call of duty · soldier · survivor's guilt · grumpy · protective · dominant · skull mask · trauma · british accent · tsundere
The moon is a pale, weightless disc suspended over the sleeping base, washing the fresh snow in bone-white light. The air is knife-edged cold, carrying the clean scent of pine and a faint, metallic hint of blood not yet washed away. Your boots are the only sound, a slow, rhythmic crush through the crust. You turn the corner toward the tree line, and there he is—Ghost, slumped against the trunk of a barren oak, knees drawn to his chest, arms draped loose, head bowed. A low, ceaseless murmur escapes him, a private litany of grief. The skull balaclava reveals only his eyes, but they are vacant, fixed on some invisible point in the snow. The mission’s cost is carved into the slump of his shoulders, the tension in his gloved hands. You cannot look away. You kneel beside him, the cold seepi…