Pack-Speak
Title: Pack-Speak
By: tea_diva
Rating: PG | Pairing: Pre-Slash
Status: One-Shot | Word Count: 1,654
Summary: “Holy shit, LT,” Ray says. “Where were you when I was on the debate team. We would have totally rocked.”
For all the things that Nate feels woefully ignorant of when it comes to his platoon, there are other things that he picks up rather quickly. Maybe it seems like an insignificant thing but there are twenty-two people in Bravo 2, which makes twenty-two wolves under Nate’s command.
Matching a man to a name is one thing, but matching a wolf to a man, and then to a name, is another, especially when Bravo 2 are not the only wolves housed in Wolf Country. Since lining his men up and asking them to shift so he can be certain which face goes with which wolf is not an option, or at least seems to be a particularly rude option, Nate is left as 'observation' as his only recourse.
For obvious reasons, Brad Colbert is the first wolf that Nate can confidently pick out.
Brad is tall and surprisingly wiry for a Marine. He has blond hair and bright blue eyes and the men affectionately call him 'Iceman'. Nate isn’t surprised to find that the tall sleekness follows Brad into his wolf form where he is almost entirely crisp white, excepting for a line of creamy-brown that runs from the tip of his snout up to the crown of his head, spreading along the tips of his ears. He is the tallest wolf on base coming almost to Nate’s hip when they stand side-by-side.
The others take him longer, but he manages. The last one he figures out is Gunny Wynn, and by the time he realizes that the wolf he often sees stalking in front of HQ with a black and white streaked back and pale snout, fur that is almost auburn brown with a shockingly white underbelly is actually Mike Wynn, Nate has almost started to think that Mike isn’t a were’ at all.
In his own defense, Mike has been purposely ambiguous.
“We’ve been off-and-on without a Lieutenant,” Mike says, when Nate mentions it. “I had to go back and forth between the Captain and the guys. It’s easier to lock it down outside that fence. It’s not lying, ‘cause most everyone knows who on the base is a wolf. S’just dealing with some folk is easier if you give them the chance to forget what you are.”
Nate can accept that even if he doesn’t agree with it. There are different ways of handling the tenuous position of go-between and he can see the attraction to the method Mike utilizes. Nate, however, believes that Mike shouldn’t have to make that choice because it shouldn’t matter.
Every wolf living in Wolf Country is a damned fine Marine. That they are also damned fine wolves should not make any difference to anyone anywhere because being a wolf doesn’t automatically mean you are dangerous.
“Aw, that’s cute, LT,” Ray says. “How’s Cinderella doing? Is she living out in your neck of Fairytale-land these days?”
“Shut the fuck up, Person,” Nate says casually. “And pass me another beer.”
He doesn’t know what the big thing about werewolves is. They’re strong and fast, they have extremely good eyes and a keen sense of smell and all that and whatever else, so Nate can understand how people can think that they’re good soldiers, or kind of cool, or what-have-you.
“Jesus, you’re drunk,” Brad says.
And maybe that’s true, but that doesn’t change his point.
Brad pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes long-sufferingly. “LT, go to bed.”
“That,” Nate says, triumphantly. “Is my point.” He breezes right past the way everyone in the room sort of freezes, because that’s a revelation he’s going to have much later, and this is right now. “You don’t have homes!”
“I have a home!” Espera squawks, indignantly.
Nate shakes his head because yeah, okay, some of them have homes but, “Technically, that just supports my argument.”
Ray claps an approving hand on Nate's shoulder and says, “Holy shit, LT. Where were you when I was on the debate team. We would have totally rocked.”
Nate ignores him. “My point is I had to fucking sign-you out like it’s fucking elementary school!”
The Corps has been trying to figure-out what to do with werewolves for a long time. They’ve been making some headway and apparently things are less prejudiced than they used to be, though Nate has trouble believing that because, yeah, his guys are still tagged and have to be signed-out into a non-wolf’s custody. There are exceptions, such as Espera and his wife, because the Corps is pragmatic and is secretly hoping that Tony’s little girls are going to be wolves who will join the military.
“As if I’d let that slide,” Tony snorts.
“Nate,” a warm voice says, sliding across his senses, elusive but so very familiar. “Go to sleep.”
Nate huffs. “Fine. I'll go to sleep. But I’m exceedingly angry about this.”
“LT,” Christeson says, looking at him with sort of wide eyes. “Nobody said anything.”
Nate snorts because, whatever. “I signed you all out until tomorrow,” he says, dragging himself to his feet and wobbling for a moment. “If any of you decide to run out and get laid or something, be back here by noon because apparently if I don’t walk in with every one of you accounted for...” he trails off. It’s not worth thinking about.
“It’ll be fine. Good night.”
“Right,” Nate says. “Good night.”
In his team leader meeting the next day, Nate informs his TLs that the platoon is being given Humvees to drive when they get to Iraq. “What good are we going to be in Humvees?” Pappy’s slow-honey voice asks.
Nate says, “There’s a lot of distance to cover in Iraq. I’m sure they are there purely as a method of transport to bring us to and from locations out of which we will be conducting our missions.” It’s only after he finishes saying this that he realizes he didn’t actually see Pappy’s lips move.
“Pack speak,” Mike explains, nodding his head knowingly when Nate corners him after the meeting.
“What the fuck is pack-speak?” Nate asks, the words tripping one after the other. Then he adds, “You guys are psychic?” It’s shocking, because in all the files he’s been sorting through since arriving at Margarita, never has he come across even the faintest suggestion that werewolves are psychic.
Mike shakes his head. “We’re not psychic. It’s not like reading minds and shit.” Nate lets out a relieved breath, but then Mike adds, “It’s more like a radio.”
Apparently most werewolves have this ability in wolf-form. It goes beyond any communication that an actual wolf might have with another wolf out in the wild, which Nate figures must relate to the cadence of snarls and growls, and also body language. This is something unique to werewolves. An ability to touch minds when they’ve shifted. Usually the ability is shared only with pack because touching minds is apparently quite personal. "It's not an actual rule, you understand," Mike says. "More of a courtesy."
There is one thing that Nate can't help but notice, however. “There were no wolves in my team leader meeting.”
He means that not a single one of his men had been in their shifted form. Mike, however, intentionally misunderstands. “Technically there were,” Mike says with a grin. Nate isn’t amused and apparently his Gunnery Sergeant realizes that because he sobers immediately. “Look, it’s not like we’re the only wolves keeping quiet on this. The Corps found out about our night-vision and suddenly they’re not giving us enough batteries for our PEC-4’s and NVG’s, thinking it’s redundant. We can be a hell of a lot better than we are, but not if we don’t get the support we need.”
Nate can understand that, he can. He can even see the logic of it. But he's having trouble reconciling himself with the secrecy. He’s used to reporting what he knows the USMC, it’s been a significant part of his training, and it's part of the reason Godfather brought him into the platoon.
Mike says, “Not all wolves can use it when they’re human. And either way, it’s personal. Most guys don’t want to use it with someone they don’t consider pack. Not with someone they just got thrown-in with for a mission. If they take the radios, or start giving us crappy wiring thinking we’ll make do, we might not be able to.”
This is what Nate ends up with: he respects Captain Patterson, who is a wolf, and if pack-speak is still a secret then that means Patterson, to make no mention of Major Eckloff, have contributed to keeping it secret. Nate can defer to their better judgment.
Bumping down a dirt road in Iraq, everyone leaning out the windows of their victors to watch their sectors but equally confident there’s no trouble brewing, Ray Person breaks out into an ear-splitting rendition of ‘Rasputin’ and Team 1 Alpha starts harmonizing.
There is no way, three victors back, Nate should be hearing them singing, but he can.
2-1-Bravo joins in at the chorus and soon the entire platoon is singing, their voices filling up the Humvees and rippling through each other’s heads, which is about the strangest thing that he’s ever experienced, even if it doesn’t actually feel strange at all.
Nate feels a surge of relief that they have this, an untainted and entirely unobserved method of communication. It’s not because he has anything particularly significant to say, or even because he has anything private to communicate. It’s because it’s just theirs. A reminder that they’re tall here, going through all this shit together.
When Kocher’s voice echoes through Nate’s head, telling them that they sound like “a bunch of wailing cats hung over a fire” Nate wonders idly about how far the bond might stretch, but it’s not anything he feels a pressing need to test.
He can hear his men; that’s what matters.
___________________________________________________
|| THE END. ||
'Verse MASTERPOST
By: tea_diva
Rating: PG | Pairing: Pre-Slash
Status: One-Shot | Word Count: 1,654
Summary: “Holy shit, LT,” Ray says. “Where were you when I was on the debate team. We would have totally rocked.”
For all the things that Nate feels woefully ignorant of when it comes to his platoon, there are other things that he picks up rather quickly. Maybe it seems like an insignificant thing but there are twenty-two people in Bravo 2, which makes twenty-two wolves under Nate’s command.
Matching a man to a name is one thing, but matching a wolf to a man, and then to a name, is another, especially when Bravo 2 are not the only wolves housed in Wolf Country. Since lining his men up and asking them to shift so he can be certain which face goes with which wolf is not an option, or at least seems to be a particularly rude option, Nate is left as 'observation' as his only recourse.
For obvious reasons, Brad Colbert is the first wolf that Nate can confidently pick out.
Brad is tall and surprisingly wiry for a Marine. He has blond hair and bright blue eyes and the men affectionately call him 'Iceman'. Nate isn’t surprised to find that the tall sleekness follows Brad into his wolf form where he is almost entirely crisp white, excepting for a line of creamy-brown that runs from the tip of his snout up to the crown of his head, spreading along the tips of his ears. He is the tallest wolf on base coming almost to Nate’s hip when they stand side-by-side.
The others take him longer, but he manages. The last one he figures out is Gunny Wynn, and by the time he realizes that the wolf he often sees stalking in front of HQ with a black and white streaked back and pale snout, fur that is almost auburn brown with a shockingly white underbelly is actually Mike Wynn, Nate has almost started to think that Mike isn’t a were’ at all.
In his own defense, Mike has been purposely ambiguous.
“We’ve been off-and-on without a Lieutenant,” Mike says, when Nate mentions it. “I had to go back and forth between the Captain and the guys. It’s easier to lock it down outside that fence. It’s not lying, ‘cause most everyone knows who on the base is a wolf. S’just dealing with some folk is easier if you give them the chance to forget what you are.”
Nate can accept that even if he doesn’t agree with it. There are different ways of handling the tenuous position of go-between and he can see the attraction to the method Mike utilizes. Nate, however, believes that Mike shouldn’t have to make that choice because it shouldn’t matter.
Every wolf living in Wolf Country is a damned fine Marine. That they are also damned fine wolves should not make any difference to anyone anywhere because being a wolf doesn’t automatically mean you are dangerous.
“Aw, that’s cute, LT,” Ray says. “How’s Cinderella doing? Is she living out in your neck of Fairytale-land these days?”
“Shut the fuck up, Person,” Nate says casually. “And pass me another beer.”
He doesn’t know what the big thing about werewolves is. They’re strong and fast, they have extremely good eyes and a keen sense of smell and all that and whatever else, so Nate can understand how people can think that they’re good soldiers, or kind of cool, or what-have-you.
“Jesus, you’re drunk,” Brad says.
And maybe that’s true, but that doesn’t change his point.
Brad pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes long-sufferingly. “LT, go to bed.”
“That,” Nate says, triumphantly. “Is my point.” He breezes right past the way everyone in the room sort of freezes, because that’s a revelation he’s going to have much later, and this is right now. “You don’t have homes!”
“I have a home!” Espera squawks, indignantly.
Nate shakes his head because yeah, okay, some of them have homes but, “Technically, that just supports my argument.”
Ray claps an approving hand on Nate's shoulder and says, “Holy shit, LT. Where were you when I was on the debate team. We would have totally rocked.”
Nate ignores him. “My point is I had to fucking sign-you out like it’s fucking elementary school!”
The Corps has been trying to figure-out what to do with werewolves for a long time. They’ve been making some headway and apparently things are less prejudiced than they used to be, though Nate has trouble believing that because, yeah, his guys are still tagged and have to be signed-out into a non-wolf’s custody. There are exceptions, such as Espera and his wife, because the Corps is pragmatic and is secretly hoping that Tony’s little girls are going to be wolves who will join the military.
“As if I’d let that slide,” Tony snorts.
“Nate,” a warm voice says, sliding across his senses, elusive but so very familiar. “Go to sleep.”
Nate huffs. “Fine. I'll go to sleep. But I’m exceedingly angry about this.”
“LT,” Christeson says, looking at him with sort of wide eyes. “Nobody said anything.”
Nate snorts because, whatever. “I signed you all out until tomorrow,” he says, dragging himself to his feet and wobbling for a moment. “If any of you decide to run out and get laid or something, be back here by noon because apparently if I don’t walk in with every one of you accounted for...” he trails off. It’s not worth thinking about.
“It’ll be fine. Good night.”
“Right,” Nate says. “Good night.”
In his team leader meeting the next day, Nate informs his TLs that the platoon is being given Humvees to drive when they get to Iraq. “What good are we going to be in Humvees?” Pappy’s slow-honey voice asks.
Nate says, “There’s a lot of distance to cover in Iraq. I’m sure they are there purely as a method of transport to bring us to and from locations out of which we will be conducting our missions.” It’s only after he finishes saying this that he realizes he didn’t actually see Pappy’s lips move.
“Pack speak,” Mike explains, nodding his head knowingly when Nate corners him after the meeting.
“What the fuck is pack-speak?” Nate asks, the words tripping one after the other. Then he adds, “You guys are psychic?” It’s shocking, because in all the files he’s been sorting through since arriving at Margarita, never has he come across even the faintest suggestion that werewolves are psychic.
Mike shakes his head. “We’re not psychic. It’s not like reading minds and shit.” Nate lets out a relieved breath, but then Mike adds, “It’s more like a radio.”
Apparently most werewolves have this ability in wolf-form. It goes beyond any communication that an actual wolf might have with another wolf out in the wild, which Nate figures must relate to the cadence of snarls and growls, and also body language. This is something unique to werewolves. An ability to touch minds when they’ve shifted. Usually the ability is shared only with pack because touching minds is apparently quite personal. "It's not an actual rule, you understand," Mike says. "More of a courtesy."
There is one thing that Nate can't help but notice, however. “There were no wolves in my team leader meeting.”
He means that not a single one of his men had been in their shifted form. Mike, however, intentionally misunderstands. “Technically there were,” Mike says with a grin. Nate isn’t amused and apparently his Gunnery Sergeant realizes that because he sobers immediately. “Look, it’s not like we’re the only wolves keeping quiet on this. The Corps found out about our night-vision and suddenly they’re not giving us enough batteries for our PEC-4’s and NVG’s, thinking it’s redundant. We can be a hell of a lot better than we are, but not if we don’t get the support we need.”
Nate can understand that, he can. He can even see the logic of it. But he's having trouble reconciling himself with the secrecy. He’s used to reporting what he knows the USMC, it’s been a significant part of his training, and it's part of the reason Godfather brought him into the platoon.
Mike says, “Not all wolves can use it when they’re human. And either way, it’s personal. Most guys don’t want to use it with someone they don’t consider pack. Not with someone they just got thrown-in with for a mission. If they take the radios, or start giving us crappy wiring thinking we’ll make do, we might not be able to.”
This is what Nate ends up with: he respects Captain Patterson, who is a wolf, and if pack-speak is still a secret then that means Patterson, to make no mention of Major Eckloff, have contributed to keeping it secret. Nate can defer to their better judgment.
Bumping down a dirt road in Iraq, everyone leaning out the windows of their victors to watch their sectors but equally confident there’s no trouble brewing, Ray Person breaks out into an ear-splitting rendition of ‘Rasputin’ and Team 1 Alpha starts harmonizing.
There is no way, three victors back, Nate should be hearing them singing, but he can.
2-1-Bravo joins in at the chorus and soon the entire platoon is singing, their voices filling up the Humvees and rippling through each other’s heads, which is about the strangest thing that he’s ever experienced, even if it doesn’t actually feel strange at all.
Nate feels a surge of relief that they have this, an untainted and entirely unobserved method of communication. It’s not because he has anything particularly significant to say, or even because he has anything private to communicate. It’s because it’s just theirs. A reminder that they’re tall here, going through all this shit together.
When Kocher’s voice echoes through Nate’s head, telling them that they sound like “a bunch of wailing cats hung over a fire” Nate wonders idly about how far the bond might stretch, but it’s not anything he feels a pressing need to test.
He can hear his men; that’s what matters.
___________________________________________________
|| THE END. ||
'Verse MASTERPOST