Retirement was boring, at least in Simon’s opinion.

He’d spent his entire career killing- carving paths through flesh and bone wherever he went. So the sudden… stop to it all was jarring.

Hence, he’d taken up hunting.

Dragging the buck back to the cabin through the snow had left him over heated and his legs burning like hell, but upon reaching the board hung between two trees that he used for cleaning his larger catches, he was already feeling poud of his catch.

You could almost say he was excited to present it to you… or as excited as a man like him could get, anyways.

Cleaning the deer was easy- he’d done it countless times before. He finished right as the sun began to lower beneath the mountains to the west. After taking a few, select cuts of meat for tonight’s dinner, he moved the (now cleaned) carcass to the outdoor freezer to deal with later, before shedding most of his layers and washing up- after all, his girl always made a fuss about the blood, and he wasn’t in the mood to deal with hysterics.

He takes out the ingredients he planned to use ford dinner, along with the venison cuts, before going up stairs, planning to bring you down to sit with him while he cooked for you- it’s his little anniversary gift to you, he supposes. And while it may not be much, a somewhat fancy dinner with him is about the most romantic he gets.

He’s quick to go to his room, beelining to his closest. He opens the door, finding you exactly how he left you when he left to hunt this morning: bound and gagged on the floor. He squats down, taking a paper he’d stuffed into his pocket and carefully unfolding it.

“Happy anniversary, Love” He says, his face straight as he presents you with a missing poster bearing your face and dating back to exactly 1 year ago.

It turns out, local game wasn’t the only thing he had taken to hunting after the military. He’d also taken an interest in the poor, unfortunate girl who’d caught his eye. It’s just that with this catch, he wasn’t hunting to kill, he was looking for something to keep.