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It's an elegiac evening, Kyle feels, gazing into the subdued darkness of the empty avenue from the perch of a rusty metal balcony. The sky is clouded over with gunmetal smog. The air tastes like cigarettes and gasoline.
The clothes on him are filthy and sweated through and he's a week's out from the opportunity to change his underwear. He reeks of BO worse than the men's room in a secondary school and his heels have managed to blister despite the excessive amount of sports tape practically mummifying him. Overall, the sitrep: pretty fucking miserable.
It's when it gets like this – between missions, tired, fed up with no solace to be found – that Kyle knows he needs to focus on what he's fighting for. He needs to remember why he's here and where he's going. When he doesn't, he's just a boy, dirty and lost.
Kyle hears the toilet flush from inside the flat, water running, and a door squeaking open, but he doesn't turn to look at the figure he knows approaches. The way he walks, the mere sound of his footsteps, are so familiar to Kyle. He could pick the sound out from a hundred others.
"Sir." He acknowledges, still faced away.
Price ceases advancing for a beat, then strolls up to Kyle's side to observe the view of the street. They stand in silence and watch headlights pass by.
Gaz breaks the silence with an exhale. "I feel like utter shit, Cap."
"Yeah." John breathes wistfully. "Same here."
Any other captain would have told him to toughen up. Not this one. This one pulls a cigar out and lights it.
John smells like cigars – all the time, even when he's not smoking. To Kyle, cigars smell like John. A scent so intensely familiar that its very meaning has transcended.
"Head up high." John reminds him between puffs of smoke. "One more night in Prague before we're out in the field again."
A dog starts barking in the distance, excusing Kyle's refusal to respond. He's so tired, stuck in this ditch of restlessness, waiting for something to become clear. Sleep is short lived and fleeting, food tastes like mud, everything is moving in slow motion.
"Gaz–"
"It's nothing." Kyle says.
John is silent for a moment, then decisively claps his hand against the back of Kyle's neck. The unexpected sensation sends jolts of electricity down Kyle's spine.
"Kyle. I'm not losing you because you're too distracted to look after yourself."
The words fill Kyle with an uncomfortable remorse that turns his gaze to the floor. "I'm not an idiot," he mutters.
John gives Kyle a small shake and releases his grip. "Bloody bet. I don't work with idiots. Would reflect badly on my reputation."
That reminds Kyle of the most common thought that appears on wretched days like these: he's only one fuckup away from tarnishing his good performance streak and being forced to leave Price's side, having to watch some other person fill in his space. His place next to Price is so damn fickle as though he's only a stray dog trailing behind the Captain's back. This thought is so persistent, it overrides that instinctual aversion to death that once seemed so important. But now, catching a bullet doesn't even seem like such a scary thought when the alternative is the knife of utter abandonment or worse; Price catching the bullet.
"Good thing you're not an idiot, eh, Gaz?" Price adds as he exhales a cloud of smoke, halfway through his cigar. How long until the time runs out? How long until something goes terribly wrong? God, it's so stupid and pathetic, it tears up his insides, he's so afraid. So god damn afraid.
"Kyle—"
"Stop." He whispers.
"Stop what?"
Kyle finally turns to John. "Smoking. Stop smoking. It'll kill you."
Price pulls the cigar from his mouth and looks at it, seemingly considering his words. "Love will kill you but we can never seem to quit that , can we?" They make eye contact, and John smiles. "Look at me, Gaz. Do I look like someone that has the willpower to quit anything? Even if it's killing me?"
The wrinkles around John's eyes make him look so weathered and worn; not "old," because that word feels so out of place. Everything about Price is youthful, from his laugh to his words. But he's covered in a layer of weariness that has emerged from years of experience and maturity you could only ever obtain by living and learning. So, Kyle's answer is "no." John looks like someone who has spent a lifetime weighing up the outcomes and deciding that fighting gravity wasn't worth the effort.
Price drops the cigar onto the floor and snuffs it out with the toe of his boot. "Just this time. For you. I might never quit, but at least I can say I've tried."
Kyle can't say that about himself. He'll follow Price through fucking hell and back, even if he's consumed by fire and when it happens, at least he could say "I died for him ." Is that not a little like smoking? Is that not a little like love? Killing yourself a tiny bit each day out of habit?
His sour mood has dissolved, somehow. The air feels clearer. Kyle sees John's hands fidget at his side, missing the comfort of a smoke in his lips, needing that reassurance from the tobacco. Something comes over Kyle. He lifts his arm and offers his hand to John.
John looks at it with glassy, hollow eyes, before reaching out and taking it in his own. His fingers are much thicker than Kyle's whose hands are slender and wirey. John could crush his entire hand into a pulp if he wanted. Instead, John's grip is firm and fragile.
Now it's John's turn to be contemplative as he looks out into the distance. His voice is trembly and hoarse when he clears his throat. "You're important to me, Kyle. Not just some partner in the field. I don't know what I'd do if you got hurt."
The words sound a little like a confession but Kyle can't quite work out what the confession is.
"You'd find someone else to fill my space." Kyle replies darkly.
John shakes his head and smiles with a sadness creasing his brow. "No, I don't think I could. They don't mass produce people like you."
"They don't mass produce anyone." Kyle can't help but correct.
"That's exactly what makes you special. I've worked with a lot of people, Kyle. A lot of people that were as young as you, as bold as you, as determined as you, but none of them were you and none of them will be you. What I'm trying to say is… you're irreplaceable."
Kyle huffs out a single, pitious laugh. It's true – people never repeat, and that thought is equally beautiful as it is painful, tragic, and heartbreaking. "Fuck, Captain." He breathes "Looks like we've made the mistake of becoming attached to each other."
"Life's too short for calling things mistakes." John sighs. "We are what we are and we can't change the past."
"At least we've lived long enough to have regrets." Kyle supplies.
John turns to Kyle. "You're a good one. One of the best. We'll make it out. In one piece or a million."
John squeezes his hand and Kyle is consumed with emotion, unrecognizable and confusing, but he holds his breath and sinks into them, feeling swallowed and taken over. In a heartbeat, he has John pinned up against the wall, hands upon the man's broad chest, pushing with primal instinct. John grunts in surprise, laughs deep from his throat and puts his hands around Kyle's shoulders. "Easy, mate, easy! I'm old."
"Fuck off, no you're not." Kyle presses his lips into John's, tasting the bitterness of the smoke, feeling the coarse sensation of his chapped skin and the brushing of his beard. John kisses back harder, pushing forward into Kyle, eventually grabbing his shoulders to turn them around, slamming Kyle's back into the wall.
"Are you forgetting who's the captain here?" John teases as their lips part.
"Never, Cap'n." Kyle snorts, snaking his arms around John's solid form as he feels his face heat up under John's look of endeared amusement. "I wouldn't let anyone else boss me around like you do."
John lets out a satisfied grunt, and leans in for a second kiss, this time gentle and chaste. When he leans away, he grabs Kyle's face with both hands. "Don't ever fucking forget that you're special, Kyle."
Kyle can't disobey an order from his captain.