This is partially based on an oc I have. I’ve used him in role plays and DnD campaigns. I love my boy ♡
Anyway more potential x reader things.
What if the 141 got assigned a new recruit. He is young… the kid barely looked over 19 if you didn’t count the sea of scars that marred his body. Wide eyed and exited, the kid was practically bouncing off the walls, vibrating with excitement as he waited to be introduced to the team by some older lady who he has decided was really nice.
Price came in first. He introduced himself before going down the short list of the three other members. Ghost, Soap and Gaz. The whole time the kid was staring star eyed, looking at the men like they were the second coming of Christ. To him they were legends, icons, the type of men he would look up to the ceiling and imagine working with one day when he grew up. It seems like today was the day he grew up.
To Price it was a risk… taking on someone this young even if he did have a very clean history, and he was very useful… he could always assign Soap to look after him and teach the kid about demolitions, it was clear the kid had experience. Too much of it actually…
Looking at his picture the first thing that stood out about this kid was the scars. Price never started never judged but god there was a lot. Looking over the medical records right after he counted at least 12 cases of major scarring… one in his leg from an explosion, and other on his other leg from a chemical weapon, more on his thigh from being cathodes and tortured and all of this only on his lower half. He couldn’t imagine a kid barely 23 years old having enough scars to rival Ghost.
All of this trauma written on his skin, across his face, literally… and yet this kid sat across this table next to Laswell with the energy of a hyper active puppy ready to jump across the table and start cuddling up to them.
The kid got along with the team well… he was all positivity, sunshine and rainbows. In a world where he was tortured number and stabbed this puppy like creature was following after Ghost — of all people — yapping his ear off about some new anime he watched or how he met this very cute medic while he was getting patched up and wanted to ask them out. Even Ghost who was usually pretty stand offish — especially to hyperactive balls of energy — would humour the kid. Nod along as he fuxed his stance on the shooting rink, drove out to the convenience store not too far from the base for mid night snacks or just let the boy talk while he was working out.
He would follow Soap around as the older man would show him the gist of his specialty — demolitions. The kid was already ready to listen, vibrating with energy as soon as Soap gave him as simple of a job as “Hey kid, fetch me that box of explosives the shipped in last night” or “place this on that rock over there”. He trusted Soap enough to tell him about how he got his scars. “Oh this one is from a bomb that blew up, and this one is from being electrocuted when I was taken for ransom and this one-“. Soap would always listen, his face turning more somber even if he could not help but smile at the boy’s energy as he talked. This kid… barely old enough to drink in some places of this world has gone through so much but would still become giddy over something as simple as his hair being ruffled and a good job. Deep down Soap felt a need to protect him. He saw this annoying little kid as a younger brother of sorts. Being the youngest in his family full of older sisters he was glad to take that role for a beat up kid who was assigned to his care. He cared for his little fire cracker.
Gaz was not far behind. He was mostly in charge of the kid’s combat training and the pup was very good with knives. Give him a pair of those and suddenly the kid was fully focused on the target — which Gaz did notice that the boy had a hard time focusing on things for a long time, but he felt like that energy could be channeled. He tweaked the training to match the way he noticed the kid learned better. Smaller increments, quick clear instructions, and something that required patter recognition. Under Gaz’s wing the kid flourished. Any complaints that past officers had about attention span of becoming overwhelmed and distracted was brought down to a minimum. And the kid always made sure to think him. Be it actual words as he followed after him like a puppy info dumping something about muscle structure and how thy could be maximised in training — which the kid assumed Gaz would of course like, he was his trainer after all and to be honest Gaz did not have the heart to tell him to stop — or buying Gaz his favourite snacks when Ghost inevitably took him to the closest convenience store again.
It felt light to have a waking sunshine on the team. In a world where many soldiers lost their innocence to war, this kid stayed the same. Even as he was bleeding out, with no medical evac for another fifteen minutes he did not have he was still smiling. As Johnny’s hands that were holding him felt like they were drifting away. As his body went numb and he no longer felt the pain of Kyle trying to pack the wound to stop the bleeding. As Simon’s voice told him to keep his eyes open, to not fall asleep for another few minutes started sounding like it was far away. As he saw tears in John’s eyes realising the kid won’t make it, vision going hazy, and the edges turning black… In his last moments he thanked them. Thanked them for being the family he never had.
The last words he said before his sunshine went out.
