One day after a mission gone terrifyingly wrong, John buries himself in his quarters and drinks away his sorrows, coincidentally having the same bottle his father had before he died as well. The bed was too high and too dangerous for a man in his state, so he moved to the floor and leaned against his bed.
As he leaned, he caught a glance of himself in the discarded beer bottle and nearly threw up at the sight, because staring back at him was his dead father, pale gray eyes looking at his son with disdain and a cold hand gripping his bottle of liquor.
John tried to move away from it, but being two.. no three..- four? bottles and a half smoked cigar in his sulking sesh made that difficult, and he soon fell back and hit his head, his vision spinning as he tried to compose himself.
Suddenly, he hears footsteps coming towards him and sees Nik his father pop into his vision with a scowl.
“Look at you Johnathan. I thought I raised you better than that.” Are you okay?
“What?” Johnathan muttered, brows furrowing as he tried to sit up again.
“Y’know, I was only five bottles in and yet here you are with four. You keep it up and you’ll be just like me.” Hey, take it slow. You are okay, you are safe.
“No I won’,” John slurred, breaths quickening. “Get away from me.”
Nik John Sr. got closer.
“Oh yes you will. As a matter of fact, you already are.” He smiled, teeth rotting and falling one by one. “This role fits you perfectly son. Like a glove. Like father like son.” Captain.
“I’m not like you.” John grumbled, eyes stinging and throat getting tighter.
John.
“I’ll never be like you.”
Johnathan.
“I’ll always be better than you, you good for nothin’ DRUNK!”
“JOHNATHAN!” Nik yelled, large hands cupping John’s face so their eyes could meet. “It’s me. Me, Nikolai. Not your father.”
John goes quiet for a while, staring up at the Russian in front of him with a look of bewilderment and shame, as if he were going to knock him in the head with a belt.
After a bit, his face fell and the stinging in his eyes intensified, to which Nik offered him his chest to shield him from the embarrassment of seeing him cry like a boy.
All could be talked about in the morning. But for now, all that is needed is some silence, a miracle, and some ibuprofen.
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.