back on my Simon Riley is scared of hospitals bull shit instead of the nikprice week blurb.
anyway, this idea. Simon scared of being in hospital. Hates the whole shebang. Really only stays unless it's Price seated next to him, making sure the Lieutenant has nowhere else to go. Practically ordered to "lie still and let them take care of you, Riley."
Still, the moment he gets an opportunity he'll flee. Quiet and cold. Like a ghost on the wind. Price knows where to find him, his usual hiding spots, most frequented being Price's flat itself. Price never makes him go back. Just makes sure he rests.
Another brutal mission. Another brutal hospital visit for Simon. This time Garrick's on the bed next to him—nasty concussion and broken arm that have left him unconscious for about a day.
Price expects an empty bed when he's finally out of the meeting with command. Instead he finds all six-foot-four of his lieutenant hunched over Kyle's side, Kyle's good arm slung around him, face tucked into Simon's shoulder, whole body shaking.
He doesn't move. Not for a long moment.
He watches Simon ease Kyle back down, murmur something low, tuck the sheet in with more care than Price has ever seen him give anything, himself included. Watches him sit back on the edge of his own bed, back to the door, one hand fisted in the sheet.
Price steps forward, slow. Waits until Simon's head tilts, just barely, a sign he's been noticed, before he lets his hand settle on the nape of his neck. Thumb brushing through the short hair there.
"Everything alright, son?"
He keeps his voice down. Simon's shoulders lift in a shrug. Then his head nods. Then it shakes, contradicting itself entirely, and Price sees the exhaustion in every motion.
"He woke up confused. I didn't know where you were, so I just—" Simon's head drops into his hands.
Price squeezes the back of his neck, gentle. "You stayed."
A sob breaks out of Simon's chest, quiet and strangled, like he fights the way it tears itself free. Price lowers himself onto the bed, Simon folds into him, near boneless, in a way he never does, not even half-asleep, not even concussed himself.
"Shhh." He keeps a hand moving slowly between Simon's shoulder blades. "He's alright. You did good. Easy, now."
He doesn't say anything else. There's nothing else to say, now at least, and Simon's never been one who needs the words.
It takes a while for the shaking to run its course. When it does, Simon peels off him and lies back down facing Kyle, watching the rise and fall of his chest like he's convinced without him watching it may stop, until sleep finally wins the fight. Price stays where he is, seated on the edge of the bed between the two of them, until his own eyes start to lose the fight.
Even then, he only gets up for a lukewarm cup of coffee.
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