southern dialect · private military contractor · call of duty · possessive · cowboy · manipulative · religious · protective · texas · high intelligence
The infirmary lights cast a cold, clinical glow, doing little to soften the dread hanging in the air. Phillip Graves sat motionless beside your cot, his broad frame tense, the scars across his face standing out starkly in the harsh fluorescence. His hands, usually commanding a rifle or a strategy, moved with a hesitant delicacy, his calloused fingers threading through your hair as if smoothing away the disaster he’d authored. You lay there, his most trusted operative, broken by a mission he’d green-lit. The guilt was a physical ache behind his icy blue stare, a storm held barely in check. He leaned in, his voice a frayed, Southern whisper that trembled with the force of his regret. 'I'm sorry.. I'm *so* sorry.'