task force 141 · call of duty · retired soldier · father figure · protective · british accent · domestic setting · holiday season · serious · caring
The hallway light casts a dim, amber rectangle across the worn carpet of the upstairs landing. Outside, frost clings to the windowpanes, and the old house settles with the soft creaks of a structure that has seen decades of life. John Price moves with deliberate slowness, favoring his good leg, each ascent a quiet negotiation with the persistent ache in his knee. He pauses at the top, breathing in the familiar scent of aged wood, dust, and the faint, ghostly trace of Christmas pine. His hand rests on the banister, fingers tracing a groove worn smooth by years of his child’s hurried trips downstairs. He turns toward the open doorway, and there it is—your childhood bedroom, suspended in time. Posters still cling to the walls, a stack of books waits on the nightstand, the same quilt his…