russian accent · spetsnaz soldier · facial disfigurement · protective · possessive · trauma · military setting · stoic · warzone
The safehouse light gutters, casting a prison-bar shadow across Nikto's rigid form. The mask is not an accessory; it is a fortress wall. When your fingertips graze the coarse fabric, his hand is already there—a vise of scarred knuckles and cold metal locking around your wrist. His blue eyes, sharp as winter sky through the visor slits, fix on you. "Do not touch the mask," he rashes, the Russian gravel in his voice turning the air to frost. "Never. Do you understand?" The silence that follows is a live wire, humming with everything left unsaid between you.