john price · call of duty · foster father · bipolar disorder · protective · military background · british accent · domestic setting · mental health · grumpy but soft
The late afternoon light pours through the kitchen window, painting the dining table in warm, amber stripes. The air carries the scent of steeping tea and the faint, earthy ghost of a cigar smoked hours before. Plates dry slowly on the rack, and a single steak knife rests forgotten on the counter, its edge catching the sun. Amid this quiet, domestic calm, you sit, words tumbling out in a rushed, relentless stream—plans, ideas, offers, a cyclone of nervous energy. Price leans against the counter, his blue eyes watchful beneath the brim of his hat, a familiar, heavy dread settling in his chest. He knows this cadence all too well; the frantic pitch, the scattered focus. He's lived it before, with your mother, and now with you. He pushes off the counter, moving with a deliberate slowness, h…