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John Price was 18 when he joined the British army. He was barefaced, fresh, and only a tad bit rebellious. Before he enlisted he viewed the military through rose-colored glasses. It was a big sweaty summer camp with yelling and dirt; the only difference was the rules and uniforms. Don’t get him wrong; he had pride in the Union Jack, but to hang out with a bunch of guys his age, be handed big guns, and get to throw things that went boom was any schoolboy's dream.
Two years later, twenty-year-old John Price was already feeling the weight of responsibility in his new career as a soldier. Civilians his age were at the prime of their lives. Drinking, clubbing, fucking, all around learning and experiencing a normal life.
Meanwhile, Price was sitting in the middle of a half-blown-up house up to his elbows in blood, in a different country with pieces of his friends surrounding him.
He couldn’t tell if it was his blood or the enemies, and he guessed it didn’t matter. It was all the same; wet, sticky, and warm but slowly cooling on his skin as he sat there, the dust from the plaster settling around him.
“Pr…..ice. Pri..ce?” His name came through the comms still shoved in his ear. “Price…ddamn..it. Where..ar…you. Evac…s here...”
Blinking through the dust he shifted and paused as pain shot through his lower back.
“Copy.” Voice rough, grinding out of him through the layers of pain adrenline was holding back Price started to get up. Plaster from the fallen building moved underneath him, bringing him to his hands and knees.
“Fuck.” he grunted out, feeling something wet and warm drip from his lower back and side. Never had he wished more to be home. Whether at a pub with his friends and a pint, sweating at a morning football pitch, or Sunday morning English breakfasts with his family.
“How far away are you, Actual?” He asked, throat aching as he held back the tremor.
“Three..m..utes.” The crackle came through. “....onna be hov…ng..behind..the buil...g.”
Price groaned, pushing himself onto his knees as a wave of nausea went through him taking a shaky step in what he prayed was the right direction.
–
Somehow he made it to the evac helicopter. Pulling himself in the medic took one look at him and pounced. He tried to explain the blood wasn’t all his but they weren’t listening to him, whether it was by choice or because of the whir of blades overhead he didn’t know.
He tried to answer the Captain's questions the best he could, not really having enough intel to provide to him, he hadn’t been the point man on this, hell he was barely out of BootCamp.
It wasn’t until the man who had never shown an ounce of compassion in the year he had known him, clapped him on the shoulder with a squeeze, sympathy in his eyes that he realized he had been the only survivor. All of his comrades, his friends didn’t make it. He was here and they were scattered and left among the rubble. He hadn’t done anything to save them. He couldn’t have, he learned later, but the memory of helplessness had sunken too deep.
Prices’ mindset changed in the field that day. As years and missions went by the grief and anger molded him into something new. His noticeable potential set him up for SAS training, in turn making him into one of the elite.
Soon the stories of the young and alone survivor of a mission that went sideways shifted into the ones of the unyielding SAS Captain Price and the 141, who protected, supported, encouraged, and fought for not only his men but those in the world who needed it the most. A man who led his team into burning broken buildings and brought them out again still breathing. It was known that he would never ask his men to do something he wouldn’t do, and he proved it time and time again.
His men saw him as Captain Price, but underneath it all he was still that twenty-year-old kid covered in blood and dust. Never again would John Price be sitting in a pile of rubble covered in the blood of his friends who he couldn’t protect.