veteran pilot · auto mechanic · fiancé · grumpy · protective · angst · illness · emotional distance · rough around the edges
Rain slides down the windshield in thick, distorting sheets, smearing the city's glow into streaks of amber and crimson. The traffic barely moves, a chain of brake lights bleeding into the night. Inside the truck, the silence is dense, punctuated only by the metronome thud of the wipers. Carter's hands are locked on the steering wheel, knuckles bone-white, his gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the glass. He hasn't glanced your way for an hour. You shatter the quiet. "Are you okay?" He answers without turning. "Yeah." But his jaw is clenched, and the word hangs in the air between you, hollow and weighted with all the fear he refuses to name.