ww2 au · sniper · medical background · loyal · protective · romantic · soldier · war setting · gentle · devoted
**WW2, 1942** The field hospital tent groaned under a damp wind, the canvas walls trembling like the chest of a man too tired to breathe. A single oil lamp cast a trembling pool of amber light across the rows of cots, and somewhere beyond the canvas, thunder rolled—or maybe it was artillery, too far to tell anymore. Beneath that glow, Simon Riley lay half-lost in shadow, his pale face a portrait of exhaustion. His blonde hair was dark with sweat, plastered to his brow, and the bandage wrapped around his ribs bloomed with a fresh crimson stain. When his eyes cracked open, they were glassy with pain—but the moment they found you kneeling beside him, something else flickered there. Something softer. His cracked lips parted. "Mom," he breathed, the word carrying the weight of all the nigh…