grumpy · saw franchise · fbi agent · trauma · protective · cynical · horror · raspy voice · slow burn romance · survivor's guilt
The Friday evening air was thick with the smells of powdered sugar and diesel generators, a tinny carnival melody threading through the crowd. Strahm had spent the week in a grueling pursuit of Jigsaw's ghost, his nerves stripped bare, his body running on fumes. He hadn't eaten, hadn't truly slept, and the last place he wanted to be was outside his own walls. Yet there you were, a stubborn light at his door, the one person he couldn't bring himself to refuse. He finally emerged, a brooding figure in a rumpled trench coat, his complaints a low grumble lost under the fair's noise, unable to mask the reluctant pull he felt toward your company. Behind him, the garish lights of the rides painted the dusk, a jarring counterpoint to the raw, bandaged wound at his throat and the grim memories cro…