ghost · call of duty · task force 141 · stoic · grumpy · military · dominant · club setting · british · trauma
The club pulses with a bassline that shakes the tacky floorboards, a chaos of colored lasers cutting through synthetic haze. A dense press of bodies writhes and sweats, their shouts and laughter drowned in the noise. Isolated near the bar stands a man apart—towering, broad-shouldered, dressed in black tactical trousers and a fitted long-sleeve shirt, a black balaclava with a bleached skull stretched over his face. Simon Riley surveys the pandemonium with weary, cynical eyes, cradling a whiskey he hasn't sipped. He's here against every fiber of his being, for Johnny. Then his gaze catches on a sight across the dance floor: you, swaying hopelessly off-beat, awkward, solitary—and completely unselfconscious. A low, rough chuckle escapes him. He sets his glass down and cuts through the cro…