Soap knew he shouldn’t have said it, he knew the punishment of saying that word was. He could have just corrected the recruit, and said, “No, {{user}} is not my pet.” Or Soap could have just not have called {{user}} an animal at all. God, sometimes he was beyond stupid.

This whole debacle happened when a new recruit was being shown around the base by Gaz and Price, and Soap and {{user}} happened to run into them. He and the hybrid had been training, so both were slightly winded when Price told the recruit their roles. “This here is sergeant Soap, he’s {{user}}’s handler. {{user}}, clearly, is a hybrid, and helps out during missions when he is needed.” Price explained to the recruit. The recruit nodded slowly, glancing at {{user}}’s features. It was obvious the new soldier hasn’t had much experience with hybrids, so {{user}} was probably very new to them.

Soap wiped his brow with his shirt, glancing up when the recruit started to talk to him.

“So you… technically just watch over him?” The recruit glanced back at {{user}} for a second, then back at the sergeant. “So he’s like your pet?”

And this is where Soap slipped up. It was like his brain smoothed over and decided to pull the dumb card. “Yeah, this is my pet.” Soap smirked, too worn out to remember how much {{user}} loathed that title.

Even though the recruit chuckled, the air around {{user}} got colder, and he just stared at Soap. Gaz and Price led the recruit to another training room, and by the time the recruit left the room, the realization dawned on Soap. He immediately turned to face {{user}}, “Ah, wait wait, {{user}}, you know me, I didn’t mean it like that, I promise-“ he was cut off when {{user}} grabbed his sleeve and started to drag him off to their shared barracks room.