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Simon wasn't sure where he was going when he left his bunk and started walking. There were only so many times he could type out and delete the same fucking message, blue light illuminating his face in the darkness - are you using again? is he still out the house? are you eating? is she out of hospital yet? are you alive? - before he chewed his way out of his own fucking skin.
He didn't press send because he knew being left on read was worse than not sending the message at all. And yet, he still couldn't stop typing out those words.
As he prowled through the dark corridors, Simon remembered the words of some English teacher way back when; the definition of madness was doing the same shit over and over and expecting the same outcome. She'd said it in a clipped southern accent (and used a different word to 'shit') while handing him a referral note for internal exclusion, but her words had stuck more than the five hours staring at the wall.
Maybe he was mad. Any trooper or officer that found him lingering in the hallways, a hulking shadow with even darker circles beneath his eyes, would definitely fucking think so.
He wondered what that pretty young English teacher would say if she knew he punched people for queen and country rather than because they'd slagged off his mum now. She'd probably give him that same look they all had at the time. Pity.
Simon tapped each of his fingers to his thumb as he rounded the corner and stormed down the next corridor. It was 0300. A strange halfway point in the night when no one was awake, not the late workers who still had reports to finish or the early risers that liked to get a few fasted sets in at the gym before breakfast. It was just Simon, alone, with the clutter banging around his skull and the itch beneath his skin.
By the time he reached the officer's corridor, he was worrying away at the already sore cuticles of his left hand, if only to stop grinding his teeth into a dull ache. Simon stopped at the far end and slumped against the wall, grey slab concrete cool through his sweat-soaked shirt. As he sucked in shaking breaths through his teeth, he heard it, through the thrum of blood in his ears and the clutching tightness of his own shaking breaths: Johnny Cash.
At least he thought it was. Pretty certain. He followed the sound like a wrecking ship followed the beam of a lighthouse. Something to latch onto so he didn't drown in the winter sea of his own fucking head. He stopped outside the door, his shoulder against it, and closed his eyes.
It reminded him of peace and home. In the few moments of stability, his da always played Johnny Cash. Tommy was clean, no arguments, no alcohol, no violence. Just the summer sun beaming through the net curtains and the smell of cheap sausages on the BBQ in the garden as Simon thrashed Tommy on the PS1. As that husky voice played through their battered living room stereo, the Rileys could almost pass as normal.
"Are y'gonna stand out there all night, la?"
The music had stopped and Simon's eyes snapped open. He hesitated in the darkness, weighing up whether he could get away with sneaking off, but Price was the kind of man to follow up on weird shit. He was thorough like that. So Simon squared his shoulders and nudged the door open. "Lieutenant," he murmured, dipping his chin.
Price was sitting by his open window, the guitar slung across his lap. He examined Simon for a beat, his head tilted, shrewd blue eyes squinting. Once he'd seen what he was looking for, he looked away and moved the capo up the fretboard. "Struggling to get ya head down?"
"Yeah." Simon glanced around the room. If you looked closely, there were a few indications of character visible in the cracks in military perfection: the Liverpool FC scarf across the back of the desk chair, the football shoved under the bed, the fishing magazines sticking out of the bin, and the ashtray on the windowsill. The bed was unmade, suggesting Price had made an effort to sleep and given up. "Could say the same for you, that."
Price hummed noncommittally. "Tomorrow's chocka, so I sacked it off for some time to meself." He glanced up and then followed Simon's eyeline down to the guitar again. "You play?"
"Naw," Simon shook his head. "Just recognised Johnny Cash. Me old man likes 'im." He glanced at the bed and the desk.
Price snorted and jutted his chin towards the bed. "Sit down, ya muppet."
Simon's arse hit the mattress like it was magnetised. Price had that effect on him. The moment Simon had learned Price was the best by every metric the SAS had, he'd got it in his head that he wanted to impress, to emulate. Every order and every shred of praise was eagerly consumed because it got Simon one step closer to filling the void of purpose in his chest.
"Yours too, huh?" Price strummed his fingertips lightly over the strings, the note barely registering. "Strange, that."
"He teach ya?" The most Simon's own da had taught him was to roll a decent spliff.
"Not a bloody chance," Price said. "Learned while I was at camp as a kid, like. It got me outta washin' my own dishes. Bit of Wonderwall... y'know."
"Not a lot's changed then."
"Watch it. Still got to approve the details for next week."
There was no heat to the threat. Price was shifting his fingers through the motions of what Simon assumed were chords without strumming. Something had flashed across Price's face at the mention of his da and the camp. Simon has got good at reading faces; if something was gonna turn violent, it was your first warning sign. He'd seen the flicker at the corner of Price's mouth, the flinch at the corner of his eye, and...
"Sommat on my face?"
"Just that bum fluff you're tryin' to grow inta beard, sir."
"Ahh, ya fuckin' git, s'not that bad." Price ran a hand over his jaw with a smirk. "Like to see you get close ta all this."
Despite himself, Simon grinned back. It was a small one; no flashing of teeth, more a flicker compared to a normal person. But it was there. Something dark, heavy and cold slithered out of his chest and he breathed a deep sigh.
"So, not a Cash fan, what're'ya inta? Moody bastard like you, mid-twenties, sommat like--" Simon recognised the tune after the first few chords from the playlists of one of Tommy's girlfriends. She'd been into that emo scene shit, with the side fringe and the mouth full of metal. "With bloodshot eyes, I watch you sleeping, the warmth I feel beside me is slowly fadi-- ah, nah?" Price grinned at the perplexed look on Simon's face.
"Dunno, never really had favourite music." He'd never really considered it. In the house, they listened to whatever his da wanted, and it wasn't like he could ever afford to own an iPod. "What did ya play at the camps?"
Price snorted softly, eyes turning down to the floor. "Kumbaya."
"Bullshit."
"Nah. Camp coordinator were an arlarse. Nothin' too risque."
"But Wonderwall were fine."
"Eh, don't look at me, fella. They're one've yours."
Simon grimaced. Not one of Manchester's finest exports, but he wasn't gonna let that fly. "Hot shit comin' from a Scouser who ain't had a hit band since the Beatles."
"Oer, I'll give ya tha'." Price leaned back and strummed out a few chords of 'Hey Jude', and then changed. They sat in companionable silence as Price strummed through a mash up of familiar tunes and time passed unnoticed. The cold grip of anxiety that had sent Simon into a spiral melted away until Simon was left with only a vague fatigue and a returning sense of connection to the world around him. Simon watched Price's hands mainly, the agile twitch of his fingers over the strings and fretboard from muscle memory alone. Simon grew so focused he stopped covering the damage of his own.
"Ya know, if tha' gets infected on ops, could become a problem," Price said, indicating Simon's hands with a nod and a raised eyebrow.
His voice was as jarring as a thundercrack in the calm. Simon clamped his fingers into his palms. "I'll get it looked at."
Price sat back, one arm folded across the top of the guitar, a finger tapping lightly against the wood. Simon would have given anything to know what he was thinking, if only to banish the maelstrom of condemnation his own mind was conjuring to fill the gap. "Here, take this."
"What?" Before Simon could protest, the guitar had been thrust into his lap.
"It'll keep ya hands occupied, stop yet pickin' 'em to pieces."
"But I can't fuckin' play."
"Yet." Price shuffled his chair forward and took Simon's hand, shoving his thumb inside the tight clutch of his fingers. "Loosen ya wrist, ya meff. There'yar. Right, gotta press a bit harder. Gonna teach you Smoke on Water. Be playin' Oasis' back catalogue before ya know."
So Simon sat there as Price patiently positioned his fingers on the fretboard and helped him strum through his first song. Every time he nailed a transition or struck a clear chord, he got praise and it made the itch beneath his skin turn into a buzz. He wasn't stupid. He knew this warm reaction he felt at Price's attention wasn't love or even a crush; it was the reaction of a kicked shelter dog being shown the tiniest morsel of kindness. It should make him feel sick, but he was too enraptured by the fact his hands were making fucking music. Not violence, not pain, or death. Music.
They must have been sat there for hours because there was light peaking over the windowsill when Price leaned back to grab his baccy and roll ups from under the desk. As he prepped his ciggy, Simon's eyes rolled up to the ceiling to the smoke detector, and he smirked when he noted the wires hanging out. They hadn't been cut inexpertly, but carefully detached so that the sensor didn't pick up smoke and they could be easily returned come inspection.
"Sommat ta say, sergeant?" Price asked as he set the roll up between his teeth and struck his lighter.
"Naw, sir. Just thinkin' how I wanna be like you when I grow up."
Price hummed, smoke billowing from his nose. "You wanna be better than me, Simon." He chucked his lighter onto the desk. "And you will be. Just gotta get your head straight."
Simon placed the guitar on Price's bed. "How'd you do it? Get your head straight..."
"Practice," Price nodded towards the guitar as he tapped ash out his window, "and distractions."
Some things would always be there. Some things... never healed. That flicker in Price's face when he'd spoken about home didn't come from nought; it was like looking in a fucking mirror. "I can do that."
"I know ya can."
They watched the smoke of Price's cigarette curl out the window together, and Simon felt the cold, icy talons of last night recede, and then...
"Price, if Riley's done sucking your dick, get to the mess! And if you're fucking smoking, I'm gonna rip your balls off." The captain had risen and Simon listened to his heavy footfalls pass the door as he headed to the canteen.
"Yessir, right away, sir." Price pinched the end of his ciggy and lobbed it out the window, flapping a hand to dispense the last of the smoke. The other dismissed Simon out the door with a jabbing thumb, removing him from the scene should their good captain decide halfway to his eggs and bacon to perform a snap inspection.
The guitar thing... yeah, Simon took that and ran. It wasn't long before he bought his own out of a Cancer Research charity shop and downloaded sheet music over the base WiFi. Every time shit became too loud, his head too full of clutter, he sat somewhere quiet and strummed until his fingers were sore.
Years later, after Roba, after Price wrenched Simon from a hurricane of self-destruction, held him under the torrent of a cold shower as Simon had wailed into his chest, only to find Ghost glaring back when the dust had settled, Simon would return to the guitar again.
This time the songs were a little different, a little softer, because his motivation - the thing that drove him crazy, that filled his head - had a shitty fucking mohawk and blue eyes that bore right through him. Johnny loved it when he played. And if Johnny asked, Simon would play til the gates of hell opened up.