In The Back Of My Mind, John Price Thinks He’s The Most Terrible, Most Horrible, And Most Despicable

What if one day Nik is helping John with his garden out back and it gets really hot so he ties up his hair into a man bun before lifting two heavy bags of soil, one under his arm and the other over his shoulder.

John sees this and drags that man back inside for a few minutes before they come back out to finish planting the Marigold seeds.

I don’t think people talk about how magical snow is. Like, yeah it’s cold outside and it makes you want to hop into the nearest pit of fire, but just looking out at the scenery around you is just so.. unreal.

Spring is cool, Summer is.. alright, and Fall is great and all, but none of those amount to beauty that Winter has, and I’ll sit and die on that hill.

I think that John has freckles and beauty marks on every inch of his skin, and when he and Nik are lying somewhere, the big Russian with gently kiss every freckle and every mole until John’s a giggling, squirming mess.

…

(And when they’re in bed together, Nik will keep John’s legs open and kiss those thick hairy thighs until he gets to the real prize.)

Uhhhh John grabbing at Nik’s full hairy man tits while riding him uhmmmm and moaning like he owns them hmmmm Nik groping at John’s fat ass urmmmmmmm and grinning because he does own it uhhhhhhh..

Goodness gracious.

Sorry for asking this question, but recently I really wanted to read something very sad (mmm... suffering ☺️) so I'm turning to you.

How would John react if he caught Nikolai with someone else? What would happen to their relationship then?👉👈

Oof. This one hurt.

cw: Nik cheats; I genuinely don't think he ever would, fyi. This was more an experiment in 'what if'. I thought about doing it from the perspective of 'they're not exclusive and Nik has had mixed messages', but I went for maximum pain.

Price had wanted to surprise Nik. Turn up at his hotel room, take him out, fall into bed for a bit, and then go pick up the kids from his sister's. The usual. He hadn't expected that day for his world to be ended by a pair of blue eyes and a jawline he could cut paracord with. Maybe ‘ended’ was a bit dramatic. Sure, it felt like it, but he had survived worse. He kept telling himself that. Over and over.

He'd never been one to cry, but he had blubbered like a baby behind the steering wheel of his Landie. The image of Nik with the blond in his arms, the hickie on his neck, kept circulating in his head like a taunt. It was there now as he stood in his office, Nik in the seat behind him, bright behind his eyes as he stared into space.

Price couldn't even look at him. When he did, he wanted to feel indignant rage, but all he felt was hurt. Misery. Betrayal. He needed his anger but all he wanted to do was cry more, and he no longer felt safe showing Nik that soft underbelly. He kept his face turned away.

“John, I…”

“I need t’ get tested,” Price said quietly, like Nik hadn't even spoken.

“I wore protection. I would not put you at risk of…”

“Really, Nik? Can I trust ya word on that?”

The words cut deep. Nik knew Price couldn't. It wasn't just their relationship he had discarded, but twenty years worth of implicit trust. The idea that Nik always had his back had vanished in a cloud of expensive cologne. Price lifted his left hand and ran his thumb over his wedding band.

“It was a mistake. I was foolish, I…”

“How many mistakes? Once, twice?”

“Twice.”

The knife sank just a little deeper. “So, you had to make sure then.”

“John…”

“Just him or have there been others?”

“No others.”

Price didn't respond. He just couldn't trust him. His thumb nail caught in one of the grooves of his wedding ring. Til death do us part. Did this count? It felt like death. His heart felt like it was about to give out any minute. “What did I do to deserve it?”

“You did nothing…”

There it was. The surge of rage. Price turned to look at Nik for the first time, his fists clenched and shaking. “Don't fuckin’ lie to me. No one shags some poxy bit on the side if they feel like they're eatin’ well at home. So what? What was it?”

Nik gazed up at Price with those warm brown eyes that had made Price fall in love with him. Had those eyes looked at the other bloke like that? Price felt his own prickle with tears again, but he made himself look.

Nik said nothing at first, and then his chin dropped as he sighed. “You are a brilliant father, a loving husband, but you are… busy.”

“Busy,” Price repeated, and he hated how his voice broke around the word. He turned away again, drew in a stuttering breath, the back of his wrist to his mouth.

“I made a… selfish choice. I…”

Price had taken a different role with the Army so they could have a family. Consultancy with a few away missions. It meant he commuted to base, but he could still do the bulk of domestic shit kids needed. He was busy. Busy building the life he thought Nik wanted. Perhaps they hadn't been intimate enough for a while, or…

“I will understand if you want a…” Nik swallowed, “...a divorce.”

“No,” Price said. “You ain't gettin’ off that easy. The kids need their dad, even if he's a lyin’, cheatin’ cunt. They don' need t’ know that. They worship you. And ‘m not doin’ the single father shit.”

“Then, how do we… what…”

“Open marriage. Can't trust ya not to do this again. You can shag who ya like, so can I. Wear protection, get tested every month. Kids don't see or get told any different. Then, when they've flown the nest, we sign the papers.”

Nik sat in stunned silence for a while. Price couldn't turn to look at him because a tear had escaped. The truth was the thought of being touched by anyone else disgusted him. He felt dirty now, like someone else’s dick had somehow touched him through Nik. Nik swallowed, and spoke finally. “I do not want anyone else.”

“At the moment. You jus’ got caught. Give yerself time.”

“John, please…”

“Is it the thought of someone else shaggin’ me, Nik? Is that what's hurtin’? Good. I hope it fuckin’ does.”

Fuck, he might just go and do it anyway. Find some random bloke at a club and let him go at it. Nik would see it, smell it. Maybe feel even a tiny shred of what Price did now. The thought of another man's hands on him made Price feel sick. He only wanted Nik’s. His heart broke all over again and more tears tracked down his cheeks.

“Then I would like to go to counseling,” Nik said.

“Whot for? So ya can get better at lyin’ t’ me?” Price asked, incredulous.

“We have another twelve years together. Maybe more. They do not need to be twelve years of suffering.”

“Shoulda thought of that before gettin’ yer dick wet in some twink.”

“Not for me, John. For you.”

“Get out my fuckin’ office before I decide collectin’ on your life insurance is a better shout.”

“John…”

“Now.”

The chair legs scraped as Nik stood. For a terrible second, Price felt his weight linger near. His entire body ached for those big arms to wrap around him, offer comfort to his broken heart, but he knew that act had been contaminated now. Poisoned. Nik had taken even that.

As the office door closed softly, Price managed to hold it together. The moment the footsteps had faded, he grabbed the chair Nik had been sitting in and threw it across the room. By the time he'd finished, his office looked like the CIA had been in to turn it over. He sat in the middle of it, his knees clutched to his chest, and sobbed until he was dry heaving.

He'd survived worse. But this was the first time in his life he'd wished it'd killed him.

Nikolai and Price going to the gym together and working on either legs or back muscles.

Price is focused on his squats, finishing sets quickly and stopping to take a short break before going back to the barbell to finish up.

Nik isn’t so focused on what he’s doing though. Instead, he’s watching the way those tight shorts hug his the captain’s thighs and arse, and the way they stretch whenever Price goes down for a squat.

Damn it, he was getting a boner.

As his mind started to wander a little further than what it should be, he snaps out of his trance just in time to see Price struggle a bit with the newly weight added, stumbling just a tad.

Nik immediately gets behind him to help steady the bar up so he could finish his last set.

“I got you. Take it slow.”

Nik watched as Price huffed before slowly going down again, ass almost pressing up against Nik’s crotch before moving.

That pattern repeats about five more times before he finishes and slowly walks the bar back over to the rack.

“Bloody hell.” Price huffs, wiping sweat from his forehead and taking a swig of water. “My legs feel weak.”

Nik just stared at him as he ranted, eyes never leaving the fat swell of his ass until Price noticed and popped him with his towel.

“Eyes up here perv.”

“They are.”

“I can’t bloody tell with the wood yer’ sportin’.”

It was then that Nik realized that his boner had intensified and grew into a noticeable tint.

“Will you help me with it?”

Price popped him again with the towel before grabbing his stuff and walking away, hips purposefully swaying in the way they did when he was being an asshole.

“Maybe.”

Nik bit back a grunt at that and gathered his things quickly before following after his lover, determined to get a piece of what Price was advertising.

Imagining a 15 year old John Price coming home from school and seeing his father passed out on the floor in his own vomit and thinking, “Not again” before getting a towel to clean it and propping him up against the couch before going to do his homework.

An hour later when he comes back down to get a snack(aka: whatever he could find in the cupboards), he notices that his father hadn’t moved an inch and goes to check on him, crouching beside the man and grabbing his face.

That’s when he notices the blueish gray hue on his face and the fact that he’s not taking his deep, rattling breaths like usual, and soon he comes to the realization that Johnathan Price Sr. is dead.

His father is dead.

I don’t think he cries. Not for a good while. Instead, I think he just sits and stares at his father’s corpse with varying expressions shifting from anger to despair, to resentment, and even to one of pity.

I also think he yells at his father. Shouting profanities and things like, “I hope you rot in hell!”, or “So you think you can just leave and take the easy way out?! Drunken asshole!”

And once he’s gotten it all out of his system, then and only then does he allow himself to breakdown and cry, clutching his father’s hand to his forehead and squeezing it tight because— he was the only person he had left, even if he was a drunk who beat him over the head with a belt because his mom’s death was his fault. And now he’s gone.

And Johnathan’s alone.

Ooh, this seems like fun! I tried adding my own but it wouldn’t let me(darn!)>:(

Passing it on though!: @eevee-of-eternity @devil-in-hiding @jask-does-stuff @on-a-lucky-tide @tacticalprincess @valiants @shyravenns

Go crazy!!(or remain sane, your choice^^)

Thank youu @ameliafromafairytale for the tag!!

I was tagged to list 5 items in my bedroom and let y'all vote what you'd steal :0

Tagging 💟 @dykexenomorph @lunarzomb @erodingsinner @filwmmd @mirrorcowby @baked-potatoes-rule @haydenbites @postmorteum @detnylaharper @paris-roubaix and anyone else who wants to join in 🤸🏼‍♀️

You’re good at this “Let’s make Goober cry today” thing, keep it up stinker👍🏾

On another note though, it’s refreshing to see someone write about the ups and (crashing) downs of aging and the troubles that come with it, especially how bad it is for those who’ve served or been through something traumatic.

Some would’ve never thought they’d see the day where big, strong, capable Captain Price would be reduced to a fragile old man, and yet here we are. I think it shows that life is as unpredictable as it is unfair, and anything can happen to anyone, even the strongest of people.

It’ll break you down like that, and yet the world keeps spinning.

There's a certain kind of pain from watching your loved one rot away in front of your eyes.

Watching the man you've spent 50 years together with grow old and waste away, bits and parts of his brain eventually devoured by age, whilst you stay immortal, standing still in the sands of time, your skin flawless and perfect.

How could you grief a man that's still alive anyways? How could you celebrate life when the man you've sworn to heaven and hell is actively degrading in front of you? Sitting in a wheelchair with a ventilator following him around?

The pain seems bone wrecking when Nik stands in front of Price, and watches the man's milky eyes take him in fully first before finally recognising him. The way John stutters over his name, how his chest heaves with even the most simplest of words. (Like muttering a loved one's name) He watches as John stays quiet, allowing Nik to push him around the garden, occasionally stopping down to watch the flowers and ducks.

John's time on Earth was most definitely limited. Unlike Nik, who had seen the face of several wars and great empires rise and fall, John will soon vanish with time, left as another body for Nik to mourn six feet under dirt. His body will eventually decompose, and serve as fertilizer for the land around him.

Nik watches as John slowly gets up, only to nearly damn collapse from the lack of use of his muscles, saved by Nik hastily holding him. It reminds him of how little time he has left, how eventually he would have to remember John's face from a photo instead, how he already needs videos to remember how John had sounded.

The next time he visits, John takes a little more time to recognise the face of his lover, still never questioning how Nik looked no older. He stays for the whole day, wheeling John around before letting him walk around with a walker.

The next time he sees John, it was in the picture of a younger face smiling at him, etched in stone. Bundles of snowdrops flower (the favourite flowers of a man he'll never see again) spread around his grave.

Hey, bud. I hope you have a fantastic new year! It's so great to see you writing for Nikprice, and I have a damn backlog to get through, don't I? Keep writing, keep creating. Stay safe.

Literally fell out of my bed at this because— I just won one of the hardest games on Roblox and all of a sudden one of my favorite NikPrice bloggers sends me this and tells me to have a fantastic new year?? Either the universe is favoring me or something bad’s about to happen in 0.2 seconds.

Either way, this made my entire afternoon and now I’m gonna go brag to my roommate about the gold I just received.

Have an amazing New Year’s Eve and an even better New Year, and stay plenties of safe out there!

(P.S: A little something I did on Pinterest)