Call of Duty Oneshots (Mostly Ghost)

In Hindsight

Maybe you were too soft for war.

Handled with care since birth, that was all you really knew.

Born last out of four, your mom had gone through battles of her own to bring you earthside, so you didn't blame her for coddling you, wallowing in every scraped knee with excessive kisses or allowing you to stay home for a chest cold.

You were teased relentlessly about it, both by peers and siblings, but especially your siblings.

'Oh, look, the baby's getting special treatment. Baby got a boo-boo?'

'Aw, you've gotta sniffle. Better go tell Mommy you can't go to school.'

'What're you gonna do about it? Cry to Mom?'

And you hated it.

Every taunt, every ounce of unfairness forced upon you brought on a little more spite to fuel your decision to do something reckless.

Every time you got a free pass for something your siblings would get grounded for it.

Every ridicule you faced turned your back towards them, leading you in a direction that they couldn't follow.

You needed stability and freedom from hindrances. Finding that passage from privilege in detours shaped as out-of-state college and an apartment you paid for yourself, you quickly molded into a person you should have been the whole time.

You didn't want to resent your life because you had it good. You loathed it because it wasn't you. Maybe younger you ate up the extra love with that silver spoon you got instead of a rattle, but now? Now, you were your own person and mourned what you could have learned without bald training wheels.

It was what you liked most about the military. No coddling, no special treatment. Everyone was treated equally – like shit - despite cliques being constructed and secrets... developed.

The friends you made didn't mock you for the constant spoiling from your mother; they didn't even know about it. You rarely talked about your family at all, only to a select few when you received letters.

They only teased when you fucked up or ate shit, and got yelled at by your Lieutenant, extending out a hand to help you up afterward.

But damn did you grow fast.

Excelling without those training wheels that had kept you behind for so long.

Proving everyone wrong, that you weren't too soft for war. That your silver spoon hadn't softened your teeth.

'Bet you can't make it through a week of basics since Mom's not there to hold your hand,' your brother had once gibed, daring you to quit.

The only thing that you had quit was college as you needed something that felt a little more challenging or fulfilling. Not to say that a diploma wouldn't have served well to satisfy your thirst for gratification, but you yearned for something else.

Veins addicted to adrenaline while your body flinched at every spider, you thought: 'Why the hell not?'

That pull to serve others swept you up like a tidal wave, and you liked it, surfed the hectic chaos that the rippling waves provided, coasting along to this new world of adventure and self-improvement.

You befriended most of your platoon in the Marine Corps, made a family of the rest. The kinds of relationships that would end with death but never long distance.

With the Task Force, though, everyone welcomed you as a new family member. A smaller, close-knit environment created a much more familial dynamic, tough love and honorable trust included. It reminded you of your own family but without the resentment.