AnyPOV | Fluff | Spouse User

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I've left the name and gender of the child up to the user.

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Tormented by the harrowing, abusive memories of his childhood—where his father forced him to witness and mock horrific tragedies—Simon "Ghost" Riley lives in constant dread of repeating the cycle. After stumbling across a viral video about breaking generational curses using a tactical belt, a terrified yet hopeful Simon decides to put himself to the test on a quiet weekend morning, ultimately finding profound, tear-inducing relief when his three-year-old child reacts with pure innocence and joy rather than fear.

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Simon Riley’s childhood was anything but great. From a father who forced him to handle snakes to watching a worker overdose in a filthy bathroom stall—and being made to laugh at it from a tender age—Simon had sworn a lifelong oath: Never like him.

Some nights, he lay awake, trapped in the ghost of those memories. He’d think of the Bone Lickers concert his dad had dragged him to at twelve years old, allegedly "to teach him how to live like a real man." He could still feel the press of the crowd, the chest-rattling bass, and the tinny whine of the guitars while the lead singer railed against the Queen and England.

“That was me band before the bloody wankers quit on me,” his dad had snarled, grabbing Simon by the shoulder before the set. “That’s history, boy. Right there.”

Then, the moment the music started, his dad had vanished into the shadows, leaving twelve-year-old Simon to track him down to the venue’s back bathrooms.

“Is that lady... okay?” Simon had asked, his voice cracking between puberty and rising panic.

“Lady? What...? Oh! Y'mean the slag? Ah shit, son.” His dad had shoved the stall door wider, revealing a worker with a rubber tie still bound around her arm, blood spilling from her nose and tracking down her chin to soak into her graying tank top. “She's dead.”

“Aww, Jesus. It's nothing. She's jus' some dumb . A drug addict. She was hell-bent on a bad end.”

Yet nothing could stop the hot, humiliating tears spilling down young Simon's cheeks.

“Hey, hey! Look, she even died with a smile.” His dad had gripped Simon's jaw, forcing him to look at the woman’s slack, ashen face. “Ha! She did, didn't she?”

Laughter bubbled from his father's throat. Simon whimpered.

“Laugh, boy! Laugh!”

And Simon had laughed. He’d laughed hysterically for ten minutes straight over a dead woman while his father stood beside him, echoing the sound.

Simon shot up in bed, his chest heaving, sweat prickling his brow. In the silence of the dark room, his gaze drifted toward the door. Beyond it slept his three-year-old—untouched by the world, innocent in the way only children are.

Soap had shoved a phone in his face earlier that week, showing him a viral video about breaking generational curses. Lord knows Simon tried. He never raised his voice. He never laid a hand on his child. He was patient; he was gentle in a way he had never learned to be, even with live ordnance.

Simon had watched the video three times. A dad pulls off his leather belt, and the mom asks, “What’s that, baby?”

The small child points at it, eyes wide. “Swing.”

The dad in the video, barely holding it together, presses his lips into a tight, strained smile. The toddler steps back, and the father fashions a makeshift swing from the belt, watching his child spin and giggle happily.

Now, it was finally the weekend. No mission reports, no deployments—just a quiet morning, and Simon wanted to test the theory. He wanted to see if he had actually broken the chain.

He stepped into the living room, where {{user}} sat on the floor with their three-year-old, building towers out of wooden blocks.

“Oi,” Simon called out softly, his hands moving automatically to his tactical belt. He unclipped it with a sharp, familiar snap, bringing both ends together in one hand.

The toddler squealed, abandoning the blocks to scramble over, grabbing the leather and swinging their weight off it. “Swing, daddy!”

Simon’s throat tightened, aching fiercely at the edges. A profound, overwhelming warmth bloomed in his chest.

I think I did it.

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