Disclaimer: CoD is not mine and it would probably be a lot worse if it were. Small drabble.
"War is Hell."
It was what his mother had told him the day he enlisted, and until August 16, 2016, he'd had every reason to believe her.
His entire military career was 'hell', and it was a sick, twisted, sadistic hell that allowed good kids like Gary Sanderson to dream of becoming a respectable soldier.
Sanderson was too good for the one-four-one. Not by skill, but by merit. He was a high-scoring young man that would have been better off going to college and getting married to some girl back in California and buying a cookie-cutter house with two dogs and living a perfectly cookie-cutter life.
Roach was a good friend, though, and his company was enjoyable. In fact, he was Simon's closest friend. They'd share drinks and smokes and secrets while they snuck around base like two teenage boys trying not to get caught.
And he was a damn good soldier, too. He possibly had the highest resolve out of any of the men Simon had known, and, just like a bloody Roach, killing the kid was much easier said than done.
But Shepherd did it.
A single shot, and the youthful sergeant was falling from Simon's grasp. A single shot, and Simon was joining him. And he knew that his mother had been wrong all along. War was not hell.
Watching Sanderson's fingers grasp the air was hell. Listening to his strangled gasps was hell. Feeling a blood-stained hand curl around his own and fall numb and limp in his grip while Captain MacTavish shouted over the comms- That was hell.
He watched the youth drain from the younger man's eyes. They were glossed over. Shrink-wrapped in tears that hadn't gotten the chance to spill. The last thing Roach had felt was fear. The kid that hadn't even been given the opportunity to live was afraid of dying.
Knowing that, and not being able to do a damn thing to save him was the purest sense of the word "Hell" that Simon had ever known.