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'A well deserved treat', Nik had called it. In a sense, he was right. In another sense, John saw it as an excuse to drink themselves into a stupor before returning to base to sleep it off and face the inevitable headache.
A trip to the local pub wasn't usually so much of a treat so much as it was a necessity. Not just for Price or Nikolai, bbut for the whole of the 141. It was a step away from their usual duties, a much needed escape from the rigorous routine of their day-to-day work and operations.
Thanks to a truly abysmal cluster of missions, the paperwork that came along with them, and MORE missions that followed, none of the taskforce had managed to sneak away to that little pub — for a stretch of many gruelling months. It was bearable, sure, but it still didn't quite feel ideal to any of them. To say that John longed for a pint — a pint with Nikolai in particular — was a grievous understatement. He would have sworn, up and down, that he's had more than one very vivid dream about a nice, cold pint in his hand; only to be rudely awakened, quite literally, beverageless.
It was a Thursday night when they finally managed to go - a couple days post-briefing, and a night where Johnny and Kyle's banter had gotten on Price's last nerve.
It hadn't even taken a lot to convince Nikolai to join John — as much as he liked spending time with the Sargeants and the Lieutenant, he didn't need much evidence to agree that they needed a break. And so, there they were, sat at their usual stools at the end of the bar, pints in hand sweet talk on their lips.
It was nice - being able to talk about things that weren't always focused on missions or files. Like the places that they had seen or been able to explore when not on a task, where they'd like to perhaps go again, if ever given the chance.
John wanted to visit a lot of the warmer climates he had visited over the last few months - get himself away from the general gloom he usually had to deal with for a majority of the year back home. Nikolai was different, though — he was happy to visit wherever his whims so desired. Cold climates, hot climates, you name it. He wanted to see as much as he was able to. With John, if he could - a point which he kept bringing up to the Brit. All the different places he knew that John would like, all the sights he'd like to take him to see — watching with amusement and a deep-seated love as a blush spread over the tops of John's cheeks, and to his ears.
As the night went on, more and more tables and chairs were filled; workers coming in after their shift had finished, younger groups filing in and out in fits and starts as they went about on their pub-crawls — clearly trying to get themselves a head start on the weekend, John had joked to his other half.
It was about half past ten that a group of young women, possibly in their early to mid twenties, entered the pub - evidently, like so many others there their age, already a bit tipsy, likely on their second or third venue of the night. They seemed to be mostly lucid - if a little loud. The group kept to themselves, though, so no one seemed to mind all that much outside of a few glances their way, after a laugh that was ever so slightly too loud.
That was until one of them wandered over to Nik and John with her eyes, wide and star-filled, fixed on the Captain. John knew what was coming before the woman even opened her mouth.
With a hiccup and a breathless giggle, she started the conversation that something in John's gut dreaded.
"Hi," her voice sounded sweet, and had John been single — and perhaps a bit younger, he thought cynically — he might have been tempted to entertain this young woman's little fantasy. Unfortunately, he was neither of those things, but he was still a polite man.
"Hello." He replied, somewhat curtly. He didn't want to be rude to her, but he also didn't want to make her feel like whatever idea she had gotten into her head was a possibility. She didn't quite catch on to his tone, though, and only grinned up at him.
"So, I… Saw you from across the bar," She gestured vaguely behind her in the direction she had come with one hand. "My name's Vickie." If her intentions hadn't already been clear, the way she had started to bat her eyelashes at the Captain had certainly made them known now.
"Vickie, eh?" John glanced over his shoulder at Nikolai, who was practically grinning down into his half-finished pint. It seemed that he would not yet be getting any help from his beloved Russian — the fucker too consumed with how funny he found the situation.
The woman - Vickie - grinned wider at his show of attention. "Mhm!" She chirped. "Short for Victoria." She informed, and John nodded his head, slowly.
"Lovely name, love." He hadn't meant for the pet-name to slip, but being two and a half pints in made some of his habits slip. And with that, the trio lapsed into silence. Both John and Nikolai suspected that Vickie was waiting for a drink to be bought for her by one of them.
A minute or more passed, and John cleared his throat, trying to shift the awkwardness that had fallen over them. The first thing that came to mind was a question that would perhaps be more at home in the mouth of a concerned parent. "How much have you had to drink tonight, hm?"
"Oh, not enough," She sighed, sitting herself on the stool right next to Price. She finally realised that no, neither of these handsome older men were going to ask her for her drink order — and so she flagged down one of the bartenders. "Double JD, with just a little bit of coke, and a couple of cubes of ice, please?" She asked, sliding a note across the bar.
John shifted in his seat, and he felt Nikolai's shoulder brush against his own as the pilot shifted also. Both of them were now on alert, in spite of the alcohol running through their veins, their impending stupor post-poned for the moment — much to John's dismay. But, he was just about willing to put it off, if only for this woman's safety.
When she got her drink, Vickie turned her gaze to John once more, scooching her stool even closer so that their knees could touch. She started to talk to him - or, rather, at him - but Price didn't catch a word, his mind focused on repeatedly trying to shift his knee away from Vickie's. She seemed to think it was some sort of unspoken game, continuously trying to keep the contact between them. This went on for… John didn't really know how long, but it was long enough - his patience had been tried, and it was close to evaporating entirely.
Vickie was on her second drink since joining them, but of course that alone wasn't what had caused John to put his foot down. What did, was her hand finding a place to rest on his mid-thigh, beginning to squeeze at the muscle there. It was a touch that felt entirely too familiar for someone who hadn't known him that long, and it made something in his gut squirm. He started to sit a little straighter, and his hand slowly moved to take Vickie's, shifting it from his thigh.
He cast his gaze back to Nikolai once more. The Russian didn't seem as bothered as John by the contact — or, it wasn't the contact itself that was bothering him. The crinkle in his brow gave away his concern, and he mainly hoped that the friends she came to the bar with hadn't left her behind.
"Where are your friends?" Nik asked, leaning closer over John's shoulder so that the young woman could hear him properly. "Are they still here?" He craned his neck as he spoke, surveying the crowd for a cluster of other young women.
"Huh?" Vickie blinked, not even bothering to check over her shoulder. "Oh, probably…" She shrugged with one shoulder — to both Nik and John it became clear that the alcohol she'd been having, had started to hit her.
"So… What do you guys do — do you work in construction? You look like it…" She practically babbled, making a grab for John's forearm.
"Military," John corrected briskly, his eyes doing the same as Nik's; searching the crowd for any sign of Vickie's friends.
"I will look for the group," Nik told Price, sliding his hand over the Captain's lower back briefly as he squeezed past to slip into the crowd. John began helping Vickie to her feet. "Might as well get on the move.." He mumbled to himself, supporting the woman's arm as she fumbled her way off of the stool.
Following after Nik was a slow affair. Vickie's steps were slow enough on her own - she was getting distracted with every other step it seemed. The fruit machines, a couple of other guys leaning on the bar, the song that had just come on over the speaker system. It was a fight to get her to keep moving, but John managed it — barely. He was sure that trying to deal with a drunken MacTavish and Garrick duo had prepared him for this sort of situation.
Thankfully, he didn't have to deal with pushing through the crowd with Vickie in tow for too long, as he spotted Nik's hand waving to him from over a sea of heads. He made a beeline for his Russian, holding Vickie up as she stumbled and almost tripped over her own feet.
"You're alright," He assured her as they continued onwards. "I got you… You're alright."
The group Nik had found was 4 women, all various stages of tipsy, but doing much better at holding it than Vickie, it seemed. "Oh my god—" One brunette rushed over, her heels clacking on the stone floor. "I'm so sorry - this is her first time coming out in almost a year, I-" John shook his head with a small, somewhat amused smile on his lips. Carefully, he helped Vickie into a seat with the group.
"It's no worry." He told the woman.
"Just make sure she does not wander off again, eh?" Nikolai joked quietly. The woman nodded slightly, but didn't reply - instead moving to fuss over Vickie and check her over, asking how much she had and what she had been doing. John and Nik decided to return to their seats - a vague hope that their drinks hadn't been taken, though it was somewhat vain.
"You know, I think you would make a good father, John." The compliment came from nowhere. It made pride swell in his chest - did his lover really think so? All he could offer in reply — apart from shoving the praise away — was ;"Yeah? I think the same of you, you know. Better, even."
"I was not the one who carried the girl through the crowd, was I?"
"No, but you found her friends." John countered, sitting back in his seat, with Nikolai settling beside him once more. Nikolai hummed quietly, trying to think of a counter to that.
"Alright, you have me there, yes… We would both make good fathers." He grinned down at John, and the Brit did not have it in him to argue with that visage of joy.