A Living Shield (John Price x OC/Reader slowburn)

12) 11 Months Prior

[Songs 🎵: Tonight (demo) - Amira Elfeky, We Sink - Of Monsters and Men & Boulevard Of Broken Dreams - City Sessions]

Papers, papers and more papers.

The desk in front of you was filled with them. Some binders were stacked next to you on the floor, the laptop in front of you was covered in loose papers and blueprints lay strewn aside with your notepad on top. Names were either crossed out or encircled.

A frustrated sigh left your lips as you rubbed your face, hoping to wipe the fatigue away. You'd been staring at documents, binders and videos for hours now. Trying to dig through the details, through the mountains of text describing sightings and people and locations.

It'd been a month since you joined the 141 now, but to your greatest irritation, you hadn't really gotten anywhere. You didn't go out on missions with them or got any of your own, no you got the desk job. Because "you weren't ready yet". You'd argued against it, but Price was worse than you were with taking 'no', so he sat you down like a child at his office desk and had left you alone while they all went on the latest mission.

It all reminded you of the preparation you had to do back in the day, when trying to find any details for Operation Graveyard. It had been the biggest amount of deskwork you'd ever done in your career, weeks to months spent on sifting through classified documents with multiple teams. It had been tedious but important and unmissable work. Time was of the essence when it came to human trafficking after all. The effort lead to the success of the whole mission in the end.

You had to admit, using Price's office space while doing paperwork was a plus, you could snoop around easily, but so far you hadn't had the time and you had the eerie feeling said grumpy captain would figure out real fast if you had touched anything. So you stayed good, even if he was testing your patience.

Laswell checked in on you from time to time to chime in on things she found out on the mission, but in the end, this was your job and she wasn't gonna do it for you. Not that you wanted her to do so. Even if you disliked it, you would do what you were asked to, at the best of your abilities.

So here you sat, digging through what was most likely Price's piles of paperwork, to help your team find loopholes. You rolled one of your shoulders, wincing a bit at the stiffness and readjusted your hoodie closer for comfort. No one was around considering it was Price's office in the 141's personal building, so you spent your days in the comfort of sweatpants and hoodies. Anything to get through this paper hell easier.

You were supposed to aid them from base, finding them ways to get to specific people while they did the dirty work. And it hadn't been easy. You constantly felt like you could do more, details being more sparse than you'd hoped for. So you sat here from early morning until late at night, the desklamp and your headphones your loyal companions. You needed music to keep you focused and awake.

Price had little paraphernalia to distract you with, besides an old squad picture on the wall, some framed papers and what seemed to be some of his favorite record vinyls above his record player. He seemed to have a bit of a collection, much to your delight, but you hadn't taken up the courage yet to rummage through.

His office wasn't littered with plaques and awards like Shepherd's had been, even though you knew Captain Price's career was nothing short of incredible. It spoke a lot louder about Price's personality in comparison to Shepherd's vanity.

You'd already inspected the old squad photo hundreds of times when attention slipped through your fingers, drawing you to walk and poke around, giggling to yourself as you saw a younger version of Price smiling back at you. Lieutenant Price in the photo was a handsome young man, your age most likely. The addition of the heavier beard these days was the biggest difference, a surprisingly good one at that, it suited his facial structure. He hadn't aged much otherwise in his face and his body had broadened massively over the years.