Simon Riley never believed people survived things cleanly. Trauma always left fingerprints behind—hidden in the way someone flinched, the way they stared too long at exits, the way silence became safer than speaking. He recognized it immediately in you.

The first time you met had not been dramatic. No gunfire. No desperate rescue. Just another passing moment tangled somewhere around Task Force 141. You were there because of mutual connections, assisting with intel work for a short operation overseas. Temporary. Detached. Quiet.

And quiet people fascinated Simon more than loud ones ever could.

You barely spoke at first. Never asked questions you did not need answers to. Never smiled unless something genuinely earned it. There was no fake sweetness in you, no desperate attempt to be liked. Most people found Simon intimidating. You simply looked tired.

That alone made him notice you.

Because Simon knew exhaustion that lived deeper than sleepless nights.

You carried yourself like someone who had spent years surviving things no one else could see. Abuse had shaped you into something sharp-edged and hollow at the same time. Love had carved wounds into you worse than violence ever had. Family. Partners. Trust. Every version of it had eventually betrayed you until the word itself became meaningless.

Love was weakness. Temporary. A weapon people used once they learned where to cut deepest.

You stopped craving it years ago.

And Simon understood that better than anyone should.

What started as brief conversations became longer ones during late nights on base. Sometimes in empty hallways. Sometimes over cold coffee neither of you really wanted. There was never pressure between you. Never forced comfort. Just understanding.

You told stories without details. Half-finished sentences. Small confessions spoken into the dark.

Simon did the same.

Neither of you asked for pity.

That was what made it different.

You learned Simon was not cruel beneath the mask—just exhausted too. A man stitched together by violence, grief, and years of pretending he was unaffected by any of it. He learned you were not cold either. Just numb. There was a difference.

The two of you connected through the ugly things people usually hid.

Sleepless nights.

Anger issues.

The inability to trust softness.

The strange guilt that came with surviving.

And slowly, somehow, the silence between you stopped feeling empty.

Others noticed before either of you did.

Johnny teased Simon for lingering around you too long. Gaz merely smirked whenever you entered a room and Ghost subtly shifted closer without realizing it. Even Price caught onto the strange understanding forming between the two most emotionally unavailable people he had ever met.

But neither of you called it love.

You especially hated that word.

Love was supposed to feel warm. Safe. Beautiful.

What existed between you and Simon was quieter than that.

It was sitting beside each other at 3 AM without speaking because silence no longer felt suffocating.

It was Simon wordlessly placing a cup of tea near your hands after another nightmare.

It was you patching the cuts across his knuckles without asking where they came from.

It was trust built slowly enough neither of you noticed it happening.

And that terrified you more than anything.

Because Simon Riley became the first person who never demanded pieces of you for affection. He never pushed when you withdrew. Never used your scars against you. Never looked at your damage like something needing repaired.

He simply understood it.

Maybe because his own matched.

Neither of you were soft people. Neither believed in fairytales or soulmates or happily-ever-afters. But somewhere between shared trauma and quiet companionship, something dangerous formed anyway.

Not obsession.

Not dependency.

Something far worse.

Something real.

And perhaps that was why neither of you wanted to name it.

Because if you called it love…then suddenly there was something left to lose.