Call of Duty Oneshots (Mostly Ghost)

all and everything.

Nervously, I awaited for Simon's return. Through reading or cooking or training, I tried finding a distraction significant enough to not let the worry eat me alive.

But the days dragged on and soon enough it was the day I was supposed to breathe in gunpowder and cologne... not the still, morning air as I waited. Arms wrapped around my waist, they were not his but my own. They should be his. I shouldn't be holding myself together like this.

Maybe there was a holdup for something out of their control.

Maybe they just hadn't been able to communicate that needed more time, yet.

Maybe a flat tire. Maybe too drunk after a successful mission. Maybe burgers afterwards were too tempting to resist.

Blinking away the burning tears, I followed my usual routine just to keep my mind occupied: eat, train, play a card game with Alejandro or have him teach more Spanish, and try and sleep away the anxiety.

I couldn't shake it, though, the uneasiness from radio silence.

Wordlessly, Price came to me the day after they were all due to come back, but having heard no word of keeping such plans, he was now forced to round up his team for a rescue.

I'd been finding refuge for my troubled mind in the form of running through a suicide drill in the gym when his tall figure caught my eye out of my periphery. His usual fatherly demeanor had been replaced by Captain Price, a tough-shelled leader who wouldn't let his worry slip through.

But by the way his presence commanded the room and my attention, I almost tripped when I'd started my next round. He didn't need to say anything but a head nod, and I followed when he left the room through the same door.

A team comprised of myself, Alejandro, Price, and Roach – people close to the first squad that was sent out that would do anything, risk anything, if it came down to it.

"My all and everything," I'd once promised to Price when he'd asked me forever ago what I'd give for my team, for him. Emotions aside, the task force was my second family. "My all and everything."

The deserted area straightened my shoulders even more, my attention on edge. Streaks of dried blood and sun-baked corpses welcomed us to the small town as if they were instead streamers and balloons. An event hosted by death himself.

Together, we scanned every single room, every building until we decided to cover more ground separated. With the threat of hostile gunfire no longer imminent, we figured it'd be safe. Comms stayed on, and if any of us found any of our missing teammates, dead or alive, we'd immediately call for someone to assist.

My boots crunched against broken glass, and the stale smell of gunpowder mixed with pungent iron made my feet move faster in hopes that I'd be able to catch a whiff of familiar cologne instead. I could deal with gunpowder, but the stink of death was almost too much to bear.

With the toe of my boot, I flipped over the body at the entrance of a doorway to ensure it wasn't anyone I knew before continuing my sweep. Even with it being high dawn, evening-like shadows had found a home inside this abandoned structure.

Peeking around the second entryway, I lowered my aim when my adjusting eyes caught sight of something sprawled across the dirty floor surrounded by an array of random objects.

Easing into the room, it became more clear that I'd come across someone, not a something.

My breath hitched.

My heart began to race.

I knew those shoulders, those boots, that outfit. The British flag patch on his jacket sleeve. The shadows swallowed his face so I couldn't quite make out his face, if it was covered or not. All of these qualities were so eerily similar to the person I'd said goodbye to before he boarded the plane.

My vest suddenly felt too tight and my hands uncomfortably sweaty against the itchy, thick fabric of my gloves.

I don't remember what happened first or in what order. If I had dropped to my knees or the gun to the floor or my gloves haphazardly being throw at my feet. Either way, I rushed to him where the closer I got, the skull mask became more distinct.

"No..." I muttered as I pressed a finger into his neck to feel for a pulse.

I pressed harder when I couldn't feel a single fucking thump, not even a faint tap. The coolness of his skin sent goosebumps from my fingertips up to my elbow. My other hand found his wrist underneath his sleeve and once again, found not a peep from his pulse.

"No, no, no..."

Everything blurred together in a mesh of events. I'd called over comms for someone, I couldn't remember who, it all just came blubbering out of my mouth that I needed someone. That I'd found him.

I gathered his head into my lap and leaned over him as if I were protecting him from anything else that might come and try and hurt him more. As if he were just sleeping, and I simply couldn't wake him up. An unusual feat seeing that he was a light sleeper, but my delusions ran rampant in an attempt to cushion the blow.

My soft words fell upon deaf ears, I knew that, but I sobbed into him as if he could hear me. "Please come back to me..."

We rocked side to side as I continued to mumble a string of grief-stricken, incoherent sentences. "I love you... Please... take me instead... my all... everything..."

Death didn't barter. I learned that the hard way in that moment.

It didn't take long for someone to find us, calling out my name as they rushed in to investigate what happened.

There was no room for much comfort in the midst of war, but I wished I had had more time to hold him in the solace of those shadows. More time to whisper to him that it was all going to be okay. More time to comfort his soulless body when it needed me the most. More time for it to just be us and not with death's reapers surrounding us.

I wanted to be greedy, but it just wasn't meant to ever be.

Two strong yet restrained hands wrenched me off of the ground, and a scream tore itself out of my throat, clawing with long talons and digging into my esophagus as leverage to make itself louder. I fought against the person who'd grabbed hold of me and pulled me further away from the other two who confirmed my findings.

They shook their heads at one another, producing another wail to spiral its way out of my heaving chest. It was as if my heart had become a powerful geyser, the cracks spreading across to allow access for my fresh sorrow to erupt without any blockages or walls.

It was when they carefully fished out his dog tags that the person who had a hold of me turned my inconsolable frame around and buried my face into their chest. Their palm holding the back of my head, keeping my gaze from witnessing our soldier's death being confirmed, their arm drawing me closer by wrapping around my padded shoulders.

My muffled cries, a heartbroken song about anguish, filled the room, and it was all I could hear for months afterwards.

All of me died that day, and everything would never be the same.

How does one keep living with half a heart? How does one keep breathing when the air knocked out of their lungs like that? How does one heal when death's hand mercilessly break you in half, not even just your heart, and doesn't look back?

When every single, minuscule thing feels like a chore. Brushing my teeth felt like hauling sandbags, and eating seemed as similar as trudging through mud for the first time in basics. Any necessity to keep me alive didn't feel worth it.

When the distracting hobbies don't fill the void like he did. Reading only sparked my imagination, opening up harsh memories. The inked words bled together, and all I could see was his body halfway consumed by shadows. Running felt like I was either being chased by those haunting echoes or running to them so that I could remember him some way, so that I wouldn't forget.

There was no coming back from this.

There was no retrieving that person that I used to be. Not when I was buried six feet alongside him.

I had put my all into us, and all of me was now gone.