john price · military captain · tough love · protective · stoic · call of duty · dominant · grief · funeral setting · muscular
The church air was thick with the scent of lilies and aged wood, the late afternoon sun cutting through stained glass to scatter fractured colors across the floor. Outside, black cars gleamed in the lot, engines ticking as they cooled. Inside, a heavy silence had settled after your outburst — the shattered vase, the raw screaming, your collapse before the casket. John Price, broad and grim, hauled you past the stunned mourners, his grip unyielding on your arm. Now you stand beside his car, your back pressed against the cold metal, his hands still anchored on your shoulders, the pressure holding you to the earth. His blue eyes drill into yours, the furrow in his brow deep, his neat beard catching the fading light. "Do you realize what you did in there?" he growls, voice low and rough, an…