Everybody Falls
Chapter One

'… Would you stop being such a stubborn bastard and take a pill already?' Soap says, the words catching the tail end of his long-suffering sigh. It's a rhetorical question – for no other reason than he knew the man next to him.

In the passenger seat, Price grunts around the cigar in his mouth – its spiced smoke wafting through the vehicle.

'Never took you for a wet nurse, Soap.'

'Well I don't go around bloody broadcasting it, old man,' Soap says, taking one hand off the wheel and rolling down a window. He doesn't usually mind having someone toking next to him, but right now it's suffocating - even if the taste as he breathes it in is a right sight better than his usual. Menthols. The look of disgust Price gives him every time he lights up is one for the books. 'Christ knows who I'd have trying to suckle on my misty peaks.'

Price inhales far too sharply, quickly falling into a minor coughing fit. Soap grins just a little, fingers flicking on the indicator.

Tick, tick, tick, tick. They're at an intersection. Cars flit passed on his left, pushing the limit. Before he can be growled at for not making room for himself, Soap reaches into the back from between the two front seats, rummaging for his water bottle.

'Here,' he says, striking gold after a few moments, around the same time that a gap suddenly appears. Trying to accomplish two very different things at once, Soap thrusts the bottle a little too roughly in Price's direction and presses the accelerator, bunny-hopping them into the road. 'Don't get anything on my upholstery.'

'Your upholstery,' Price repeats, managing to sound deadpan despite having just been seconds away from hacking up a lung. A quick glance back at his OC as Soap wins his game of chicken with oncoming traffic, and he can see why. Price is leaning sideways, shoulder pressed against the door – having slid seamlessly out of the way of Soap's offering, which he was still holding against the seat. Around the right height to have smacked his Captain in the jaw. 'Where the bloody hell did you get your license, eh? A cereal box?'

'A pretty lass with a smile, actually.'

'Hm.'

There's a beat of silence – another cough, this one a touch more chesty than the last. Price wrests the water from Soap's grip, the old man precariously balancing his newly lit Villa Clara on the side. Soap watches the ashen end in his peripherals, knowing how this scenario was going to end.

'Put that out, would you?'

Price looks at Soap like he's something to be scraped off the bottom of his shoe. Soap sighs heavily again, resisting the urge to groan.

'… It's smoldering, old man.'

A derisive snort. 'Is the Earth round?'

'You know us Christ lovers - we're convinced it's flat.' Soap says, switching gears with a horrible grinding sound. Price's exasperated roll of the eyes is cut short as he winces, mouth pressing into a thin, disapproving line.

Mercifully, he doesn't utter a word.

A heartbeat later, the cigar disappears, too.

Soap knows better than to thank him, instead letting them both fall into a comfortable silence. He thumbs the radio absently, hearing static. Pop music. Classical. A sport's commentator, talking a mile a minute with nothing interesting to say. Price finally pops the cap and starts drinking beside him, finding it difficult as the water hits the back of his throat. More coughing, and Price makes a fist, trying to smother the noise.

Honest to God, Soap wishes the bastard would forsake his pride just this once and take his bloody medicine.

It's twenty degrees out and the old man is bundled up in a coat so thick you'd think he was born in the bloody Sahara – his skin flushed with heat, but his body clearly having a crisis of temperature. Even now, after regaining his composure, he's rolling his window back up. Like the soft breeze drifting through is blasting him with murderous, icy intent.

On the opposite side of him, Soap is practically sweltering in his Henley shirt – sleeves rolled up in an attempt to keep cool, the logical part of him wondering why the hell he hadn't glanced outside before getting dressed that morning.

And yet, despite it all, his OC sits there like a pumpkin, teeth grit, the odd tremor wracking his body, professing that he's fine. Soap wonders what it is about Price admitting he's under the weather that makes the old man act like everyone and their dog is trying to get a murder confession out of him.

Ahead, the familiar letter box emblazoned with a '46', comes into view, and Soap slowly eases onto the brake. The car slows – turns. As it stops in front of Price's closed garage, Soap keeps the engine running. Normally, he'd follow Price in, but he has somewhere else to be – Wallcroft's barbeque having gone on a lot longer than anyone had expected. Time slipping away in the presence of people that could hold a decent conversation – a side-effect of being constantly deployed. Nobody back home ever knew what to say when you eventually limped back into their lives.

Soap shifts in his seat as Price opens the passenger door, deciding that he might as well push one more button before he goes. 'Hey, Price…'

Price pauses with one leg out of the car, looking at him – an eyebrow arching expectantly.

Speak now or forever hold your peace.

'… Mind tossing that over, aye?'

He points to the bottle, reaching out as he waits for Price to pass it to him – gaze dark as he watches the old man, knowing that it's not going to happen. For a long, long time, Price says nothing, mouth twisting into an unhappy frown.

His OC doesn't like being called out.

'… You don't want what I've got, Soap.'

There's a brief moment where he considers pushing the envelope with an 'aha!' moment, but it vanishes as he meets Price's eyes, his own expression schooling neutral. The concern for his wellbeing would do, he decides, rescinding his hand.

'Probably not,' he agrees.

Price takes that as a cue that they're done, getting out of the car. He's about to close the door, when Soap leans over again.

'Good for Thursday?'

Thursday, Price finally gets his own car out of the shop, though he still needed someone to taxi him up to the mechanic. On the driveway, Price nods once.

'Be here by three.'

'… I'm dragging your arse to the doctor if you still look like shite by then, old man.'

There's a moment of silence. Then the door snaps shut in his face.

Soap shakes his head, torn between amusement and annoyance as Price walks away like he isn't a royal wanker, climbing the steps to his porch. '… And he calls me a bloody muppet.'