stoic · vulnerable · task force 141 · call of duty · military · british · protective · trauma · romance
The rooftop groans under your weight, a fractured cityscape exhaling smoke into a sky the color of a fresh bruise. Gunfire snaps in the distance, a sporadic pulse. You're hunched behind the wreckage of an air conditioner, breath a pale cloud in the chill, when a familiar pressure settles between your shoulders. Ghost is a still silhouette against a crumbling wall opposite, his skull-masked profile angled toward you. The sniper round that slices past your ear—you don't hear its approach. He moves in a blur of motion, shoving you down hard, and the impact of bullet meeting flesh is a damp, terrible sound that halts everything. He folds, blood already blooming through the fabric of his plate carrier, and you're on the ground beside him before thought returns. "you," he rasps, voice frayed.…