"зайчик, we have a problem" Nikolai says, opening Price's office's door.
The Captain sighs and doesn't lift his head, focused on trying to decipher the last report from Soap and Roach. Never again he sends them out together, he swears to himself. Not without a chaperone.
"Are we at war?"
"Eh," Nik hesitates, making Price frown and finally lift his head to look at the man.
He has a child in his arms. A black kid, barely more than a toddler. "What the - Nik, who's that?"
"Ah, this is part of the problem," Nik says with his heavy accent, sending a smile towards Price. "Say hi to Cap, Kyle."
The child frowns at him, buries his head shyly in Nik's shoulder and mutters a little 'hi' from his hiding space. Price doesn't understand.
"Uh, hi?" he says back, sending a confused look towards his lover.
"It's Gaz," Nik explains. "Like I've said, we have a situation."
A 'situation' is a bit of an understatement, in Price's eyes. He's surrounded by toddlers, his chain of command decimated, with no explanation and no solution. And if he thought they were a handful as adults, well they're worse as children.
Even Gaz got over his initial shyness and is running around, screeching with Soap. The only one who's calm is Simon. But it's not for a good reason, and it breaks his heart to see him almost cowering in the corner, panicked at the idea of not being home and his father being angry at him for that.
"Psst," a little voice interrupts his thoughts, accompanied by taps on his knee. He looks down at Roach, who's staring at him with a grin. Oh god, what now.
"Yeah?" he asks, fearing the worse.
"I caught a bug," Roach whispers like a secret.
Price looks down at his empty hands and feels the dread rising in him. "That's uh, that's nice, did you want to show it to me?"
Roach shakes his head. "I can't," he keeps on whispering. "I ate it."
Oh god.
The child looks so fucking proud of himself too. Price is lost. If he had wanted children, he would have had them, honestly. Apart from his sexuality and work overload, nothing kept him from just going out there and making a baby with someone. The thing is, he never wanted kids. He has no idea what to do!
"I'm gonna bite him," Roach whispers again, pointing towards Simon.
This is a nightmare, he thinks as he looks at the child making his way towards the poor unsuspecting kid. Soap has started climbing him like a mountain, claiming to Gaz that there's a treasure at the top, encouraging him to start climbing his arm as well.
And Nik is just taking pictures. If he wasn't the only one here that had some idea of what to do, he'd have strangled him.
Soap suddenly stops moving, sitting on his shoulder with his arms on top of his head, and Price barely catches him as he falls, sound asleep, and Gaz starts crying that he doesn't want nap time.
Suddenly he regrets complaining about that report. He'd take a hundred of them over this right now.
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