows had brought to the welcome mats of innocents and murderers without distinction for the two.
Series
- Part 4 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
It’s not often that they get any real downtime lately. Between the endless hunt for Shepherd and their efforts to track down and eliminate the last of the AQ cells, some days it feels like they’re only on base long enough to shower and grab a meal before they’re off on the next hunt. It’s not that big of a problem for Gaz — 141 is his life, he doesn’t really have anything else left these days. So long as he’s got Price’s six, or he and Soap are shoulder to shoulder while they eat or train recruits, he’s exactly where he wants to be. Hell, he’s even gotten to the point of sharing jokes with Ghost, and isn’t that a miracle he never expected. Before Soap showed up, the man was the untouchable nightmare of 141. Now, he’s still a nightmare out in the field, but back at base he’s… softer. Not soft, he’ll never quite be like the rest of them for reasons both obvious and heavily guarded, but having Soap has both tamed Ghost and made him even more unhinged. It’s a delicate balance, but he seems content so long as his Sergeant isn’t off getting himself brutalized in the field.
Series
- Part 5 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
There’s a saying Soap remembers from his childhood. One told to him by one of the village grandmothers, her knobby old hands wrinkled and softened by age. Her palm had rested on his small head, him but a wee bairn who was still only Johnny back then. Johnny, little lad, troublemaker, bringer of mischief and laughter no matter where his too-big paws and adventurous heart took him.
“Remember this well, wee pup,” she had told him, ancient and wise, and he had listened with wide eyes and trembling ears, his wet nose twitching as he breathed in the familiar scents of wildflowers and sweet grasses and a strength that had waned into elderly bones and memories.
“Pitied are the ones foolish enough to harm the chosen of the Wolves.”
Series
- Part 6 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
It becomes abundantly clear in no time at all that Gaz and Johnny have adopted König as 141’s newest puppy.
Series
- Part 7 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
Rodolfo was three years old the first time he met Alejandro — the first time the boy who would one day become one of his most important people bit him. He doesn’t remember it himself, only knows the story because his mamá would talk about it for years afterward. He’d been crying that day, inconsolable over something no one could pinpoint. Alejandro had been five, had still lived several houses down from his family in Las Almas back then.
“He came right through the window,” mamá would say, eyes misty from memory and a small smile on her face. “Not a word he said to anyone. He just went right to you, mijo, and bit your neck. I’ve never heard a sound like that come from a person, let alone a child. Like a rumbling croon. You calmed down so quickly, like you’d been waiting for it. For him.”
Series
- Part 8 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
Among Shifters, he’s been told he is the ideal. Big, muscular, shaggy — built for the cold, for battle, for destruction. Obedient. He goes where he is told and does what is commanded of him. The humans in his unit were not loudly cruel, but they always made comments. How bold of them, when they were all so small. Fragile. And König is big, even by human standards. Especially by their standards. Tall, broad, thick. His hand can crush a man’s skull, not that he ever would. Not deliberately. He doesn’t like to think of himself as a violent beast, though he is a beast. All he ever wanted to do was save people. He requested to be a sniper because he’s a good shot, but also because it gives him anonymity. He can save others without them ever having to see him, see his face. König doesn’t like it when people look at his face. He doesn’t like eye contact, doesn’t like the feeling of the stares. The mask makes it easier, gives him a buffer, but it’s still overwhelming. Still makes him twitch and bolt for a darker corner where he can try to fold his bulk into the shadows and become part of the wall.
Series
- Part 9 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
If John were inclined to be honest with himself — and he usually tries to be, even if no one else will ever know — he can admit that he created Task Force 141 because of men like Simon Riley. He wanted a unit tailor-made for the broken and the undesirable. The outcast dogs of the military who weren’t quite ready to hang up their tags, but weren’t fit for any other faction or operative. John wanted soldiers who didn’t care about red tape, who were happy to rip right through it without a moment of hesitation.
You want monsters, Kate had said when he’d brought his request to her, quiet and contemplative, but nonjudgmental. There’d been no other way for her to phrase it, and John had understood that. He knew what he was asking for, how dangerous his dream was, but he’d always been a believer of necessary brutality. If you destroy ten thousand men before they get the chance to murder ten million, why wouldn’t you, red tape be damned?
Series
- Part 10 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
To: 🌶️Spicy Puppy🐾
From: 🧼Soap🧼Take leave and come see us
Series
- Part 11 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
It takes a long time for Soap to be alright, after Coppan sells him out and he’s tranq’d down by cowards determined to take him apart at the behest of traitors.
Series
- Part 12 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
Everyone who joins Task Force 141 does so knowing what they’re signing up for. There’s no secrets waiting for them past the door frame — it’s too much of a liability. Every single one of them signs the paperwork required to be partnered with Shifters; sits through the briefings and gets handed stacks of manuals and how-to-coexist guides to be read and quizzed on. It may seem like a lot for some, but it’s all necessary information. If the soldiers they’re expected to trust and lead aren’t going to be comfortable fighting alongside them, then it’s all meaningless.
Series
- Part 13 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
“Ghost, a word?”
Simon stops and turns, tilting his head toward Laswell. He waits for her to join him, gloved hands relaxed in the pocket of his hoodie and balaclava swapped for a simple black surgical mask. He’s not on duty today, which makes it curious that she would track him down. Can’t be for anything good, judging by the look in her eyes and the set of her jaw — and the fact that she’s even here in the first place. He adjusts his posture in response, standing taller and broadening his shoulders. Preparing to take the weight of whatever she’s about to tell him, to go where he’s directed. She’s never had a hand on Ghost’s leash, not directly, but she’s guided Price’s enough for his Wolf to recognize her as a handler. Especially now, after everything.
Series
- Part 14 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
Mornings have become one of Gaz’s favorite times. As chaotic as their lives can be, they have a decent stretch of downtime these days between most of their heavy missions. Easy little runs, quick reconnaissance or infil missions, and then days or weeks where they have nothing at all. He’s learned to enjoy these stretches more than the high of an intense mission. Has grown enough from an eager, blood-seeking rookie into a soldier that values the quiet of peace more than he longs for the battle.
Series
- Part 15 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
If there’s one thing John regrets about forming Task Force 141, it’d be the fucking paperwork. It comes with the territory, there’s no escaping it, but when you’re the pack Alpha and primary government handler of not just one Shifter, but three — well, it seems the brass would love nothing more than to bury him under a mountain of incident reports and the tattered remains of the red tape he and his boys refuse to be restrained by.
Series
- Part 16 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
It is… hard, adjusting to the 141. Not because they are mean — quite the opposite. No, if anything, this pack of humans and Shifters are nicer than any he’s ever known before. König doesn’t know how to take them at first, to adjust to an Alpha like Ghost — Simon — who is so careful with them and so brutal in any other regard.
Series
- Part 17 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
The wind was out of his favor. It was out of his fucking favor, and they knew the land better than he did. Every crack, every crevice, every sliver where a human body could squeeze. Could carry a tranq gun and train sights on where he was hidden up in the trees. Dark of the night, there was no gleam off the sight or the barrel, no way to catch it before it was too late.
Series
- Part 18 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
It’s hard to gauge how much time has passed since he was darted and dragged off a battlefield somewhere in the Middle East. How long he’s lived in a cage of four walls and a seamless door being poked at and prodded by madmen who sought to control him for their own gain and, what, stud him? Good fucking luck there. They’d find out soon enough that it was useless.
Series
- Part 19 of COD Shifter AU
-
Tags
Summary
Spazz is the worst patient Simon has ever seen, and that’s saying something when half their pack is comprised of Wolves who heal at a supernatural speed, and therefore don’t believe that things like bed rest and taking it easy should apply to them. For a human, the boy is alarmingly unconcerned with his own health, his own mortality. It’s like he’s simply forgotten that he’s supposed to be careful, and there’s a reason for that, a darker story that lives mapped across the medic‘s body in a series of scars and punctures that can only have come from a monster’s mouth.
Series
- Part 20 of COD Shifter AU