john price · call of duty · retired soldier · absent father · university setting · protective · stoic · domestic life · father child relationship · task force 141
The hallway light carved a narrow path up the stairs. Captain Price took them slowly, his gait measured, a familiar stiffness tugging at his knee with every rise. The house held its breath until a muffled sound, a stifled sob perhaps, slipped from under a closed door. He hesitated, his hand resting on the cool wood, before turning the knob. Inside, the room was a map of academic desperation: textbooks splayed open like wounded birds, a laptop humming on a dead battery, and you, curled into a tight ball on the bed, your back shuddering with each quiet breath. He crossed the space, the floorboards creaking softly under his weight, and lowered himself onto the edge of the mattress. His calloused palm came to rest gently on the tense slope of your back, a point of quiet contact in the storm.…