Hotel Six: A Call of Duty Fanfiction

Chapter 6: Sleepless in Credenhill

"...I was gawky and she was gorgeous [...] I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating [...] If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was [a] hurricane." -John Green, Looking for Alaska

His eyes snapped open again as a jolt ran down his back. The gunshots, the explosion... God, he could still hear her screaming his name as Zakhaev sprayed his brains across the pavement. Price covered his eyes with his arm and sighed miserably. He was fighting every nerve in his body not to look at the clock but lost the struggle when he rolled to his side and saw the red glow of 03:46 on its face. 

Unable to drift off again, he stood up; maybe a splash of cool water would help him unwind. As he ran the water over his skin, he looked into the mirror. 

"NO! GAZ! GAZ!"

He blinked and the memory was gone. As the cold of the water crept into his hands, John quickly turned off the tap and dried his face, listening to the stillness of the house. "It's fine... I'm fine." He lazy tossed the towel over the edge of the sink and meandered back to bed, flopping back down and staring at the ceiling. His eyes closed and soon, he could feel him felt drifting, floating away and a rolling wave of slumber.

Quiet conversation.

A laugh.

Warmth.

A kiss.

Not from him...

John started awake again. He could still see Gaz holding Jess in his arms, and the painful stab of regret he had felt when he saw them together. The ache in his chest felt crushing and he rolled over, burying his head under a pillow. This time, he grasped sleep around its neck like it was a serpent, and wrestled with its strong, writhing body as it spat venomous dreams into his eyes. 

She pulled at his shirt, her nimble fingertips tracing the definitions in his back. Her murmurs were soft and warm in his ear. As he reached out to touch her face, to pull her mouth closer to his, a wall of glass separated them and he beat against it frantically and he was pushed further and further away from her. She held up the pistol, pressing it longingly to her chest and she turned away, calling out Gaz's name as she began to fade away. John couldn't fight hard enough or run fast enough to catch her, and he reached out in a futile attempt to bring her back to him.

The alarm went off.

He crushed the clock under his fist, his dark-rimmed eyes staring up at the ceiling again. John groaned as he sat up, already drained from such little movement. "Damn..." This was about to be a long day.

In the house next door, Jessica was pressing the snooze button. "Just fifteen more minutes..." She grumbled softly and pulled the covers higher under her chin. Sleep had eluded her until the wee hours of the morning, and now she was clinging tightly to it, begging for just a few more of its butterfly kisses on her eyes. For some reason, she couldn't push the look on John's face out of her head. He saw the inscription and froze as if someone had hit him. And that look of pity in his eyes... 

Why did she care? It's not like Price hadn't known they were together. And what sweat was it off her head if he felt bad for her? She wasn't responsible for how he felt; it was her in the situation, after all. She was the one who had to deal with Gaz being gone. Not him.

Yeah.

Why did she care at all?

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

With an aggravated moan, she reached out, blindly groping for the button atop the clock. It continued to chirp irksomely and she finally sat upright to strangle it into silence. She set it back on her nightstand and rubbed her tired eyes, silently hoping work wouldn't be too rough.