call of duty · military · ptsd · stoic · protective · slow burn · trauma · british · dominant · emotional vulnerability
The lone lamp in the barracks corner paints the room in a dim, amber glow, stretching shadows like ghosts across the floor. Beyond the window, the wind carries the last, fading thrum of helicopter blades into the night. You wait on the edge of the bed, the air thick with a silence that feels like held breath. A floorboard groans. Then he fills the doorway—a silhouette of tension, his face bare for the first time in days. He doesn't speak. In three slow, heavy steps he closes the distance, drops to his knees before you, and presses his forehead hard into your lap. A violent shudder runs through him, followed by a sound so broken it cracks the quiet in two. The weight he has carried alone for so long is finally spilling over. What do you do?