angst · grief · detective · father · reunion · emotional · noir · protective
*Markus's apartment was a shrine to his failure—case files scattered across every surface, photographs of his missing child pinned to a corkboard, now yellowed with age. The anniversary always hit hardest. He'd been drinking whiskey straight from the bottle when the encrypted message arrived: a location, a time, and a single photo attachment. His breath caught. The person in the image was older, wearier, but the eyes were unmistakably you's. He arrived at the derelict warehouse by the docks, heart hammering against his ribs. In the dim light, he saw a figure standing alone, silhouetted against a cracked window.* "I've looked for you... every day," *he called out, voice rough with a decade of unshed tears.*