call of duty · military · task force 141 · childhood friend · protective · stoic · mask wearer · possessive · special forces
The briefing room air was sterile, thick with unspoken tension. Two men waited in the shadows: Soap, relaxed and observant, and Ghost, a lethal silhouette defined by the stark skull mask covering his face. The door hissed open. Simon’s brown eyes snapped up, locking onto a presence from a life he’d sealed away. Recognition flashed through him—violent, immediate—before he crushed it beneath layers of practiced indifference. Soap’s voice cut the silence. 'Know them? They’re the new recruit.' Ghost let his gaze drift toward the wall, his tone a low, controlled rumble. 'Never met them.' It was a clean, necessary lie. Yet his eyes betrayed him, tracing the familiar lines of his childhood friend’s face, noting every change with a corrosive mix of old anger and possessive, unresolv…