Price's Section
Main post & Soap, Ghost, and Gaz’s parts: here
Price — Quality time, acts of service/receiving gifts, and to a lesser extent physical touch.
Price — Quality time. Having good company is one of John’s few indulgences in his life, he swears up and down it’s how he’s managed to keep his head on relatively straight this whole time. Like Ghost he doesn’t exactly trust easy, keeps a very tight knit circle, but anyone within that little circle? He trusts his life with. John never fully lets his guard down, but with the people he cares about, he does ease up, even if it’s only a bit. Pair that with his other indulgences (a good cigar and a bit of drink) and he’s well on to a nice relaxing evening. Just being around the people he cares about is more than enough to make him content.
It’s the little things, you know?
Ghost often finds his way into John’s office, or vice versa. One will barely look up from their paperwork as the other comes in, and goes about getting out their small stash of whiskey and pouring out two glasses, setting the bottle on the desk between them as they take the empty chair in front of it. They’ll just share a quiet drink, occasionally exchanging low words over the rim of a glass, though neither man feels the need to force conversation. The company seems to take some of the monotony out of the paperwork, at least a little. And after a while, Ghost starts seeing to that John actually makes it to his quarters, instead of falling asleep at his desk like he was prone to on occasion, with little more than, ‘Ain’t good for a man yer age to be sleepin’ like that, Cap,’ for an explanation of why his lieutenant saw it fit to chaperone him to his room, keeping a steadying hand on his shoulder the entire way, despite the fact that John wasn’t even remotely drunk enough to require it.
Before John forms the 141, and during its early days, Ghost also has a penchant for showing up to his quarters whenever he can't sleep (whether that be because of his insomnia, or he just had a nightmare that he can't quite fully shake himself from) and would often haunt the foot of his bed until morning, or curl up next to him, making the most out of what little space there was. Occasionally they'd talk softly, if only so John could distract him for a little while and try to get Ghost's mind off whatever it was keeping him up, but more often than not they'd just quietly take solace in the other's presence.
Soap regularly takes smoke breaks with John, even though he doesn’t smoke on them. The first time it happens, it’s purely coincidental; Soap just happened to be coming back from working the rookies into the dirt, and John was taking a break from going over incident reports before he went cross eyed, or before the written English word lost all meaning, with a well earned cigar. He had seen John, and had come up to say hello— simply staying and chatting until John was done, and heading back inside with him.
After that, every time stepped out for a smoke break, Soap followed suit, getting up and trailing after him. For a few weeks John was fairly certain Soap was just pulling out the exact same cigarette he had bummed from Gaz one day from his pocket, as it gradually got more and more crumpled each time they went out. Soap never bothered to even try asking John for a light, and had denied him the one time he had offered it. Eventually, it got so bad bits of tobacco were falling out of it, and the time after Soap showed up with a proper box of cigarettes— and still no lighter. Despite the blatant paper thin excuse, Soap’s idle chatter always manages to make something ease in John’s shoulders that he hadn’t even realized was tensed.
Gaz spends a lot of time around John, eats with him most often in the mess, spends the most time in his office, and seeks him out a lot to get his opinion on various aspects of the rookies’ training, or for plans on ops. He also more often than not ends up sitting right next to John on the helo back to base; once Gaz had even fallen asleep on John’s shoulder after a mission that had them all spending a few miserable weeks in the jungle, John swears to god he’s never sat stiller in his entire life. At first Gaz had been mildly embarrassed about it— though John was quick to wave it off. It’s not like he had minded any, John simply assured Gaz that he had more than earned a little shut eye.
Of course, since they sit next to each other so much, it happens again. The four of them had crammed onto the couch in the common room, watching some kind of bullshit movie or other, and Gaz’s head has begun to dip forwards as his eyes kept fluttering shut, before he’d snap them back open, and focus back on the piss poor TV quality. It was an uphill battle that Gaz didn’t end up winning, his head lolling to the side, and once more coming to rest on John’s shoulder. (Soap was the next to loose the fight, even though he picked the bloody movie, and ended up falling asleep on John’s other shoulder, with his legs tangled in Ghost’s. They all ended up sleeping there that night.)
See Ghost’s post for how how Price handles acts of service— here
Read that? Okay, cool. (Thank you :] )
How Price handles giving gifts very much plays into how he handles acts of service, often going hand in hand. John is a very practical man, and I don’t think he’d often show affection by giving frivolous gifts, everything he buys would have to be useful to the person he was giving it to. New set of knives for Ghost after he lost (read: left wedged in some enemy soldiers) some in the field, refill of some skin care whatcha-call-it for Gaz that he saw in his quarters and that he knows he likes, a new set of good pens for Soap once he sees him fighting to get the last bits of ink out of a ballpoint while writing in his journal, etc.
His favourite gifts to receive are ones that follow that same sort of logic; a fresh box of his favourite cigars, new gloves after his got torn up on an op, someone stocked up on his preferred brand of tea, a new bottle of his cologne, a mug with something written on it (he doesn’t care what it says, it’s good at holding liquid all the same).
Something warm always settles in his chest every time he sees someone using a gift that he had gotten them, stretching lazily and curling up against his sternum like a pleased cat.
And the feeling only gets stronger when they get him something he likes in turn; he finds it comforting that they know him well enough to get him something he genuinely enjoys.
Physical touch is something Price is used to in small bursts, usually on the field, he’s no stranger to clapping someone on the shoulder, or patting them as he walks by, it’s a habit, a way to reassure whomever he’s being affectionate with, while steadying himself. (If you’re reading this I’m assuming you’re fixated on MW enough to be familiar with the Price pat™️, if not, you can find that post: here)
When it comes to romantic relationships, I feel as though the way he physically expresses affection is very similar— lots of gentle shoulder squeezes as he walks by, or pats. If they’re somewhere crowded he might rest his hand on the back of their arm, or even take their hand in his own so they don’t get separated, and if they hold hands long enough, he might absently brush the pad of his thumb over their knuckles, especially if he’s focused on doing something else, like fighting with his phone to try to navigate around.
He doesn’t do it as often, but he wouldn’t shy away from kissing their hands or face either when he walks up to them, or if he's just quickly passing by.
