-> reverse version of 'his handler' -> John is retired, and you took over tf141 when he retired. -> you were captured by lab freaks and turned into a hybrid. -> John was asked to help you recover and 'hold the leash'
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@MatteoLynnThere are worse ways to spend a Tuesday evening than parked in a creaky rocking chair with a beer that's gone lukewarm twenty minutes ago. The lake is doing that thing it does—all glassy and pink with the sunset, like a screensaver for a man who's done with running. The crickets are absolutely losing their minds. The air smells like pine, fish, and the faint ghost of the cigar John told himself he quit three years ago.
John Price is, for the record, the picture of retirement. Flannel shirt. Jeans with a hole in the knee that he refuses to fix because he "earned that hole." Slippers that have seen combat. And a flip phone sitting on the armrest that has no business ringing at this hour.
It rings.
Not the burner. Not the landline. The other one. The one with exactly five numbers saved in it, all of which make John's jaw tighten the same way it did in 2019 when a transport went sideways outside Al Mazrah.
The caller ID says Laswell.
Inner Monologue: Fuck. Fuck. It's 7 PM. Kate Laswell doesn't call at 7 PM to ask about my vegetable garden. She doesn't call at all unless someone's dead, dying, or about to make the evening news. And I'm sitting here with a warm beer and one working hip like an idiot.
John Price
picks up, voice already low and careful Kate.
Kate Laswell
voice crackling, all business John. I need you to sit down.
John Price
Already sat.
Kate Laswell
It's Y/n.
Two words. That's all it takes. The lake stops being a screensaver. The crickets can go straight to hell. John's free hand clamps down on the armrest like it's the edge of a fast-rope and the ground just dropped out from under him.
The beer? Still warm. Still terrible. Still not the priority.
John Price
quiet, dangerous What do you mean, it's Y/n?
Kate Laswell
a beat of static, then Four months. MIA. We found them three days ago in a black-site lab outside Vladivostok. They'd been... altered.
John Price
Altered.
Kate Laswell
Genetically. Surgically. Psychologically. They weren't just held, John. They were remade. They're alive, but they're not— she stops herself, something John has almost never heard Kate Laswell do They're not the Y/n you remember.
John says nothing. Which, for a man who once stared down a tank with nothing but a detonator and a grudge, is saying a lot.
Inner Monologue: Not the Y/n I remember. Right. Because the Y/n I remember used to leave soup on my desk when I forgot to eat. Used to throw paperclips at me during briefings. Used to look at me like maybe—
John Price
Where are they now?
Kate Laswell
Medical wing at Credenhill. Physically stable. But John... she pauses, and her voice drops, just slightly, like she's about to say the thing that actually scares her They don't recognize anyone. They're not speaking. They're not making eye contact. They're not eating on their own. Their file says "extreme hybridization with acute memory fracture and non-verbal presentation." But what it means is—they're feral. Scared. Dangerous to themselves and everyone around them.
We've had handlers in. Therapists, medics, even some of their old squad. Nothing's getting through. And then someone— another pause Someone remembered you.
John Price
rubs a hand over his face, the stubble catching like sandpaper Kate, I'm retired.
Kate Laswell
I know. And I wouldn't ask if there was anyone else. But right now, they don't need a captain. They need someone who knew them before. Someone who can give them a place without guns, without uniforms, without anyone yelling at them in Russian. A home, John.
A home. The word lands like salt in a wound. John glances around his porch—the peeling paint, the stack of fishing magazines, the single coffee mug he's been reusing since Tuesday. This isn't a home. It's a house where a man hides from the person he used to be.
The flip phone creaks in his grip.
John Price
You're asking me to take them in.
Kate Laswell
I'm asking you to try.
The sun is fully down now. The lake has gone from pink to black. Somewhere out there, a fish jumps, and the sound is so sudden and so stupid that John nearly laughs. Nearly.
Inner Monologue: Try. Sure. Try to do what I should've done years ago. Try to be there when it matters instead of letting them walk into some black-site hell alone. Try to keep my hands steady when I see them with ears or a tail or whatever the fuck those lab bastards did. I've seen men with their legs blown off. Seen children with empty eyes. Seen things that'd make a priest swear. But this—
John Price
What aren't you telling me?
Kate Laswell
a long exhale, then They have a... complication. A behavioral one. The lab was testing compliance. Obedience. They installed triggers, John. They respond to authority. To commands. But they can't distinguish between safe authority and—she stops again, and John can almost hear her pinching the bridge of her nose—and the kind of authority that put them in a cage.
They need someone who can command gently. Firmly. Without making them feel like they're back there. Someone they trust. Or trusted.
John is quiet for a long moment. The kind of quiet that used to make rookies sweat.
John Price
I'll be there in the morning.
No "let me think about it." No "I'll call you back." Just that. The same voice he used to use before a mission. The same steel under the calm.
Kate Laswell
Thank you, John. I'll send the details.
She hangs up. The phone goes dark. And John Price sits there in the dying light, staring at the black water, with a warm beer and a cold, familiar weight settling in his chest.
John Price
to no one, to the lake, to the memory of soup and paperclips You always were a pain in my ass, Y/n.