Work Text:
This is how it starts.
Door opens, table goes flying. Start shooting, don’t bother to aim, there’s so many pouring in to attack that there’s no chance of missing. Try not to flinch as a round sails past your ear, keep breathing steady as the world seems to exist in only balls of flame and screams of pain. Do not think of how likely you are to die. Do not begin to dream of what you’ll do if you win.
This is what warfare is supposed to be like, Grif thinks as he fires another shot, trying to keep his feet rooted in the face of a wave of soldiers. His whole time on Chorus has been in a lesson in war was supposed to be like, the illusion Blood Gulch painted shattering under the sheer amount of death and gore. Grif used to know what war was like once, back when he woke up in a base of dead comrades, but the years in Blood Gulch had dulled the memory, making it more a nightmare long passed than a reality.
He wishes it could have stayed that way. Blood Gulch was a boring war, but it was a fake one. And fake wars didn’t often produce casualties.
A enemy solider breaks through the front line, and Grif is only just fast enough to get him right in the guts with the Grifshot. When the body falls to the ground, Grif expects to hear Sarge’s shout of victory. Instead, the man is quieter than he’s been in years.
Sometimes Grif forgets he’s not the only Red who knows what real war is like. It is in times like these, that he remembers the painful reality.
Another shot. Another hit. One wave down with two more approaching armed to the teeth. They’re getting overwhelmed and fast, too fast, and it takes Lopez, Donut and Doc to shut the doors in front of them so they can set up the table barrier once more.
“One line down, two more on their way, boys!” Sarge’s tone is the same as ever, but it lacks the same joy to it, the same air of foolhardy confidence. He knows how bad they’re screwed.
“Just gotta hold out till the others get here,” Tucker says from inside the Meta suit, and he sounds off himself, almost like he’s in pain, but Grif can’t see any visible injuries, nor does he have the time to try to place it. “Hold our ground like fucking Rambo.”
It’s one of the most ridiculous things Grif has ever heard, considering none of them have anything close on Rambo. Except maybe Caboose in the strength department. He looks around at the room, taking in the idiots he’s spent the last decade of his life with. Caboose, petting his gun like it’s a dog. Donut and Doc holding hands for a quick moment when they think no one is watching (they all are). Tucker’s hands on his knees, taking a deep breath. Sarge looking towards the doors with his free hand clenched into a fist. Lopez rotating his gears. Simmons, looking right at him, likely just as terrified under that helmet.
Grif has seen a lot of movies in his time. He knows an “emotional confession” moment when he sees it. If he was Rambo, he’d throw in a grand speech right now, something about treasuring their time together or some sentimental shit right out of Hallmark card. Hell, telling Simmons he doesn’t hate him would likely suffice at for a Hollywood moment given their history.
Grif knows an opportunity when he sees it. He’s had them all his life. And he’s let them all slip away.
Letting one more go seems like a fitting way to die.
The table snaps in half with a kick to the doors. The Reds and Blues lift up their guns. The doors open, gunfire begins again. Grif’s last memory clear is a grenade landing right in front of the door frame.
This is how it starts.
This is also how it ends.
When Grif wakes up, it’s to the smell of blood.
It’s odd, how he can remember what it was like to wake up to it to last time. For a second, he thinks he’s a decade younger, stationed at another base on another world. He can almost feel the standard sleeping back under his back, the blood soaking into his socks. The silence in his ears is almost the same silence he woke to that day.
It dissipates quickly, a ringing in his ears turning into a roar of sound. The voices come first, words garbled by his own brain, and after a second, he manages to piece them into full sentences.
“We have a survivor! Get me a stretcher and a healing unit. Now!”
Grey. That has to be Grey. Same pitch, same timbre. He wonders for a second why she sounds so panicked about enemy units, curious to how only one could have survived when the world catches up with him, like crashing into a wall at full speed.
His eyes open at once because it can’t be true, he had to hear her wrong. That the hit to his head scrambled the words wrong. The world comes into view slow, like an old television coming to life, and at first, the sight of pure grey is comforting, nothing but walls and floors. It is once the color appears in his vision that the horror show in front of him becomes defined.
Sarge in the left corner, front plate blasted entirely off. Tucker, down on his left, drill through his visor. Pools of blood soaking wire where Lopez, Donut and Doc once stood. Freckles snapped in half next to blood matted black hair.
Simmons in front of him, not moving. Helmet off. Staring at him with one of his own eyes and a robotic one that no longer lit up.
“No,” Grif whispers, because he has to be seeing this wrong, he has to be in a coma or something, this has to be some sort of cruel trick. Because not again, this couldn’t happen to him again, not when it mattered. “No.” He reaches for Simmons (because he’s closest, he tells himself, he closest) and when he pulls the other man’s gauntlet off to feel for his pulse he finds none. “No, no, no.”
It’s a trick, it’s a trick, Simmons is just hurt, they’re all only just hurt. He screams for a medic, they need a medic, not having a pulse is a problem Grif can’t fix, and when he screams for one again, arms wrap under his armpits, pulling him up and away.
“Let go of me!” His voice is a snarl. “Let go of me, you bastard, they need a fucking medic, he needs a fucking medic, can’t you see that-”
“Grif. Grif please,” Grif pauses a second at the sound of another voice he recognizes. Wash. Wash is here.
“Wash,” Grif says, trying to turn to get a look at Wash’s face, because voice he hears isn’t clouded from a helmet. The Freelancer doesn’t let him, his grip tight as steel. “Get a medic in here. You got to get a medic in here.”
“Working on it,” Wash says, but there’s no life to it. In fact, Wash sounds off entirely, his voice cracking in a way Grif can’t recognize. Grif tries to turn again, throwing more weight into it, and this time, he gets enough purchase to look Wash in the eye.
It soon becomes clear why Wash’s helmet is off. Tears are always a bitch for visibility, and given how red Wash’s eyes are, he’s cried enough for a lifetime in the span of minutes. The man’s skin is paler than Grif has ever seen it, almost white, and it’s the combination of that, the tears, and the horrified eyes that makes the horrible reality sink in.
There will be no medic besides a mortician. There will be a mortician because that’s all they can provide now. Just like last time.
The room spins. The world drains of color, then of shapes and lines. Only a black void remains.
Grif gives himself to it.
This is how it starts.
Door opens, table goes flying. Start shooting, don’t bother to aim, there’s so many pouring in to attack that there’s no chance of missing. Try not to flinch as a round sails past your ear, keep breathing steady as the world seems to exist in only balls of flame and screams of pain. Do not think of how likely you are to die. Do not begin to dream of what you’ll do if you win.
This is what warfare is supposed to be like, Grif thinks as he fires another shot, trying to keep his feet rooted in the face of a wave of soldiers. He used to know what war was like before, back in his first post when he woke to find himself the only one left in a sea of blood. After years in Blood Gulch, Chorus seems determined to remind him of what that was like, the harshness of war painted in front of him so starkly that he can’t look away. Soldiers barely old enough to drink getting blown to pieces. Landscapes getting torn to pieces while people tried to flee. Simmons dead in front of him-
Wait, what?
Grif shakes his head, trying to dispel the image out of his mind, so real that it feels more like a memory than an idea. Simmons isn’t dead; Simmons is right next to him, fighting as hard as the rest of them.
Grif turns back to the soldiers at hand, trying to rid himself of the image in his brain. Adrenaline, it has to be adrenaline, working it’s way into his brain to make him fight harder, nothing more, nothing less.
Another shot. Another hit. One wave down with two more approaching armed to the teeth. They’re getting overwhelmed and fast, too fast. Lopez, Donut and Doc manage to shut the door. A moment of silence. An opportunity to fill it.
Grif looks at Sarge. Looks at Simmons. Closes his eyes and tries to forget the echo of what could be. He’s not going to survive this for nothing. There’s too many coming at them for that to even be possible.
The table snaps in half with a kick to the doors. The Reds and Blues lift up their guns. The doors open, gunfire begins again.
For some reason, Grif’s does not flinch when the grenade rolls through the door.
Wake up. Blood on the floor. Blood on the ground. Simmons staring back at him. Wash’s arms dragging him away.
The room spins. The world drains of color, then of shapes and lines. Only a black void remains.
Grif falls again.
This is how it starts.
Door opens, table goes flying. Start shooting, don’t bother to aim, there’s so many pouring in to attack that there’s no chance of missing. Try not to flinch as a round sails past your ear, keep breathing steady as the world seems to exist in only balls of flame and screams of pain. Do not think of how likely you are to die. Do not begin to dream of what you’ll do if you win.
Try not to vomit as you realize you’re back at the start all over again.
Grif fails, pulling off his helmet as he lets loose his stomach contents on the floor. The soldiers in front of him jump back out of surprise, soon knocked to the ground by gunfire. Grif heaves in a breath, not paying attention to his friends yelling at him as the blurs under his feet.
It’s not possible. It can’t be. Groundhog day is a stupid Bill Murray movie, not something that happens in real life to people who aren’t Tucker.
And yet, and yet-
“Get it together, Son!” Sarge and God, does the tint of concern in his voice hurt. Grif straightens up just in time to see the shut door, recently barricaded, quiver in front of them.
Grenade. Right. There’s going to be a grenade.
Grif runs forward before he can really think it through. The door in front of them begins to snap, splinters sticking out like knives, and when Grif braces himself to dive forward, a voice reaches his ears.
“Grif!” Simmons. “Get back, you idiot!”
Grif knows he has enough time to say something, to shout something back that might be worth remembering him by. But the words clog in his throat. Instead, he crouches. Watches as the doors fly open.
“Dex!”
When he jumps on the grenade, he hopes they don’t write something stupid on his grave.
This is how it starts.
Door opens, table goes flying. Start shooting, don’t bother to aim, there’s so many pouring in to attack that there’s no chance of missing. Try not to flinch as a round sails past your ear, keep breathing steady as the world seems to exist in only balls of flame and screams of pain. Do not think of how likely you are to die. Do not begin to dream of what you’ll do if you win.
Realize with a sense of horror that you’ve lost three times in a row.
This time, Grif doesn’t vomit. But it’s a close thing.
Wake up. Blood on the floor. Blood on the ground. Simmons staring back at him. Wash’s arms-
Door opens, table goes flying. Start shooting, don’t bother to aim, there’s so many pouring in to attack that there’s no chance of missing. Try not to-
Dragging him away. The room spins. The world drains of color, then of
Flinch as a round sails past your ear, keep breathing steady as the world seems to exist in only balls of flame and screams of pain. Do not think of how likely you are-
Shapes and lines-
To die. Do not begin-
black void
This is how it starts.
This is also how it ends.
When it comes down to it, they’re both the same thing.