#pricegazweek

[ramvur]

"& how many times have you loved me without my asking? how often have i loved a thing because you loved it? including me."

Day 1 + 2 of #PricegazWeek : smoke + shotgun

[aussiepineapple1st]

Waterwork “Sit in water”

[pricegazweek]

PriceGaz Week 2024

Hello everyone!

I'm happy to announce PriceGaz Week 2024 and the official prompt list with it!

The week-long event is from May 27th to June 2nd, and it's a chance to create fanworks for this wonderful ship.

The theme week functions like this:

Pick a daily prompt from our two prompt lists, themes and poetry excerpts - you may do just one or both, combine them, whatever your heart desires! You can also combine prompts from different days

Post it on the day, or post it a week after - just remember to tag it with #PriceGazWeek or #PriceGazWeek2024

Your creative works can be anything - writing, art, music, recipes, playlists, gifsets, videos, moodboards, whatever the prompts inspire you to make!

Both SFW and NSFW entries are allowed, but remember to tag your NSFW works properly

If you post on AO3, there will be a collection which will be published on May 25th - instructions for this will come later!

Happy creating, everyone! Very excited to see what you all will come up with 💰❤️🧢

[imrowanartist]

@pricegazweek Day 5 - Roadtrip / give me your hand

Another visit to Amsterdam, but this time they actually get to enjoy it :)

[ryanlovesjosh]

PriceGazWeek - Day 6 - Broken

(John)

- Please tell me, why did you? I thought it was a promise Kyle… radio silent bullshit…

- Maybe I, if only I arrived in time… You’d still be here, with us…

- I fucking miss you, Kyle…

[narcissosbythepool]

@pricegazweek Day 2 - Shotgun

Tags: smoking, shotgunning, discussion of illness and death, pre-relationship (or the liminal space between that and romance)

//

“I don’t think our target is going to show up today.”

Gaz, looking out to the empty street from the window, lowers his binoculars. “No, I don’t think so either,” he admits and sits down on the floor where Price already is located, hiding under the window’s ledge, gun propped up against the wall.

“Tomorrow?” he asks and Price shrugs.

“Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe better to keep watch either way, but I have a hunch.” He sniffles. “And it rarely leads me astray.”

“Ah yeah, the famous hunch,” Gaz rolls his eyes and gets an amused look. Price returns to patting his pocket. His eyes light up as he finds what he wants, a cigar and a lighter, and he lights it with an air of gratitude that only a good nicotine hit can sate. Gaz is suddenly grateful he closed the windows – such an obvious tell would be the most embarrassing to be found out.

They’ve been on the look out for two days now and their target is nowhere in sight. Price assured him this is nothing abnormal – him and MacMillan waited for Zakhaev for three days back in Pripyat, apparently, and Gaz hopes they won’t break that record this time.

Gaz sets his weapon on his lap, muzzle facing away from Price, and starts disassembling it as Price smokes. The smoke puffs in the air like from a great dragon, and a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.

“You know,” Gaz says, “there is no safe exposure to secondhand smoke.”

“Yeah?” Price replies, blowing smoke in his direction. Gaz waves it away, holding back a laugh.

“My sister ranted about it to my brother once,” he explains. “Last leave. Told him to stay away from his smoker friends, when they’re out.”

“I’m sure that went over well.”

“I’m sure it did,” Gaz sighs. “Didn’t have the heart to tell her that my boss smokes constantly.”

“Like a chimney,” Price grunts and Gaz can’t fight back the grin anymore.

“I didn’t say it,” he simply quips back and knows that if they were any closer, Price would elbow him for his insolent behavior, like a proper commanding officer.

“Could be worse,” Price says then, inspecting his cigar. “A nasty habit, this one. Started years ago and was never able to stop. So don’t ever start.”

“As if the exposure won’t do it,” Gaz chuckles.

“Well, there are worse ways to go.”

“What, worse than lung cancer?”

“That’ll be my problem, won’t it,” Price drawls and were his Captain any other person, he would have winked.

“Not exactly,” Gaz says, taking out a rag to clean the parts of his gun, hands working as they speak. “It’s even more dangerous to the bystander.”

“Really, now?”

“Heightened risk, same result.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Inflammatory and respiratory effects appear within 60 minutes,” Gaz rattles on, and then turns to look at Price. “Can last up to three hours.”

“Hm.”

“Isn’t it interesting?” Gaz asks, putting the parts of his gun aside. “That it lingers like that?”

“Not just on your clothes,” Price’s eyes rake over his form and it makes him shiver.

“But inside you too,” Gaz confirms. Price blinks slowly and takes another inhale of his cigar.

“That is interesting, Sergeant,” he says, blowing the smoke away this time.

He’s not a stupid man.

Gaz doesn’t know what this reaction means – perhaps it excites him? Knowing he never leaves Gaz’s system, even when they’re apart. That he lingers in Gaz’s work clothes, his fatigues too… He mourns a little when he puts the clothes into the wash, willing the scent to stay – but it always fades away after a wash, unlike the smoke in Gaz’s lungs. It creeps into every part of him – from his lungs to his blood stream, his heart, his brain, envelops him into a deadly embrace from within; a warm sort of burn that doesn’t abate once the light is out. He wonders what it would be like to get it right from the source, not just have a scent memory that takes him back to the backseat of a car, to an office, to a quiet night on a mission. He’s never been a real smoker, but he could try. His fingers itch with the absence.

“Being with you is a little like secondhand smoking, you know,” Gaz blurts out.

“Being?” Price raises a brow and Gaz tries not to flush.

“Working.”

“Go on.”

“Leads to premature death.”

That makes Price laugh out loud, making him cough and cover his mouth with his fist. Gaz grins, willing his palpitating heartbeat to calm down – surely this isn’t the moment that his heart gives up on him, of all places, not on the job and exfil nowhere to be seen.

“You’re right about that,” Price chuckles once he’s recovered from his coughing fit. “Can’t tell which is going to kill you first, serving under me or my smoking.”

“I think we’ll find out,” Gaz shrugs. “Visit me at the hospital?”

“I’ll bring flowers to your grave every week, Sergeant,” Price says almost earnestly. Gaz nearly thanks him, save for the look in his eye. “But a pity. To die for the second-best thing.”

“At least I’d die from a real bullet.”

“You think I’ve tainted you enough by now?” Price muses.

“I think you did it by the trip to Moldova.”

“Like a smoke sauna, that car.”

“You ever been?”

“Nikolai took me once. You’d never know the difference.”

“I think I became a firsthand smoker,” Gaz grumbles, the memory of the stench of the smoke lingering in the car seats still ingrained in his memory.

“Almost like the real thing,” Price says.

His eyes linger on Gaz’s, then move to the stillness of the room. The smoke rises above them, swirling in the low light.

“Would you ever offer me one?”

“One of my cigars? Never.”

“Why is that?”

“Cigarettes suit you better,” Price says, voice low. “Your fingers… More slender than mine. A cigarette would belong there.”

“You’ve clearly thought about it.”

Price gives him a heavy look, straying to his hands – empty, still, aching to reach out.

“Yes.”

Gaz bites his lip. Price’s eyes travel back to his face, the blue of them piercing through his very being.

“Pity I don’t carry any.”

“Secondhand smoke it is, then?”

Gaz weighs the situation for a moment.

Ah, fuck it.

“Won’t hurt to have it straight from the source,” Gaz says, and crawls across the space between them – feeling slightly self-conscious, but it’s dulled by the expectant parting of Price’s lips. When he settles astride Price’s legs, Price meets his eyes – hooded, expectant – and brings the cigar to his lips.

Shotgunning is a delicate art – it has to be deliberate. The smoke, directed from one person’s lips to another, has to be a gentle blow; the inhalation precise. Gaz leans in slowly, chases that sliver of smoke from his lips, inhaling it into his lungs. And he feels it, first hand, the real thing, Price’s hand on his thigh and the other holding out the cigar, to stop the ash from falling on his clothes.

But there’s already a fallout: Gaz hands clutching the straps of Price’s vest, his mouth chasing the alluring smoke from Price’s lips, and when he leans back, it’s only for Price to inhale once more, and to pull him close by the chin.

He wonders which one’s better, the denial or the chase of it? The expectation of it or when it already burns his lungs? He thinks he already has the answer as the smoke turns into the soft press of Price’s lips, when the burning sensation turns into a greedy kiss.

Gaz hopes this will linger, too.

[baohanhanesel]

I heard it was the PriceGaz week.

May 30 - Sit in Water.

"Soaping together

Is sacred to us.

Washing each other's shoulders.

You can fuck

Anyone-- but with whom can you sit

In water."

- Ilya Kaminsky.

While the child sleeps, Sonya Undresses.

[crabdrabbles]

Couldn't get the usual link to work, but here's Chapter 4 for @pricegazweek ! Chapters: 4/7 Fandom: Call of Duty (Video Games) Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Kyle "Gaz" Garrick/John Price Characters: Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, John Price (Call of Duty) Additional Tags: Non-Sexual Intimacy, Bathing/Washing

Personally, this one is my favourite chapter! As usual, preview below!

The mission was quite possibly one of the easiest that Gaz had been assigned to in quite some time (in writing, anyhow), Kate giving the order to take in a HVT alive and relatively uninjured, tie him up and leave him in a designated place for other agents to retrieve them. Easy enough– until the HVT had a tipoff just before Gaz and Price could nab him. Hours of Price staking out on a roof in the rain while Gaz was left watching the target in a nearby bar, completely and utterly ruined in seconds. Price gave Gaz the order to go after him, alongside the reassurance that he would catch up when he got down to the ground floor. 

As Gaz ran, eventually he found himself at the nearby canals fighting rain, the wind and whatever overgrown shrubbery creeped onto the slippery path and cursing the dreadful weather for making such a simple mission all the more harder. The distance between him and the target was getting bigger– the soldier being unfamiliar with the narrow paths and low hanging stone bridges and all but running head first into them. 

“Shit– where are you, Captain?” He huffed into his radio, squinting at the blur ahead of him. Where the hell was Price?! “He’s gonna get away!”

“No he’s fucking not.” Was Price’s crackled cryptic reply– then Gaz heard the sound of hard footsteps, branches snapping and Price appeared like a bat out of hell from the bushes next to the target, tackling them– 

And sending them both plunging into the dark canal waters.

Gaz barked out a curse, coming to a skidding halt where he saw Price disappear. How deep was the canal? Shit, shit, he was sure it had said somewhere in the brief but he couldn’t remember because he didn’t think it was all that important at the time– he didn’t think they’d be going for a bloody swim in it! Not to mention that Price went under with all of his gear– if the water was indeed as deep as Gaz feared, the Captain would be getting weighed down by not only that, but the target. 

“Fuck, fuck, shit, bollocks–” 

Just as he was unzipping his jacket, a head broke the surface. Price gasped, shaking his head and coughing roughly. He took a deep breath and then dipped back down into the water, disappearing for only a few seconds before resurfacing with the HVT– holding them by the back of their shirt like a scruffed pup. Gaz watched, relieved, as the older man paddled towards him and wordlessly offered out the, understandably dazed, target. He knelt down, hauling them onto the path with a growl of warning in case they had any ideas. Confident he’d put the fear of god into them, he reached out to Price– who took hold of his arm to use as leverage to heave himself from the water.

“Bloody hell.” Price hissed, “Water’s fucking cold.”

“You were the one who decided to tackle them into the water like you were in the rugby league.”

“Got them to stop, didn’t it?” 

He watched as Price knelt down, scruffing the target again and walking in the direction of the drop off point. Gaz followed behind, ensuring they didn’t try and escape again. Once the target was making good friends with the walls of a shipping container, where he would stay until Kaste’s agents came to pick him up in the morning, the pair made their own way to the assigned safehouse for the night.

Read the rest on AO3!

[redhairedmuses]

PriceGazWeek 2024 - day 3

i present you my first fic for PriceGazWeek 2024!

we've got a good ol' fashioned soulmate au to go with the prompt, "blue".

thanks again to @narcissosbythepool for hosting this event and bringing it to life! you are one amazing human and i am so grateful for your friendship!

[ramvur]

THESUS -Stop. Give me your hand. I am your friend. HERAKLES -I fear to stain your clothes with blood. THESUS -Stain them. I don't care.

#PriceGazWeek Day 5: Roadtrip

[aussiepineapple1st]

Blue “So weep no longer”

May 29th entry for the PriceGaz week cause that’s my birthday haha. Will do others!

[pricegazweek]

7 DAYS left until PriceGaz week!!! (It appears I can count)

The Captain and his Sergeant are ready - are you? No second thoughts! Let's get... not evil this time, but creative instead!

Check out the prompt list here!

[imrowanartist]

@pricegazweek Day 3 - So weep no longer, though you love me

[narcissosbythepool]

PriceGaz Week - Day 1 (and 4, arguably)

Poetry prompt: "& how many times have you loved me without my asking? how often have i loved a thing because you loved it? including me"

Rosie AU

Tags: Established pricegaz, past trans pregnancy, non-sexual intimacy, showering together, scars (incl. caesarean section), mild body image issues, fluff, kissing

//

Kyle has always been handsome to John. 

From the very first moment they met, John could vaguely estimate that Kyle was a good-looking guy, though at the time he didn't think much of it, busy with the whole gas operation and helping Farah. After he recruited Kyle for 141 and they began to work closer together, it kept slowly creeping up on him, the attraction, the affection. And then one day he looked at Kyle and his eyes truly opened to his beauty, the depth of his eyes, his full lips, how his brown skin glowed in sunlight. Toned body and a wicked smile, add his charming personality on top, and John found himself inevitably, inescapably falling deeper into an infatuation that then became something more.

The man who met Kyle in Piccadilly had no idea where he would end up.

The man who first noticed Kyle months later had no idea that Kyle could become, somehow, inexplicably even more alluring.

John knew the changes to Kyle's body from the pregnancy, and even postpartum, were not the easiest for Kyle to process. John knew that no matter how much and thoroughly he convinced that Kyle was still gorgeous to him, it did not really matter as long as it bothered Kyle. Now, nearly 18 months later, Kyle is almost back to the shape he was before the pregnancy, and he seems more comfortable in his skin than he has in ages.

Fatherhood also suits him well. He's become irresistible. John doesn't know how he's able to keep his hands off at any time. And he doesn't – whenever he's back home he finds himself touching Kyle constantly. Pressing a hand to the small of his back at every chance, caressing his face and hair, giving him hundreds and then thousands of kisses so that they lose count by the time he has to go.

He had already thought he had found the love of his life, that this was the extent of how much a human heart could handle affection – and then came their little Rosanna and grew his heart at least three sizes just to contain all of his devotion for her. With all the hard work that comes with parenthood, she's truly his everything. Not a day goes by that he doesn't miss her, want to hold her and watch her grow, become a person in this frightening world. Her smile is the reason he keeps going, her laugh and little arms around his neck life's greatest gift. 

So naturally watching Kyle interact with her makes his brain break. 

Kyle is so comfortable with her – it's no wonder, they've spent 18 months together, a criminal amount of it alone as John's been gone. Kyle's attentive to her every need and when they look at each other it's clear that they're each other's world. John is merely grateful he's allowed within this galaxy of parental wonder. He'll make it up, he tries each time he comes back, but he also finds it sweet that the two people he loves the most in this world adore each other like this. Kyle handles her with ease, taking everything in stride, be it tearful meltdowns or Rosie’s boundless energy. She is such a happy little child and John could not be more grateful that his absence doesn’t seem to have affected her sense of safety in the world.

He’s watching now as Kyle puts Rosie to bed (he insisted on doing it tonight, claiming that ‘you’re hogging her all to yourself, let me have a moment’, which isn’t untrue). 

“Say ‘good night’ to Da,” Kyle tells Rosie, to which Rosie replies “Night-night!” and they both turn to wave at John, who waves back, clearly being chased out – fine, he can take the hint, and he blows a kiss to the pieces of his heart and then closes the door behind him. He listens by the door as Kyle starts reading a story to Rosie.

“Now that Da has stopped eavesdropping,” he begins and John rolls his eyes, finally tearing himself from the door. He takes a look at the flat and then sets himself to cleaning up the day’s activities. He gathers Rosie’s toys and arranges them in their respective boxes, puts all the pillows back on the sofa, and then turns to the kitchen, filling up the dishwasher as quietly as he can, resolving to get to the frying pan tomorrow, and then wipes the counters, the table and the tray of Rosie’s high chair.

With all that done, he looks around and there’s just… nothing else to do. He should welcome the quiet, and he does on some level – life with a toddler isn’t the easiest thing in the world, no matter how adorable and sweet Rosanna is, but he still doesn’t feel the pull of sleep like he usually does at the end of the day. 

No can do – he’s restless. Leaves have always been tough for him, his mind constantly in mission-mode. It was worse, before, he would pace around like a restless dog yearning for a run, and he would do that too. Run for miles, try to distract his mind from the emptiness around him. Now it’s different, with Kyle and Rosie, and he’s happy that he can channel all of his restless energy into spending time with his daughter. Give some alone-time and well-earned rest to Kyle and make sure that he bonds with his daughter properly before he has to go again. 

Rosie still cries when he leaves. It tears him apart every time.

He glances at the clock. It’s only 7pm, normal bedtime for Rosie, perhaps even a bit early, but she was getting cranky and getting her to sleep before a meltdown is always better. She’ll most likely fall asleep mid-story again, which is always very cute, but it will take some time and John now has to figure out what to do in the meantime. 

He ends up scrolling on his phone on the sofa and bothering Nikolai, trying his best not to ask about work things. These days he really tries to disengage from work, try out the whole work-and-life balance thing that’s all the rage these days. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year and a half already, of living this new life of his – being a father (the thought still makes him feel a bit dizzy), returning home to his family, being the kind of person who gets to leave work to his workplace and then just… be done. Be home.

He’s still really bad with alone time, though. Waiting for Kyle to re-emerge from Rosie’s room feels like it takes forever, and John can’t help but be reminded of a dog again.

He looks up when he hears the door and Kyle smiles at him.

“She fell asleep fast,” John lies and Kyle yawns. 

“I almost fell asleep first,” he admits and then joins John on the sofa. John opens his arms and Kyle settles sideways on his lap, practised by now in the fine art of cuddling. 

“No TV tonight?” John asks and Kyle presses his face against John’s neck, and then nods.

“Can’t concentrate,” Kyle admits. “I don’t understand how I’m this tired…”

A thought occurs to John. “How about,” he suggests, “we take a shower?”

“In that case,” Kyle concurs and then leans in to kiss John’s cheek. “What are we waiting for?”

Kyle slowly raises his head. “Too tired for sex, too.”

“That’s why I suggested showering,” John raises a brow at him and Kyle flushes a little. 

“For you to get off my lap,” John replies cheekily and gets a light tug on his beard.

“Piss off,” Kyle chuckles and then blesses John with another kiss. 

John gets them the softest towels he can find and takes the baby monitor to the bathroom just in case. Kyle waits for him there already, still clothed, helping him out of his shirt and pants and dropping them to the laundry bin (which seem to have multiplied ever since they had their baby). When it’s Kyle’s turn, they both halt.

“How are you feeling today?” John asks. “Clothes on or off?”

Kyle swallows. This is always a bit of a difficult thing for them – they enjoy the intimacy of being skin-to-skin, but recently Kyle has had days when he’s just not feeling like feeling or looking at his body. Be it the sensory overload of parenting a tactile toddler or dysphoria, the reasons differ or intertwine, some days being touched and seen is overwhelming for him. John’s tried to make it clear that he never expects anything, is willing to go by Kyle’s wishes no matter what, but he knows Kyle worries about this.

Still John asks every time.

“Off,” Kyle says then. John resists the urge to ask if he’s certain – he’s learned that Kyle does not enjoy fussing, and would rather John take him at his word. 

John lets Kyle take off his own clothes, as much as he longs to touch, but then Kyle plasters himself against John’s body and John’s arms come around to pull him closer into the embrace.

“Hi,” Kyle mumbles against his skin and John is met with such a rush of fondness that he has to close his eyes for a moment.

“Hello there. Ready?”

Kyle nods and then pulls back just to slide his hands from behind John’s back over his sides, all the way to his pecs, lovingly caressing his chest and the hair there. John enjoys the petting, lifting his hand to cup the back of Kyle’s head and press a kiss on his forehead. Kyle chuckles, until his gaze falls on John’s arm – specifically the tattoo there.

A simple rose, with Rosanna’s birth date on it. There are many marks of life on John’s body and this one he’s the proudest of. He got it not that long after Rosie’s birth. Kyle follows the shape of it, the series of numbers, with his fingers, and then presses a gentle kiss on John’s shoulder, then his neck, a trail of soft kisses all the way up to his jaw.

“Yeah,” Kyle sighs in his ear and John feels heady with Kyle’s undivided attention. His hand travels to Kyle’s ribs, to the tattoo commemorating their daughter right under his top surgery scar on the left. A stylized bee design, mimicking their nickname for Rosie, and her birth date next to it. He knows the lines of it by heart, doesn’t even need to look. The symbols of their daughter permanently etched in their skin feels appropriate – she turned their lives upside down, and it would not be fair if the inner workings of their souls were not reflected externally. 

Close to the heart, always.

They step in the shower hand in hand and John makes sure the water temperature is warm enough before they step under the spray. He pulls Kyle close again and for a moment they just stand there under the water, brows pressed together and eyes closed, taking in the skin contact and closeness.

He lets Kyle take charge, as much as he yearns to touch and pamper him – but Kyle seems determined to be the active participant today, and John’s still not sure where they stand on the whole touching thing today. So he lets Kyle soap him, lets the touch ground him as Kyle washes his body, hands roaming gentle, stopping every now and then to appreciate a detail – a gnarly old scar by his shoulder; the expanse of his chest; another wide, deep scar from a knife wound across his waist (almost spilled his guts in Latvia); and throughout John watches him with soft eyes, feeling loved and cherished. 

“My turn?” he asks finally, and Kyle returns to him with yet another sweet kiss.

“Sure.”

John repeats the same process: soaps Kyle thoroughly, washes him clean of sweat and the day’s grime, and presses kisses to his shoulders and neck whenever he can reach. His hands follow the lines of Kyle’s body – the toned muscles, the softness of his dark skin, stalling by the stretch marks he adores. He knows Kyle isn’t the biggest fan of them, but John loves them. He runs his fingers over them.

“Gorgeous,” he murmurs and Kyle cups his cheek, caressing his cheekbone with his thumb.

“So you’ve told me.”

“It’s true. Every time.”

Kyle answers with a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling with delight, and John has to keep going to keep himself from crumbling on the spot.

He traces Kyle’s scars with reverence, as always. He knows them all by heart: that’s from when he ordered Gaz to rescue the hostages; this one’s from when he told Gaz to leave them. That’s from a gunshot wound from a sniper John didn’t notice; there’s a stab wound from Gaz covering for Soap. All these marks of life on him, and yet—

“I love this one the most,” John says, tracing the C-section scar across Kyle’s abdomen. It’s healed by now, but still clear – he knows it occasionally bothers Kyle, but John himself is positively obsessed with it.

“Yeah?” Kyle chuckles. “How so?”

“It feels like I put it there,” John says, transfixed on the darker line contrasting against Kyle’s beautiful brown skin. The truth is – he thinks most of Kyle’s scars, received after he joined John’s task force, as his. Both with the occasional guilt, but also with a sense of devotion. Kyle got these scars because of his orders.

This one, though. This one he knows he’s responsible  for.

Kyle knows this, and throws his head back with a rich laugh. “You’re deranged.”

“Yup,” John replies and then leans in to chase Kyle’s laugh with his lips, pulling him into a deep kiss once again. Kyle hums in his mouth and then pulls back with a sweet little peck.

“You know what I like about you?” Kyle asks, hooking his arms around John’s shoulders.

“Mmhm?”

“You always make me feel better about myself.”

“Really now?”

“Swear. You compliment me and say nice things.”

“Of course. You’ll always be gorgeous to me,” he says and Kyle grins.

“Yep, that’s what I mean,” he chuckles, bringing them nose to nose, nearly touching. “You’ve made me like many things. Including myself.”

It’s suddenly hard to speak. He parts his mouth but nothing comes out, and Kyle closes the distance, kissing him right on his stupefied face, the tip of his nose, then his cheek and finally his lips – by then John’s brain has caught on and he returns the kiss with a gentle kind of cupidity.

“The least I can do,” he murmurs. Kyle laughs again, the sweetest sound.

“And that’s why I love you,” Kyle says to that, sincere and heavy, and John doesn’t know how to verbalise the depth of emotion he feels – love just isn’t enough, with his entire being yearning to merge their very souls into one spinning spiral of light. Who else could he stand with in the water, like this, just exist together like the entire world revolves around them? Who else would he spend the rest of his life with? It feels impossible to even think that this could ever end, and he does not even dare to imagine such an impossibility.

“You alright there?” Kyle wipes a thumb over his cheek and John can’t tell if he’s wiping away a stray droplet of water or tears, and he doesn’t really care. 

“Yeah,” he says weakly. “I love you too.”

“Wow, for a moment I was worried you wouldn’t say it back,” Kyle teases – as if John could ever deny him the confession. He replies by brushing the tip of his nose against Kyle’s.

“Like I could resist.”

They enjoy the hot water, holding each other close, until the tips of their fingertips are all pruny.

John dries Kyle with the soft towel, takes his time with it, and Kyle lets him, understanding that John needs this moment to wind down from the emotional intensity. He gets on his knees to dry Kyle’s legs and when he looks up, it’s a sight from his dreams: Kyle looking down at him with a benevolent smile, like some saint, and John can’t resist but press a reverent kiss on the scar on his abdomen.

You’ve given me everything, he wants to say, you’re like a painting by the renaissance masters; I’d build a cathedral to your worship if you gave me the word; you��re the father of my child and I can never thank you enough.

But perhaps Kyle understands – he lifts John’s chin with two of his fingers and pulls him up to his feet as if tethered to his touch. 

“Let’s get to bed,” he says. 

Kyle’s word is law, so John dries them both as carefully and hastily as he can. 

They change into their pyjamas (a matching set – a gift joke from Dotty, but in frequent use nonetheless) and climb under the covers, Kyle settling in John’s arms as easy as breathing, like their bodies were made to be moulded together like this. 

On their way to bed, he lingers for a moment by Rosie’s nursery, eager to peek in and see if everything’s alright. He feels a touch to his elbow and it’s Kyle, gesturing with the baby monitor in his hand.

“She’s fine,” he says and tugs John by the arm. “Come to bed.”

He’s gorgeous. He’s everything John could ever have wished for and was convinced for so long that he didn’t deserve, couldn’t even dream of this reality. And yet here he is – sleeping in the same bed with his partner, their toddler dozing away in the next room, and it really can’t get better than this. And he owes it all to this man in his arms, the man of his dreams, the man—

“Stop thinking and go to sleep.”

He’s barely able to stop the audible laugh bubbling in his chest. Best not to wake their little one behind the wall.

“Yes, sir.”

END.

[imrowanartist]

@pricegazweek Day 7 (forgot to post this, oops) - ‘That morning I heard water being poured into a teapot. The sound was an ordinary, daily, cluffy sound. But all at once, I knew you loved me. An unheard-of thing, love audible in water falling.’

Tags: sick fic, fluff

_

“I see now why you never invited me here,” a voice says dryly as John blinks awake, head heavy and body sore.

It takes him a moment to register his surroundings and who the voice belongs to; like coming up from the depths and breaching the surface after a deep dive. Then it comes back to him.

They’re in Hereford, at John’s old as shit flat. ‘They’ being him and Gaz, apparently.

They came here because Kyle insisted on it, after John came down with a cold on the way back from their latest stint abroad. He’d planned on just sitting it out at base, but of course upon arrival he’d been informed that because of maintenance the barracks were partially unavailable. Including his room. So Kyle had offered to drive him home instead, which he had reluctantly agreed to. A testament to how shit he actually felt.

What he had not expected, was for Kyle to stay.

John wants to quip something back at Kyle, defend himself and his flat, but what comes out is an unintelligible grumble due to his parched throat. Kyle, standing in the door opening, tuts at him. He looks much too chipper for what time it is, and John is pretty sure that the shirt he’s wearing is not his own. It sends a shiver of excitement through him. And, if he dares to admit it, a wave of possessiveness too, being able to call Kyle his now.

“You still broken?” Kyle asks and John huffs at him before forcing himself to sit up with a grunt, his duvet pooling around his waist. He feels a brief flush of embarrassment at wearing nothing more than yesterday’s boxers, but then he remembers they’ve seen each other in even less clothing by now.

“Fit as a fiddle,” he grumbles, annoyed at how hoarse he sounds.

Kyle simply chuckles at him. “Let me make you some tea. If I can manage to find any clean cups in this house.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, disappearing in the direction of the kitchen. John sits in bed for another minute, just blinking through the fog that seems to have permanently settled over his mind, then forces himself to move, limb for limb. He should at least put on some clean underwear and a shirt.

Briefly he wonders if Kyle slept on the couch, but the indent on the pillow next to him tells him enough. Good. He wants Kyle to feel at home. Like he belongs here.

When he shuffles into the kitchen Kyle raises a dark eyebrow at him.

“Sit down before you fall down,” he orders and John obediently sits down at the kitchen table that has seen better days. He has to resist the urge to lay his heavy head down on the surface, but seeing Kyle putter around his kitchen is giving him all the motivation he needs not to. The fact that Kyle is also wearing his clothes only adds to the heat pooling in his gut.

Mesmerized, he follows Kyle’s movements as he prepares the tea. The way he blows some dust off two mugs before rinsing them. The way he scoffs softly to himself when he only finds bagged tea (that has miraculously not expired yet). It’s all so mundane and domestic. Such a sharp contrast to their job and what it forces them to be sometimes.

And it’s all for him.

John didn’t ask Kyle to stay. Didn’t ask him to make tea and look after him. But as Kyle pours the hot water into the mugs, the love in it is almost audible to John. As Kyle carries the mugs over to the table and takes a seat across from him, he can’t help how his skin flushes as he’s unable to pull his eyes away from how lovely Kyle looks in the early morning light.

No one has ever shown him love like this. So easy. Without asking for anything in return. It makes John’s throat close up as he forces out a thank you and takes the cup from Kyle.

“You sound even worse than usual,” Kyle comments, unaware of how John’s heart is racing in his chest.

Why are you here? I’m just a broken man.

“Don’t be dramatic,” Kyle snorts and John blinks at him. He hadn’t realised he’d said the words aloud. “I’m here because I choose to be. Because I want to be. And you know, I do kind of like you.”

Normally, John would rise to the banter, but not today. Today his brain is mush and his limbs feel like lead and his wit has completely abandoned him.

“You should be home with your family,” he says, because he knows Kyle is close with his parents and they must miss him terribly. John would, if someone like Gaz would disappear from his life for months on end. His heart aches at the thought alone.

Kyle hums thoughtfully. “They can last a few more days without me. Are you always this morose when you’re sick?”

“Hmmm,” John grumbles and it’s neither a confirmation nor a denial.

Kyle pats John’s hand. “Something tells me that’s a yes. Now drink your tea.”

He watches like a hawk to make sure John finishes it all, while casually sipping at his own. Part of John wants to object against the attention, wants to scream that he’s independent, that he doesn’t need to be treated like a sick child. But part of him is relieved that he can finally let go. That someone is willing to look after him for a change.

When he has finished his tea, Kyle gets up and goes back into John’s bedroom. He comes back out with his arms full of pillows and a blanket.

“I think a sofa day is in order,” he says, arranging the pillows in a way that John can only describe as a nest. He huffs at the idea of it, but Kyle seems adamant to make him comfortable.

Is this real? Is he really allowed to have this? He feels like he’s in a daze, a fever dream. But the way Kyle looks at him so expectantly must be reality, his brown eyes soft and inviting.

Slowly John drags himself to his feet.

“I want to kiss you,” he says, barely able to resist the want that seems to take over his whole being.

“Mhm, I understand.”

“Oh, really?”

Kyle gives a cheeky grin. “Who wouldn’t. But better not, unless you want to take care of me next.”

“It would be a fair trade.”

“Stop thinking like that,” Kyle softly admonishes him, “this isn’t an equivalent exchange. Just accept that I want to do this without you giving me something in return.”

“Alright,” John whispers, letting Kyle guide him to the sofa.

It’s an old thing, made of leather that’s almost disintegrating at the seams. Without the extra layer of blankets Kyle has put there it’s not even comfortable anymore. Who needs a decent couch when you barely spend time using it anyway? But clearly Kyle is set on changing that.

He settles John on the sofa, making sure he has more tea and tissues within reach, then sits down on the floor, resting his back against the side. The back of his head is warm against John’s thigh and with the soft sound of some National Geographic documentary playing on the telly, John can feel his eyes become heavy.

He wonders if Kyle will still be there if he closes them. He still can’t entirely believe this is not a dream, having him here in his flat. Someone with his amount of red in his ledger should not be allowed to have something like this, right? He doesn’t deserve it.

“I’m not leaving,” Kyle whispers, “just go to sleep, I’ll be here.”

“Mhm,” John mumbles, finally believing him. He gives in to the pull of sleep and closes his eyes, hoping that some more rest will have him waking up feeling better.

He has a kiss to cash in on after all.