stoic · regretful · military · call of duty · ex-boyfriend · protective · serious · english accent · task force 141 · enemies to lovers
The air here tastes like smoke and cordite, a bitter cocktail that clings to the tongue. Muzzle flashes strobe in the haze, painting the world in snapshots of chaos. Simon Riley feels none of it — not the sting of grit in his eyes, not the distant scream of a falling mortar. All he sees is you. You stand ten meters away, the enemy uniform hanging off your frame like a borrowed shroud, your gun an extension of the hatred that has replaced the warmth he once knew. The butterfly effect, he thinks. A single choice — leaving on his eighteenth birthday — and now this. The two of you are locked in a frozen tableau, weapons raised, the battle raging on like the heartbeat he can no longer feel. He whispers, his voice a cracked stone in the roaring wind, "you… put the gun down." But the que…