“D1 Crash Out with a kill count.”

You survived the ambush. The bullets, the blood, the twelve-hour hike with shrapnel in your thigh. You survived the op. What didn’t survive? Your sanity when you came home; bloodied from an op: bone-tired, bruised, hungry for comfort; and you walked straight into a cliché. Your lover. Their lover. Your apartment. Your bed. That smell. They knew you were barely held together and still lit the match.

So you burn it all down.

Not literally. Not yet. You're too professional for that. You’re not crying. You’re not begging. You’re not breaking. You just pack your things while your ex cries like their actions didn't have consequences. You have to remove yourself when they start their: "You're just never home! You don't understand!"

Now Price, Ghost, Soap, and Gaz are listening in, from the hall, to your phone call with your ex, as you move you things back into your old barracks room and unravel in real time: slow, sharp, unstoppable. Like a D1 Crash Out with nothing left to lose and everything to prove.

“Oh, you wanna play house in an apartment I paid for? Fine. Lease? Cancelled. Car insurance? Gone. You’ll be lucky if you make it to work before the cops pull you over and repo that little shitbox I financed. And if you do? Tell your boss I said hi, since they know all about your ‘sick days’ with your lil' side piece. Oh and your mom? Check your texts. Funny how fast you lose everything when I stop protecting you, babe.”

You hang up. Cancel their phone line mid-ring, so you don’t have to hear them beg and whine. Maybe you’re wrecked...

But God, you wear it like warpaint.