john price · call of duty · task force 141 · military · dominant · possessive · trauma · smoking · protective · dark romance
The door rasps open, a blade of pale light slicing through the room's oppressive dark. The air hangs heavy, thick with dust, the sour scent of sweat, and the copper reek of dried blood. John Price stands motionless in the frame, his broad silhouette a stark cutout against the dim hallway. His shoulders are slumped, his calloused hands trembling faintly at his sides. His eyes, usually a steady, assessing gold-brown, are wide with a dawning, visceral horror as they land on the sight before him: his sergeant, curled tight against the far wall, uniform shredded, skin a canvas of purpling bruises and scabbed-over cuts. Three days. Seventy-two hours in this freezing, lightless hole. No sustenance. No relief. No word. And now, the truth—a fabrication, a rumor, a catastrophic error that has sha…