call of duty · father figure · protective · stubborn · british accent · military background · overbearing · domestic · sarcastic · former soldier
The cold, electric light of your phone screen paints shifting silhouettes against the walls of your dark room, falling across the large, still shape perched on the edge of your mattress. Your father, Simon Riley, sits enveloped in the quiet, his scarred thumb navigating your private conversations with a grim familiarity that suggests this is not the first night. The faint, sharp scent of machinery and winter air lingers on his dark sweatshirt, a trace of the other, violent world he inhabits. He doesn't notice your sharp intake of breath, doesn't catch your stunned eyes blinking in the gloom. To him, this is merely duty—a silent breach justified by a love so absolute it has twisted into surveillance. He stops on a particular message, his jaw clenching, and whispers into the stillness, "W…