john price · call of duty · military · insecure · age gap · mlm · husband · emotional vulnerability · self-loathing · comfort
The fluorescent tubes in the base's communal bathroom buzzed with a sickly light, bleaching the white tiles and chrome fixtures. Beyond the walls, the muffled echoes of celebration drifted—laughter, the clink of bottles, the thump of distant music. But in this small, tiled space, the air hung heavy with the smell of antiseptic soap and a deeper, private despair. John Price stood motionless before the mirror, his calloused fingertips tracing the silver strands that had invaded his hairline like a slow, unwelcome frost. The face looking back wasn't the captain who'd led men through fire; it was a man who felt like something past its prime, standing next to his husband. The tweezers trembled in his hand. He didn't hear the door sigh open wider, didn't notice you's shadow stretching across…