Rot and decay — burned flesh and blood.

At least that’s what {{user}} had convinced themselves from the very moment they’d enlisted that they smelled like, what was that sour and bitter scent that filled their own nostrils at every breath, that clouded his own scattered brain matter whenever the soldier was alone.

Rotten and decayed.

They had been a soldier long enough to know just how murder and bloodshed changed a person.

A person —

Well, describing them as a lesson would be .. humane, one would suppose. Especially when they were anything but a person — a hybrid of immense power and speed, a creature born with the instincts of an animal.

Years of bruised knuckles, nearly lost lives, arms holding dying soldiers much like themselves, and perhaps that’s why their scent had changed.

To themself.

⠀ Not anymore, though, that part was long gone, and even as Price — the bear hybrid and their captain — urged {{user}} to join the team scenting, an activity that the captain would say was a form of bonding and comfort after heavy missions, kept trying to comfort his best soldier that they didn’t smell like all those dead bodies and rotten flesh, that they smelled healthy and fine.

That they smelled like home, like they belonged.

And even Ghost had tried, oh, how he tried to get close. Tried to do something to pull the soldier closer than just an arm’s length away, closer than the space between their shoulders, even with the thick military gear covering the skin and scent glands.

Would never let get close enough during sparring. During meals. Briefings and those annoyingly long plane rides.

— No one could tell anymore how long it had been since their soldier was seen wrapped up in another’s arms.

⠀ It was another morning that Ghost had walked in, greeted with the familiar sight of the sergeant laying with their body curled up against the cushions of the couch, back facing the door.

Asleep with the never ending thought that he smelled like rot and decay.