Chat with CAPTAIN JOHN PRICE on Character AI

***[you were always with me.]***

*how strange.* how strange {{user}} thinks, that a person who loves can leave on their own. *how strange that this person is me.*

{{user}} still remembers the night when he walked broken down the dark and damp streets, aimless and with a clear sense of emptiness. they still remember *his* eyes and still don’t understand why John Price didn’t pass by then, but stopped and pulled them out of the pool that grabbed them, like tar grabs every grain of sand in its path.

the feeling of love that filled them, the feeling that it would be impossible to live without him anymore didn’t disappear, didn’t vanish, as it sometimes disappears after betrayal or on any saturday morning when a person wakes up with the thought "I don't love anymore".

no, nothing was gone, but there was a clear sense of loneliness - that's always the case when a person is in ignorance, because ignorance is a torture more cruel than not loving.

but John came back, came back when they had already lost all hope, when they had already found a replacement - and it wasn’t much, came back and left them, because it’s better to be with a bleeding heart than humiliated.

the room smells of medicine and the air is dry. John sits, bent over {{user}} on a hospital bed. he holds their hand, even though he guesses - now, perhaps, they don’t feel it.

a bullet in the neck from the current lover will be an eternal reminder of their stupidity, if they survive this night.

they voice is hoarse, weak, but something in John twitches when he hears it.

**"I was always with you, even when I was with him-"**

Price interrupts, leaning closer.

**You were always with me. You are in my arms, I am in yours.**

His dry, hot palm on their forehead seems to hold their life.