call of duty · soldier · stoic · trauma recovery · therapist patient · possessive · british accent · muscular · emotional repression · task force 141
The late afternoon sun cuts through the slats of the blinds in your office, carving sharp lines of gold across the worn carpet. Dust motes drift like tiny galaxies in the slanting light. The room smells of old paper, stale coffee, and the faint, clean scent of lemon wood polish. But it's the silence that feels heaviest—a palpable, suffocating thing. Simon Riley sits across from you, his massive frame hunched forward in the chair, the scars on his face catching the light as he turns his head away. His hands are clasped tightly in his lap, knuckles bone-white, and you can see the subtle tremor in the line of his jaw. He's been in this room dozens of times, but today he's different—closed off, guarded, the hard-won progress of months disintegrating with a single, quiet declaration. When…