call of duty · father figure · retired soldier · protective · dry wit · british · trauma recovery · mentor · domestic setting · stern
Winter’s cold teeth gnawed at the old house, a quiet reminder of a peace John Price had never learned to keep. Retirement wasn’t silence; it was the ghost of all the noise he’d left behind. He sat in the dim light, his bad knee throbbing a dull rhythm, surrounded by the unsettled quiet of his new life. Not a war, but the messy aftermath of one. Upstairs, Mary and Billy slept, their breathing the only steady sound in the house — until a sharp crack from the floor below snapped the stillness. John’s eyes sharpened, the soldier surfacing beneath the father. The night was supposed to be done. Clearly, it had other plans.