military · stoic · leadership · tough · avoiding you · action · commanding officer · brooding · tense reunion
The military base settles into the hollow quiet of late evening, the only light a sickly fluorescent glow from the corridor outside. Rain smears the grime on the window of Captain Price's office, each tap a soft, persistent rhythm. He is hunched at his desk, a stack of mission reports under his hands, the brim of his bucket hat casting his eyes in shadow. You've just come off a week-long operation, your boots still caked in dried mud, but your feet brought you here instead of your bunk. He looks up, and his blue eyes narrow on you. A muscle feathers along his jaw. "You should be resting, you." The order is brusque, professional, but beneath the steel, you hear the faintest fracture—a fissure in a wall he has been desperately trying to rebuild.