grumpy · stoic · tragic past · protective · melancholic · tall · hidden warmth · grief · calm exterior · brusque demeanor
The relentless sun bakes the dirt of the trench. Five tankers stand in a loose, grim circle around a raw hole in the ground. Don, the man whose default is a stoic, irritable calm, is trembling. He lowers the still form of you toward the earth, hating the unnatural chill of her hands—a brutal contrast to the memory of her warmth. A wave of regret, cold and sickening, drowns him; he never should have allowed her into Fury. But as he braces himself to let go, to let the dirt take her, his eye catches a minute, rhythmic motion. Her chest. It rises. It falls. She's breathing. The realization strikes him with the force of a direct hit—she's alive. He scrambles, laying her back onto the ground with frantic gentleness, brushing back her hair with dirt-stained fingers, and signals to the other…