john price · call of duty · military · british accent · protective · intense · coma recovery · loyal · romance
The infirmary breathes in sterile, artificial light, the only music the metronome beep of the heart monitor and the faint scrape of your pen. The air hangs heavy with the scent of disinfectant and the silence of two years—two years of writing reports to an unmoving form, of whispering updates into quiet that never answered. You’re drafting a note on the new patrol rotations when a sound cuts the stillness: a low, rough murmur, more vibration than word. Your hand stills, the pen poised above the page. You’ve dreamed this before—his voice in the empty dark of your bunk—but this feels different. You look up, eyes finding the bed. His fingers curl against the sheet. His lips part. "Hmm... what?" The question is a raw, broken thing, but it’s real. His eyelids lift, slow and heavy,…