Thank you for the feed back! I wasn't sure how well this would be received and it's definitely good to know that some people find the concept interesting. I was also surprised to hear that the idea of a more fatherly look at Price and Soap's relationship isn't all that explored. I've seen my fair share of people pairing the two up for romance, but a lot of times those don't have much room to explore the more canon aspects of their feelings after love and attraction. There's just so much to about them that actually shows in canon material that I just can't be bothered to make this romantic.


Hereford, UK, 1st November

Nikolai prodded at the hissing pile of eggs in his skillet. Still runny, they'd need more time. Eggs never were a favorite of his, but considering his refrigerator only had a near expired carton of milk, two (scratch that, zero) eggs, and five or so slices of bread, his options were limited. If Price were present, he'd probably suggest french toast, but that was more work for food he didn't like and he was hungry now. Yuri could deal with toast.

He glowered at Yuri, who was still very much passed out on his couch with a bottle of Imperia (more specifically, Nikolai's bottle of Imperia that Soap gifted to him) left abandoned on the floor nearby. Friend or not, Yuri made for boring company on a good day and terrible otherwise. Last night he leaned towards the latter, since he decided it'd be a good idea to get shitfaced and then question Price on why he punched him down a flight of stairs. Apparently this happened and no one cared to inform Nikolai, much to his chagrin. Suffice to say, Price threatened to punch him down another one and Nikolai had to step in and placate him before Yuri be thrown out of the cramped apartment. He'd need to lock away the alcohol from now on.

The mechanical ring of his phone pulled his attention off both his cooking and his comrade. He rested the spatula against the rim of the pan and answered with a curt, "Who is this?"

"Nikolai? It's Price, I'm at the hospital."

"да, I thought so," Nikolai replied. Something about the man's voice though sparked worry in him; he sounded on edge. "Did something happen?"

Sirens and car engines blared in the background on Price's end, making it a little difficult to hear him. "It's Soap. They're amputating his arm."

A brick of lead just settled in Nikolai's stomach. "Did they say why?"

"Yeah, it got infected again and he's barely recovered from the first one. At this rate, it'll kill him." Price took a deep breath away from the receiver before adding, "He's so out of his head right now, I don't even know if he's aware that they're going to do it. Apparently they can't get a hold of any next of kin to get permission, so it's being handled as an emergency measure."

"It is probably for the best, my friend." Nikolai didn't want to bring up the fact that the arm being cut off was also in extremely bad shape and probably beyond repair anyways. The thought had been there since he saw it himself back at the safe house, but he held his tongue.

"I know, Nikolai. I know." A thump over the phone. "It's just... bloody frustrating that I can't do anything to help him right now."

"Price, listen, he will likely be in the hospital up to two more weeks before he's discharged. There's plenty we can do for him in that time, okay?"

"Nikolai..."

"Okay?"

"..." In that silence, Nikolai worried that Price may have hung up. It wasn't until he heard a very muffled sound on the other end that he was sure that wasn't the case. "Okay..."

Nikolai took a deep breath, only to find himself taking in a very smokey smell. "Ебать меня! I have to go, my friend!" He quickly hung up and got the skillet off the stove top along with the blackened eggs and partly melted plastic spatula. He gave a weighted sigh.

He really, really hated eggs...


The sight of Soap's drug induced antics were nothing new to Price; he'd seen plenty of it after the oil tanker explosion on the bridge, and again when they left the safe house in India. Any bit of pain medication and there was zero hope of him being remotely functional. Unsurprisingly, for the few days following the amputation, the doctor requested he keep his visits brief. The less excitement the better, they insisted. That didn't stop Price from having small exchanges with him, as disjointed and looping as they were. None of those chats held any sort of weight to them, since Soap seemed to forget them minutes after they'd happen. It wasn't until after they lowered the dose of morphine that the dopey face seemed to vanish, leaving him worn down and tired. He was under stress and it was making it hard to sleep, then his lack of sleep would make him more stressed and cause night terrors. The doctor wanted to sedate him, but Soap firmly denied him. It was the most he'd talk about his condition for the first few days. Not a word about his arm was uttered from him.

At least, not until some days afterwards. "I can't believe it's gone..."

The statement felt like a stab to Price's chest. He couldn't pick him up and tell him to get back on his feet, that he could keep fighting. The fight was over for him now. "I know, son."

Soap thumbed at the blanket, something he'd been doing a lot lately if some of the loosened fibers were any indication. "Price? I don't know what to do."

"Pardon?"

"When I get out of here, I don't have anywhere I can go. I don't want to move back in with my dad, but I don't think I have much a choice." Soap stopped picking at the covers and rubbed his dark ringed eye. "After the medical expenses, I doubt I'll be even able to afford the shittiest apartment available."

Price arched his brow, which vanished under the brim of his hat. "My offer still stands. You can shack up with me when they let you out of here."

"I wouldn't want to put you out."

"You're not putting me out," Price insisted. "I was meaning to look for a flatmate anyways, and you keep your space tidy."

This elicited a soft chuckle from his former charge. Once upon a time, Price made a joke about how his organization and cleanliness was what started his nickname, though Soap always claimed that it was for a different reason which he never cared to elaborate on. This became an inside joke very, very quickly between them. "If you say so. Thanks, Price."

"It's no problem. Besides, maybe you could help me sort some intel with Kingfish when you get out of here." Adjusting his hat, Price glancing towards the doorway as one of the nurses stepped in. The shift of attention was a signal to Soap that someone else arrived and so he turned his head to check as well.

"Good afternoon, John, how you feeling?" The nurse asked with a wide smile as she quickly glanced over the monitor reading.

Soap seemed to watch her hand move with the pen against her clipboard, as if he could decipher what she was writing without ever seeing it himself. "Fine."

She set down the clipboard and lightly clapped her hands. "That's good. So I'm here to change your bandages."

There couldn't be a more exasperated look that played on his face. "Alright..."

With a happy sound, she leaned in to peel the bandage from his eye. The whites were a veiny red, the pupil was seemingly missing from his pale blue iris, and the upper eyelid was a touch swollen, causing it to be narrower than the other. It looked a whole lot less bad than the last time Price saw it. She carefully cleaned up the area with a cloth and administered a couple eye drops before applying a clean patch. From there she went to untie the back of his medical gown to have unrestricted access to his stump. Soap seemed fairly aware of this and scooted forward a little to make it easier. He sat in complete silence with the gown hanging off his other shoulder, watching every little action the nurse's hands made as they unraveled the bandages. The discoloration and swelling had died down significantly. All in all, a definite improvement. The area was washed up and patted dry before being freshly wrapped back up.

The nurse folded her hands in front of her, no less jovial than before. "Everything's healing up brilliantly. I'm pretty sure we'll be able to take you off the IV soon with how well you're recovering."

"That's some good news," Price chimed in while Soap fixed his hospital gown back on. "When do you think he'll be ready to leave?"

"Hm... That's more a question for his doctor, but I think at the rate he's going, he'll be good to go within a week."

Price smiled and stood up now. "Thank you, miss."

Soap glanced his way, either having heard the sound of the chair or saw movement from the corner of his eye. "You're leaving now?"

"I've got some things I have to settle. I'll be back tomorrow though." Price gave Soap a light pat on the shoulder before throwing on his coat and heading out the door. He had a certain project in mind.


Over the course of two days, Price spent a fair amount of his time at his own house. The last time he'd stepped foot in here was at least a month before they left for Operation Kingfish, three years ago. As a result, the whole place was in need of some work. There was some staining on the ceiling and damage to the wood floor in the living room as a result of the roof having sprung a leak. Any sort of house plants either long died or, in the curious case of his spider plant, became an overgrown monster that split the pot in half through a crack that'd been on the bottom. On top of that, the building was loaded with cobwebs and dust on just about every surface, making it a nightmare for allergies - not that Price was allergic to dust, or much else.

By some miracle, his landlady didn't just evict him for abandoning the place and not paying rent in so long. The crotchety old woman was just about ready to, but they ended up striking a deal that if Price could fix the place back up himself and add an additional sum on top of his rent until he paid off the missing amount he owed, then he could keep living there. Not the best deal he'd ever been given, but he couldn't deny that it was fair all things considered.

Nikolai, and by extension Yuri, helped him repair the roof and replace the damaged floorboards. Over a couple decades ago, Price used to help his old man, a carpenter, with work until he joined the service. Rusty as he was, the experience was still there. Heck, Yuri managed to make himself useful for a change, since he seemed intimately familiar with roof work. Nikolai may have needed more help than he could offer, but he definitely made an effort and offered the suggestion that Yuri just worry about the roof while Price focus on the floor to avoid bickering between them. In record time, the roof was back in functioning order and the floor was no longer a warped mess.

The second day was spent cleaning. It must have been a strange sight for the neighbors to see all the windows wide open mid autumn to help vent out the dust, and Price with half his face covered in a cloth beating the dirt out of cushions on the front steps. Five dead plants were cut down and committed to the soil under the shrubs by the street, and the spider plant was temporarily relocated outside. He worked from six in the morning all the way to midnight, stopping only around midday for a couple hours to visit Soap and get himself some lunch. Once he finished, he simply lumbered to the couch and crashed for four or so hours.

The fact that he'd been busting his arse to make the house habitable again didn't go unnoticed by Soap, who took note of the expanse of bandages on Price's hands and arms the following day. Price waved off the younger's concerns with a simple, "They're just scratches, mate."

Day Three, Price washed all the dishes and whatever clothes and bedding he had, picked up a modest amount of groceries, and attended to his overgrown spider plant. A new, larger pot was in order. This only took him about a couple hours, and after that, he made his bed and promptly passed out till 16:00 when he was met with a ring on the doorbell. The visitor in question turned out to be his landlady, who came along with a camera and a clipboard. Price gave a tired blink as he loomed over her in the doorway. "Did you need something, ma'am?"

She gave his hip a small whack with her clipboard, enough to prompt him to step back, and saw herself in. "Yes, I need to assess the damages. Where's that leak you mentioned?"

Price coughed into his fist. "Actually, I already got that handled, Mrs. Eckley. The roof's been fixed and the damaged floorboards were replaced."

This statement made her pause, turn back to him, and plant both her hands on her hips. If she was a full fifty years younger and a foot taller, Price would have found the stance a tad intimidating. "You know how I've told you not to mumble, boy. Speak up!"

By no means did he mumble. It was probably just her hearing aid acting up again. Regardless, he repeated himself a bit louder for her, adding, "There's nothing wrong with the house now."

"Nonsense! It's been vacant for years, I still have to inspect the place!" The landlady proceeded to go through his house, checking every little thing that could possibly be checked while Price tailed after her. The whole way, she grumbled out the items listed on some inspection form to herself. "When the bloody hell is your wife and that David boy coming home anyways?"

Price stood stiffly in the hall, watching her poke at the smoke detector with her cane. "Daniel. And we're divorced."

She planted the cane on the floor with a solid thud. "Can't say I blame her," she said and checked another thing off. "Alright, Johnny, seems you managed to make your house presentable. How long'd it take you to pull that off?"

"A day, ma'am," he answered, trying his damnedest not to linger on the harsh comment or the nickname she had for him since he moved into this place roughly fifteen years ago.

"Sounds like a load of bollocks to me. No way you managed that."

"I did though. Had a couple of my mates help, but we really did get it done in that time." Price crossed his arms.

She scoffed and hobbled on past him towards the door. "If you're that good, maybe I should consider hiring you to deal with repairs for my tenants instead of those useless gits in town. Takes them a week and I still get complaints..."

"I might be willing to if you wanted to drop the extra fee off my rent," Price replied.

Mrs. Eckley gave a short cackle. "You might be a smarter bastard than I gave you credit for." She opened the door and turned to him. "Alright, anything else I need to know, Johnny?"

"Hm. I've got someone who's moving in here with me, if that's relevant."

"New girlfriend?"

"No."

"Then as long as he's not hiding crack in the walls, I don't care." She then left.

Price lingered in the hall and shook his head. He'd forgotten the kind of pain her inspections usually were. At least it was over with. He could relax for a while, get a proper night's sleep. Tomorrow, Soap was gonna get discharged from the hospital. It was something he looked forward to. When his wife and son left, he started staying on base more often. It wasn't so much bad memories, but rather the uncomfortable silence the house carried when he was alone. As harsh as he came across, he still needed human contact as much as any other person.


More often than not, Price and Nikolai visited Soap in the hospital. There were, however, a few times when the visitor wasn't either of the two. MacMillan came in a couple times, and showed MacTavish that he didn't have enough people in his life who possessed the odd sense of humor the old Major General did. Walcroft visited at one point, though his recollection of that one was very fuzzy as it was just after the surgery. The cold autumn air stung his eye in the best way when he was finally discharged from the hospital. He could finally dress like a normal human being and less like a lab experiment, walk without a nurse accompanying him, or any of that shit. Sure, he had pick up a few bottles of different medications the doctor prescribed at the drug store and there was also the therapist meeting he was "strongly recommended" to go to in about a week, but the pharmacy was just a block away and he didn't need to think about the appointment until he had to go. Freedom never felt so sweet.

Not even giving it a second thought, he walked down to the pharmacy himself and picking up his meds. If there was one thing he could thankful for, it was that this wasn't the pharmacy in Birmingham. Those guys knew his face and there was some git at the register who always gave him funny looks. None of that here, he was a stranger; or about as stranger as you could get after your name's been dragged on the news for months as a war criminal and then heavily discussed following the announcement that charges were dropped. People tended to be weary and that was fine by him. As he left the store, his phone went off. "Aye? This is MacTavish."

"Soap, where the bloody hell are you?"

He winced at the tone Price gave him. Right... Price probably expected him to wait back at the hospital to be picked up. "I'm at the pharmacy."

"Alright. Just sit tight." The phone gave a small beep and Soap was left standing in front of the drug store with a paper bag in hand. He sighed and considered going back in and picking up some cigars while he waited. Would nicotine interact with anything he was supposed to be taking? Eh... he wasn't a doctor and he couldn't care less.

Out of seemingly nowhere, a hand smacked the bag from his hand. Bright orange pill bottles scattered in the parking lot, rolling in all different directions. Stunned, Soap didn't have a change to react before the hoodie clad teenager responsible rushed away while a pack of other high school boys howled with laughter from the curb. Immediately afterwards, a car screeched into the parking lot and a man leaped from the passenger seat to chase away the kids.

You've got to be kidding me... Soap regarded the scene with a slow blink as he processed Nikolai's all to familiar Russian cursing as the foreigner booked it down the sidewalk. All Soap could do was kneel down to collect the four separate bottles off the ground. "Fucking kids."

"You alright?"

He immediately looked up from the ground to find Price crouching down to pick up a couple of bottles that rolled a little ways away. Soap burned with embarrassment now. How much of that did his Captain see? "I'm fine. No harm done."

Price helped him get all the bottle in the bag and handed it back to him. Some uncharacteristic look crossed his face that Soap couldn't exactly place; the small down curve of his lips indicated something more rueful or mourning, but his beard made it difficult to discern what sort of an expression he was making half the time. "What was that all about anyways?"

"Hell if I know," Soap shrugged, gripping the bag a little tighter now.

Nikolai came jogging back, hardly seeming phased by his sprint. Those boys must've ran like hell away from the 190.5 cm tall, screaming Russian. "Ублюдки jumped into a truck and drove away. Are you okay, my friend?"

Soap reigned in his internal frustration towards the question. They were just trying to help. "I'm fine, Nikolai."

"If you say so. Alright, lads, get in." Price went and opened the driver door and slipped back into his nondescript compact vehicle.

Ordinarily Soap would have sat behind Price since the man tended to pull the seat up to account for his shorter legs, but that would have meant sitting with the door to his right. Given the choice between leg room and having the outside of the car be in his field of vision, he opted for the latter. Crunched behind Nikolai's seat, Soap tapped at his propped up knees. "So where are we headed?"

"My place. You've got to get settled in." Price started the car and did a tight U turn in the parking lot to get them back into the street. In that moment, Soap caught a glance from his Captain through the rear view mirror. "Before you ask, your bag's already there. Nobody's touched anything in it."

"You seem to attract trouble even at home," Nikolai commented.

The town passed by outside the window, and Soap watched it with a small frown. "I guess I do."

After that, Soap dropped from the conversation and occupied himself by glancing over the different pill bottles and their instructions. Antibiotics (though he'd be done with those really soon), painkillers, a sleep aid... Things were so much easier to manage when they were on the run. No prescriptions needing to be taken once in the morning and again at night, or two at noon, or any nonsense like that. They didn't have the resources. Instead when he was recovering from his stab wound, it was a matter of sucking it up and resting if it hurt too much to do anything productive. If he could go through that, maybe he could skip the painkillers and swap them out for some over the counter aspirin instead.

Soon enough, they parked on the curb in front of a semi-familiar grey home. Price's house didn't look all that different since the last time he'd seen it. Once upon a time, the building must have been a dream home, but now it simply looked tired. At the same time, it felt a whole hell of a lot more inviting than the cramped apartment complex he grew up in. Price strolled up to the front door and fished out his key to let both Soap and Nikolai in. "Do you remember your way around, Soap?"

"Aye." It was hard to forget when the place consisted of a small hallway and five rooms total. He got maybe two steps in before Price stopped him.

"Shoes off."

That was definitely not a rule last time he'd been here, but he decided not to argue with him and stomped down on the heels of his combat boots to force them off. They were left by the welcome mat beside two near identical pairs of military grade boots. The only way to tell them apart was by the fact that Price had dainty ass feet in comparison and Nikolai's shoes were definitely older but less damaged than either of theirs.

The three of them walked down the hall, and it was clear to Soap that some serious cleaning must have been done recently, since the house smelled of citrus and detergent. It didn't come as any sort of surprise, especially not after seeing Price's hands a couple days ago. They came to a stop at the end of the hall, where Price nodded to the washroom door. "You can throw your scripts in the medicine cabinet if you want, I'm going to go make some tea."

"Thanks." Soap looked down at the bag that still hung in his fingers. He ultimately came to the conclusion that, no, he wouldn't throw them in the cabinet and would instead keep them in the nightstand or somewhere else. "Is my bag in the guest room?" There hadn't been any sign of it in the hall or the living room when they passed it.

Price was already in the kitchen filling a kettle with water. "It's not a guest room anymore."

Soap nodded and turned away from the kitchen to go to the room in question, literally just to his right. It was Price's son's room before, but Price ended up referring to it strictly as the guest room after that on the rare occasions he actually spoke of his house. It didn't look a whole lot different since the last time Soap had seen it either: bare, tan walls with a wide window directly across from the door, a bed with its white covers pulled up over the pillow, an empty dresser tucked to the right and a desk off in the far left corner. It was left simple with no clear occupant in mind, not unlike the quarters on base. His bag sat on the floor beside the dresser, and seemed to have a whole lot less dirt caked to it than it did last time he saw it.

For the next few minutes, the ex-Captain silently put his things away in what he struggled to call his room. This task seemed to drag on as he had to constantly work around his lack of an arm. Objects had to be put down before he could open things, or he held them in his teeth, he couldn't get a handle of folding what little clothes he had to put away, so they all ended up haphazardly tossed into the dresser. His journal, which found its way to the very bottom of the old knapsack, was discarded on the desk.

"The tea's ready," came Nikolai's voice at the door, effectively cutting off his train of thought. There was a long pause before he asked, "Do you need a minute?"

"Please," Soap forced out as evenly as he could. He didn't dare turn around until he heard the door click shut. It'd probably be another five or six before someone would come to check on him again. All he needed was a minute to get his head on straight with all this development. When Price poked his head five minutes later, Soap composed himself and put on his best smile. The very same one he mastered after they lost Mac, after Gaz and Griggs were killed... Smile enough and everyone would believe it at some point.


Just one look at someone was all it took for Price to rattle off a small list of words to describe them. Nikolai, for example, was sincere and easily attached. If he were neither of these then he wouldn't have stayed around them for as long and as faithfully as he did. Soap was loyal, selfless even, but he was also guarded and cunning. In an instant, Price watched Soap raise a mask to hide his vulnerability. As much as it hurt to see him so closed off around him after all the hell they went through, he understood that was his normal response when things went wrong. He'd fake it until it blew over or he'd crack under the pent up stress. Regardless which one it ended up being, Price knew that Soap would talk about the problem when he was ready to.

They made conversation in the kitchen over tea, and Soap was able to smile and laugh along with them. It was a complete 180 from the car ride. If this hadn't been how Soap reacted to his stab wound after they took down Shepherd, it would have been cause for concern.

"So where the bloody hell's Yuri anyways? I haven't seen him since we flew in." Soap asked at one point.

Nikolai coughed into his fist. "Sick with a hangover. He does not take inactivity well."

"Please tell me he didn't drink through your Imperia stash..." Soap grumbled. A few years ago, Soap had scrounged up three large vodka bottles for him as an overdue thank you after one too many demanding missions. Whatever English Nikolai knew flew out the window that day; he kept on stammering in Russian for a solid four minutes.

"No, but he has gotten into it. I may need to lock it all away before I get evicted on a noise complaint."

"Or before I throw him down another staircase," Price deadpanned behind the lip of his cup.

"Why did you do that again...?" Nikolai wondered, rubbing his forehead.

As tempting as it was to bring up the fact that Soap threw Yuri under the bus in the first place, Price decided that he wouldn't get into it. "He got under my skin." It wasn't exactly a lie; they mixed about as well as oil and water. Both of them were two completely different kinds of serious that managed to get on the other's nerves. Price was a deep thinker, admittedly a little paranoid, but he knew when to be harsh and when to pull back. Yuri didn't seem to have an off switch for his seriousness but rather two settings: silent and aggressive. If it weren't for the fact they both knew and respected Nikolai, Yuri probably would have screamed at Price for making a joke, and Price would have punched Yuri off a five story building.

"Got to admit, it was a very impressive punch," Soap chimed in, taking a generous sip of tea.

"It wasn't that amazing," Price shrugged.

Soap frowned and set the cup down. "He flew down that entire stairwell."

The discussion quickly turned to whether Yuri's fall could be classified as flying exactly. Simply put, Nikolai took this a bit too literally on account of English being a second language and pointed out that people can't fly, and they agreed that Yuri more or less bounced since he must have hit three or so steps on his way down. All laughing at his expense aside, they finished their tea and worked on getting dinner set up. During that whole process, Nikolai expressed exasperation about having to go home to check on Yuri (make sure he didn't drown his own vomit or bust his head open on the toliet), which prompted Price to offer letting him stay the night for his own sanity's sake. The Russian wholeheartedly accepted the offer and they all agreed that they could work on making sense of intel as a team.

They all gathered in the living room with their dinner of plain spaghetti and Price got out a laminated map and all the info that MacMillan bumped their way, making for an interesting assortment on his coffee table. For a couple hours, they mulled over it all, with Soap stepping out at one point to take his meds. Half an hour after that and the youngest amongst them was passed out on the couch, his head buried in the arm rest. Nikolai gave Soap's shoulder a curious prod, something which didn't get so much as a twitch from him. "He must have been very tired..."

"Or he took his sleep aid," Price guessed, looking back down at the map and all their dry erase markings. Ordinarily Price let Soap handle the marker, but he was nowhere near as neat with his left hand and couldn't hold down the map. After about five or so attempts to draw a simple circle, Price took the marker back and did it himself. "Hm... What do you think the odds are that Makarov still has supporters after all this?"

Nikolai gave a shrug. "It is possible. But he couldn't go back to Russia after all this."

"Right. They'd arrest him on sight. So we need to think of somewhere he could hide for an extended period of time." Where, was the question. "Maybe we should call it a night..."

The Russian gave a curt nod and headed towards the door. "I will give Yuri a call, just to check in on him."

"Mhm..." Price continued to stare at the map a few minutes longer before he started cleaning everything up. Two empty plates and one barely touched portion of spaghetti. This was enough to concern Price. His old charge normally had a very healthy appetite, had to with how active he was. Not wanting to waste perfectly good food, Price packaged up the leftovers and left them in the fridge before going to clean up the plates. While he was doing the dishes though, he heard a shout from Soap in the living room. Probably fell off the couch or something. Wouldn't be the first time... "You alright in there?"

He didn't get a response. Price dried off the last plate and set it on the counter before heading to the living room. He found Soap pacing the length of the room, his arm tucked in close to his chest and tugging at his shirt front. His breathing was rapid, just on the verge of hyperventilating, and his widened, tear stained eye swept the room hardly able to focus on any one thing for more than a couple seconds at a time.

The obvious distress was enough for Price to give pause at the entry way. "Soap?"

Soap's attention was lost almost as quickly as it was grabbed. He mumbled something, though it sounded less like real words and more like he was trying to talk through a mouth full of cotton.

Price stepped into the room and quickly closed the distance. "What's wrong, son?" He placed a hand on Soap's shoulder, finding it to be clammy with cold sweat.

In a flash, the younger shoved him back and stumbled away a few steps with a yelp. His hand shook as it clutched the back of the couch, allowing him to lean over, though he didn't stay in that resting position for long at all before he resumed his pacing.

"Soap? Can you hear me?" Price didn't dare reach out to touch him again, and instead watched him move around restlessly. Still there was no coherent response to his question. Another minute passed with Soap still in some state of hysteria, and Price was just about ready to give up and attempt to sit him down when suddenly he came to a dead stop. "You want to take a seat?"

Surprisingly, Soap gave a shallow nod and shuffled over to the couch, where he haphazardly sunk down into it and ran his hand through his hair for about the millionth time since this started. He took deliberately slow breaths. "...Bloody hell..." His voice was weak, groggy even.

"Feeling better?" Price asked, hesitantly sitting down next to him.

He blinked a few times and rubbed the moisture from his face. "What're ya talkin' about?"

"You've been walking all around the room looking on the verge of a panic attack," Price said, though he had a more than a good enough answer based on the fact that he was getting an actual response.

Soap glanced around the room, seeming to slowly take this in. "Sorry... It was probably just another night terror..."

The second he heard the term 'night terror', the situation clicked into place. The doctor mentioned that Soap had been having them. "It's fine. Do you need anything?"

"No. I'll just go take that stupid sleep aid and go lie down." Sluggishly, he slipped off the couch and lumbered off to his room. The only sound that indicated he made it was a quiet thud as the door shut.

So it hadn't been a result of his meds. Price made a mental note of this and got up to go get some bedding arranged for Nikolai. A pillow and blanket were left for him on the couch when the Russian stepped back into the house. He gave Price an odd look. "Did I miss something?"

"Nothing you need to worry about."


Most of the time, the only thing that remained in Soap's mind following his night terrors were the vaguest impressions of what sort of hell his mind conjured up. A common theme was that he felt threatened and terrified. Every so often though, he recalled fragments of the living nightmares he saw. Empty eye sockets, giant dogs about to leap at him, encroaching shadows... He'd fall asleep in his bed and end up anywhere else, and Price was nearby trying to talk him back down from it every time. A pattern formed in that first week. Soap wouldn't sleep well, which led to him being able to fall asleep at the drop of a hat, which half the time led to him having another night terror, then he'd be too scared to sleep for a few hours and lose more sleep and the cycle just kept feeding itself.

If it weren't for the fact that he felt guilty about putting Price through that, he wouldn't have told the therapist about any of it when he came in for his appointment. Ordinarily he would have rather suffered in silence and drank himself under, but that was when he lived alone and didn't bother anyone else with the issue. Price was the one who had to deal with it when he had them though, so it would have been purely selfish and irresponsible for Soap to disregard the problem like that.

The therapist was a petite woman, sandy hair knotted up in a tight bun and piercing amber eyes. Tapping her pen against the desk, she studied his face. "Did you have these night terrors as a child as well?"

"Aye." When he was young, his parents got into screaming matches that were just about impossible to ignore. The then six year old Johnny found himself gravitating towards his sister's nursery, where he would hide away under the crib with the toddler until the yelling stopped. Around that same time, he started having night terrors, which only seemed to drive a bigger wedge between his parents. Ultimately, his mother walked out and his father was convinced that a good smack was enough to deal with his kid screaming at three in the morning. "They stopped around when I was teenager though."

"And when did you move out?" She asked.

"I left for basic training when I was sixteen."

Dr. Hollander gave a low hum. "Seems to me that you took yourself out of a situation that you were powerless in and placed yourself in one where you felt more in control. If that's the case then your current issues may be because you feel like that control's been taken away from you."

As much as he didn't want to admit that a bloody therapist was right, the evaluation seemed to hit the nail on the head. "If it was, then what would you suggest?"

Even though the question was worded as a hypothetical, she seemed well aware that this was him admitting that she was correct. She smiled and folded her hands together. "I would tell you to deconstruct what your training's taught you and take from it the tools you need to feel self reliant again. Being handicapped doesn't necessarily make you helpless, and that's what you have to remember. Maybe even try taking up art."

Soap gave her a blank stare with the suggestion. There was no way she could have known about his service journal with all his doodles and sketches. He'd only ever shown Nikolai one page for a game of tic-tac-toe, and the only other person he dared to show any of his diagrams or drawings to was Ghost, who literally took what he saw to the grave. "... But I can't draw with my left hand."

"You can train your hand to move the way you want it to, just like any other part of your body. It'll take time, but you improving is completely dependent on your willingness to try."

"Is that all you'd advise?" He shifted and glanced at the clock. They've been at this for a half hour now.

"Mm... Well, I'm considering tweaking your medication, but we'll wait a bit and see where you're at before we look into that."

Oh because that's definitely what he wanted to hear, changes in the already painful to remember regiment of taking his meds. If it got any more complicated then he'd need to work out a better system than read every label every morning and night just see what needed to be taken when. "We'll see."