AN: I have no idea what I'm doing

There is a war to be fought. Where and with whom, you don't really care.

You don't really care about anything anymore.

You've long since accepted that to your father, you will never amount to anything more than a mistake. And to Grif-well. He's made it quite clear that he doesn't want to talk to you. There are only two important people left in your life, and the both of them have decided that they want nothing to do with you.

'I might as well be some sort of use,' you think, 'even if it's just being cannon fodder.'

Boot camp is both easier and harder than you expected. You've been working out ever since that first time you saw Grif, but even so, you're only just strong enough to make it in. On the other hand, you have no problem mindlessly following orders and submitting to authority, unlike nearly half of the camp.

"Y'know Simmons," your commanding officer says one day, "I like you."

You're surprised. Your commanding officer is strict and gruff, and the praise catches you off guard. You open your mouth to thank him, but he holds his hand up to stop you.

"But you're a huge kissass," he continues. "Nobody likes a kissass, Simmons. Fix that."

"Yes, sir," you say.

You are not ready for deployment.

You've been in basic training for so long you've forgotten that there's a real war going on, and you're going to be in it. Your heart races through the night, but you're surrounded with the sound of snoring. Nobody else seems to remember that there is an 87% chance that they are going to die.

The ride out to the battlefield is long and uncomfortable, as well as incredibly boring. The convoy jolts and bounces far too much for you to try to catch up on any sleep you might have missed last night, and what time isn't spent in terse silence is spent in uncontrollable boredom.

The fact that the other soldiers cheer when they finally see you makes you worried.

You find out you have a few more weeks of more intensive training before you actually go out onto the battlefield. The whole thing is anticlimactic. You don't remember any of it, really.

"So, where're you from?"

One of the soldiers (a veteran from the battlefield camp, it seems) tries to relieve the tension. "I'm from Utah."

"G-Georgia," the kid next to you stammers out. It was clear from the very beginning that he was drafted, unlike you. Sometimes you wonder what he's doing in the army. He can't be any younger than you are, but he still feels too young to be there. Too young to go off to his death.

It goes down the line. Indiana. Pennsylvania. California. Tennessee. Idaho. It grinds to a halt after that-one of the soldiers, remarkably, is sleeping.

The Utah soldier nudges his leg. "Wake up, man," he grouses. "We're going to the battlefield!"

"Exactly," a familiar voice says. "I want to enjoy it while I can." Nevertheless, he sits up, and he looks three years older and twenty pounds lighter than the last time you saw him. "Hawaii," he says, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

Your heart stops. "Grif?"

"You two know each other?" Indiana asks, looking between the two of you in surprise. You don't hear the question.

Grif doesn't seem to hear it either. He's too busy staring at you. "Simmons?" He immediately scowls at you. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing, asshole," you snap back. "The hell is wrong with you?"

Grif looks at you like you're crazy. "What's wrong with me? I got drafted into the fucking army, that's what's wrong with me!"

"And you didn't once think to tell me?"

"I'm gonna fucking die out here, Simmons, and I didn't want you stuck mourning me like the dumbass you are!"

"Th-that's no way to talk," the kid from Georgia mumbles, but nobody's paying any attention to him anymore.

Least of all you. "You don't get it." You stare down at your hands; bigger now, and calloused from all the work you've done with them. You don't bother blinking back the tears. "You're the only one that I have."

Grif is right: if he had gotten killed on the battlefield, you don't think you ever could have moved on. The uncertainty of not knowing what was happening to him honestly might have killed you. But even breaking up with him didn't change anything. You love him more than anyone in the universe, and you honestly doubt that anything will ever change that.

Grif sighs, and he covers your hands with his. "Of all the ways we coulda met," he murmurs, "it had to be like this."

AN 2: So I figured that at this point it's pretty ambiguous what ages they are, and to be completely honest, I don't really know? I wasn't really planning things out when I wrote this. (Oops.)