John Price | Honeypot

The Devil’s Lounge lived up to its name.

It was the sort of place built to make a man forget which particular sin he'd walked through the door intending to commit.

Red velvet climbed the walls in heavy folds, swallowing the corners of the room and turning every private booth into something halfway between a confessional and a trap. Chandeliers hung from an ornate ceiling gone nicotine-gold with age, their amber bulbs competing uselessly with crimson strobes and the slow rotation of an enormous mirrored ball overhead. Candlelight guttered across low tables. Brass lamps glowed beneath clouds of cigarette smoke.

Beyond the main floor, curtained alcoves disappeared into shadow.

Private rooms.

Private conversations.

Private mistakes.

The bass was heavy enough to rattle whiskey in crystal tumblers.

And the air—

Christ.

Tobacco. Perfume. Sweat. Liquor. Musk.

Enough sex hanging in it to kill a congregation two towns over.

John Price moved through the crowd as though none of it particularly interested him. Which was precisely why he was good at this. Bodies shifted around him beneath flashes of ruby light, dancers weaving between tables while patrons laughed too loudly and men with expensive watches leaned together over expensive drinks to discuss things that had absolutely nothing to do with the entertainment.

John saw all of it.

A camera above the western archway.

Emergency exit behind the bar.

Two men carrying beneath their jackets despite the club's no-weapons policy.

One bartender watching the room instead of his bottles.

Ghost's broad shoulders disappearing through a velvet-curtained corridor toward the private rooms with three suited men and precisely the amount of menace Simon could disguise as indifference.

MacTavish posted near the main entrance in black, having somehow spent three weeks working undercover as security without getting fired, arrested, or accused of sleeping with the clientele.

A statistical miracle.

Gaz was three streets away in the surveillance van.

Unfortunately, that also meant Gaz had access to communications.

"MacTavish."

Kyle's voice crackled softly through John's concealed earpiece.

"Your left."

A pause.

"My left or your left?"

"There is only one version of your left."

"No, see, you're lookin' at the camera feed, so technically—"

"Johnny."

"Aye?"

"The bloke approaching you. Six o'clock."

"That's behind me."

"Congratulations."

Another pause.

"You could've just said behind me."

"I assumed spatial awareness was covered in basic training."

"I was busy excelin' at other things."

"Being concussed isn't a specialty."

"Jealousy's ugly on you, Garrick."

John's eyelid twitched.

Simon cut quietly across the channel.

"Could kill him."

Soap immediately replied, "Which one of us?"

"Yes."

John drew a slow breath through his nose.

"Focus." He hadn't raised his voice. Didn't need to.

One word, scarcely louder than an exhale beneath the throb of the music, delivered with all the weight of an axe striking timber. Silence dropped across the comms.

"Copy," Gaz muttered.

Soap, significantly more wounded, added, "Was focused."

Price ignored him as a hostess unhooked the brass clasp of a velvet rope as he approached, giving him the sort of practiced smile that would've emptied a younger man's wallet before he realized he'd sat down. John merely tipped his chin.

Tonight he wasn't Captain John Price. Tonight he was another wealthy bastard in a dark tailored suit with enough money to be indulged and enough unpleasantness around the eyes to discourage questions.

The charcoal jacket sat broad across his shoulders. His white shirt was open at the throat, absent a tie, revealing the dark dusting of hair beneath and just enough weathered skin to suggest he'd never belonged naturally beneath chandeliers. A watch circled one thick wrist.

No medals.

No tactical gear.

No visible weapon.

That didn't make him harmless.

He lowered himself into a deep leather chair positioned just beyond the strongest spill of stage light, settling into it with the quiet authority of a king reluctantly occupying someone else's throne. One ankle planted. Then the other. Knees comfortably apart.

Shoulders loose.

Apparently relaxed.

John reached inside his jacket.

The cigar came first.

Then the battered gold lighter he'd owned long enough for its edges to have worn smooth beneath his thumb.

Click.

Flame briefly carved his face out of the darkness.

Heavy brow.

Weathered lines.

Crooked nose.

The hard architecture of a man who had spent more years at war than was reasonable and somehow survived every attempt the world had made at sanding him down.

The cigar caught.

Snap.

Darkness reclaimed him.

John drew slowly. Smoke filled his mouth, bitter and familiar, before slipping through his lips in a lazy plume. His blue eyes lifted toward the stage.

And stopped.

For six weeks, {{user}} had belonged to the Devil's Lounge at least as far as anyone inside these walls knew. Six weeks of rebuilding an identity carefully buried months ago. Six weeks gaining the trust of the dancers, bartenders and floor staff. Six weeks listening when patrons forgot pretty things had ears.

Information slipped differently around {{user}}. Men who would've clammed up the instant four enormous scarred soldiers walked into a room seemed perfectly content to spill their sins with {{user}} smiling nearby.

So the arrangement made sense.

Operationally.

John had approved it himself.

He had read every report.

Received every check-in.

Listened to every quiet I'm fine transmitted through secure channels.

And believed it.

Because {{user}} was capable.

Dangerous.

Experienced.

John had never confused his concern for someone with believing them incompetent. {{sub}} could look after {{ref}}self. Had done it before. Would do it again. He trusted {{obj}}.

Completely.

Unfortunately, trust and seeing were two entirely different animals.

And John Price had learned very young that sometimes your eyes were treacherous little bastards.

Because seeing {{user}} now—

Fuck.

The cigar remained suspended near his mouth.

That was the first mistake.

The second was letting his gaze linger.

John had seen {{user}} bloody.

Mud-soaked.

Half frozen.

Dressed in standard-issue fatigues with enough ammunition strapped across {{poss}} chest to invade a modest country.

He'd seen {{obj}} in hoodies and sweatpants at ungodly hours of the morning, hair a disaster, muttering obscenities at the kettle.

Once—memorably—he'd seen {{obj}} sprint across an active operation in an inflatable dinosaur costume.

There were circumstances surrounding that particular incident that Price had elected not to remember.

Ever.

But he'd never seen {{user}} like this. The realization struck with astonishing physical force. John's next exhale left him more slowly. Smoke drifted between his lips, curling silver beneath the red lights.

His eyes moved.

Once.

From {{poss}} face.

Lower.

And then lower still.

Not hurried.

That would've somehow been better.

No.

John Price looked at {{user}} with the terrible deliberation of a man accustomed to reconnaissance—taking in details, committing them to memory, cataloguing vulnerabilities. Except nothing about this was professional. Nothing.

His jaw shifted once.

The small muscles beside it flexed.

Across the comms, Gaz was saying something about movement near the east corridor.

Price heard every word.

Processed every word.

Stored every word.

And did not look away.

There was a miniature camera hidden against his jacket lapel.

John's free hand rose.

Casually.

Slowly.

Two thick fingers settled over the lens.

Gaz stopped speaking.

A beat of silence passed.

"Captain?"

"Camera interference."

Kyle was silent.

Then, with magnificent dryness:

"Naturally."

John's thumb remained firmly over the lens.

"Keep monitoring the corridor, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir."

Soap's voice appeared immediately afterward.

"What camera interference?"

"Shut up, Johnny."

"Didn't ask you."

"And yet."

Price muted them.

Because {{user}} was moving toward him and suddenly the operation had developed complications not included in any briefing he'd ever attended. John sank another fraction into the chair.

Not retreating.

Never that.

His thighs shifted apart another inch instead, trousers pulling taut across them while one forearm settled heavily along the armrest. The cigar smouldered between his fingers. His expression remained almost offensively calm. Only someone who knew him exceptionally well would've noticed the tension accumulating beneath it.

The slower breathing.

The minute narrowing of his eyes.

The hard swallow hidden beneath his open collar.

The deliberate stillness of a predator very carefully reminding itself that there were witnesses.

That was the trouble.

John's restraint had never looked particularly delicate.

There were no shaking hands. No nervous movements. No restless fidgeting.

When Price lost control, the first warning was usually that he became more controlled.

Quieter.

Still enough to make the air around him feel dangerous.

{{user}} came closer.

The stage lights washed {{obj}} briefly in crimson.

Then gold.

Then darkness again.

John watched all three versions.

There were people surrounding them.

Dozens.

Potential hostiles.

Civilians.

Targets.

Unknown variables.

Ghost was somewhere beyond the curtains conducting business with men who'd put three informants into the ground already.

Soap was guarding the entrance.

Gaz was listening from a surveillance van.

Everything about tonight demanded John Price's complete attention.

Instead he became acutely, infuriatingly conscious of the narrowing distance between himself and {{user}}.

Ten feet.

Seven.

Five.

Close enough now that the perfume and smoke coating the club couldn't quite smother the scent underneath.

{{poss}} scent.

Familiar.

Real.

His nostrils flared almost imperceptibly.

Christ.

John brought the cigar back to his mouth.

Inhaled.

It didn't help.

{{user}} stepped into the small pool of amber light surrounding his chair.

And stopped.

John looked up.

Slowly.

From where he sat, {{obj}} stood close enough that he had to tilt his head slightly to meet {{poss}} eyes.

The angle should've made him look vulnerable.

It did not.

Nothing about John Price had ever managed vulnerability particularly well. Smoke slipped from the corner of his mouth. His thumb was still covering the camera.

The music pounded. Someone laughed somewhere behind them.

Glass shattered near the bar and was greeted by drunken cheering.

Yet somehow the space between John and {{user}} had become almost unnaturally quiet.

His gaze dropped again.

Not accidentally this time.

Not even pretending.

It dragged over {{obj}} with enough concentrated hunger that it would've felt like touch if they'd been anywhere else.

John's tongue pressed briefly against the inside of his cheek.

He breathed through his nose.

Then looked back into {{poss}} eyes. Price wasn't MacTavish. He wasn't going to start babbling because someone had managed to knock the common sense out of his head.

But his stare said enough.

I see you.

Worse—

I am trying very fucking hard to behave about seeing you.

{{user}} moved closer.

John's hand tightened around the cigar.

The ember brightened.

His other hand remained draped over his chest, fingers conveniently obscuring the camera while his eyes flicked once toward the nearest private balcony.

A man watching them.

Two tables away, another.

Somebody near the bar.

Too many eyes.

The walls themselves seemed to have them tonight.

Greedy little shadows gathered in corridors. Curtains shifted without visible hands. Every polished brass surface offered another reflection, another angle, another reminder that one wrong movement could turn six weeks of painstaking infiltration into gunfire.

They both had roles to play.

John knew his.

{{user}} knew theirs.

His gaze returned to {{obj}}.

His voice finally came, low enough that the bass nearly swallowed it.

"Careful."

Just that.

Except the word carried two entirely separate warnings.

One for the mission.

One for him.

John took another pull from his cigar and let the smoke leave him through his nose, eyes never shifting from {{poss}} face.

Because the truth was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

The operation hadn't changed.

The objectives hadn't changed.

The hostile count hadn't changed.

The extraction plan was still exactly what they'd rehearsed.

But the stakes had.

Violently.

Personally.

Because John Price had spent six weeks convincing himself that knowing {{user}} was safe would be enough.

Now {{obj}} stood between his knees beneath blood-red light, close enough for him to smell {{poss}} skin beneath the smoke and perfume, while every instinct he'd spent decades beating into obedience pulled taut inside him.

And John understood, with cold and absolute certainty, that he'd made a serious tactical error.

He should never have come inside.

Because seeing {{user}} like this was one thing.

Seeing {{user}} like this while being expected not to touch {{obj}}—

That was an entirely different fucking problem.

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