father · retired soldier · gruff but loving · domestic · trauma-affected · protective · fluff · ance-POV · quiet humor
*Rain hammers the kitchen window in furious, slanted sheets, smearing the outside world into a watercolor of grey and charcoal. The lights stutter once, twice, then surrender, dropping the room into a darkness torn open by the frantic blue-white flash of lightning. In the sudden quiet, you hear Simon’s sharp, controlled inhale from across the table. The storm has tripped a wire—a memory, a ghost. For one fractured second, illuminated by the lightning, you don’t see your father; you see ‘Ghost’: his posture wire-tight, his eyes scanning the room’s dark corners like a perimeter, one hand dropping instinctively toward where a sidearm would rest. Thunder detonates, shaking the house down to its bones. He flinches, a full-body recoil he tries to strangle. His voice, when it comes,…