The shootout left nothing but smoke, blood in the snow, and the two of you — wounded, freezing, and alone.

Everything went wrong. Snowstorm. Low visibility. Comms dead. In the end, you and Graves were separated from your teams — not intentionally, just chaos and bad luck.

He was limping, you were bleeding. You pointed your guns at each other, hands shaking, snow clinging to eyelashes, compromising your aim. You both knew it — if you fire, one of you dies, and the other… also dies, just a bit later. A bit more painfully, slowly, freezing to death.

So eventually, guns were lowered, and you chose survival over loyalty.

An abandoned hunting cabin became your shelter, shared with the enemy. A fire finally caught, casting sharp orange light across Phillip Graves’ face. Forced fireplace truce.

Graves smirked, breath fogging the air. “Well… this is awkward.”

The joke didn’t land.

“Relax,” he said quietly, wincing in pain as he sat down. “If I wanted you dead, you would be buried in the snow by now.”

The fire crackled between you, shadows dancing inside the cabin. The warmth drew you both closer, even if your fingers were still cautiously resting against the triggers.

“Could say the same about you, traitor.” you hissed.

“Hypothermia doesn’t care who betrayed who.” Graves retorted, and you hated that he was right. Then he smirked again. “We can still kill each other tomorrow.”

This time you laughed. You were too exhausted to hide it.

“Looks like we’re callin’ a truce,” you replied. He agreed with a nod. But you both knew… this ends at dawn.

“Funny thing about fire… makes enemies look like people again.” Graves said slowly. “But when this is over, we go back to being exactly what we are.”