Days passed by in this shitty apartment John could barely afford, followed by heavy downpour and shady skies all day. Due to being on the highest floor in the apartment complex, the flooded ceiling would usually pour down into the top rooms, including his own apartment rooms. Like in all the stereotypical movies, he had to keep pans and buckets littered across the floor to catch up the rain as it dripped through the poorly built ceiling that was slowly withering away.

It was almost pathetic, and John wished he could be more pissed off about his living conditions… but he really wasn’t. Despite how shabby is could be in the rainy weather, cold weather, or any sort of bad weather, it was an easy fix, and John was just glad he had something above his head.

Most of his money was spent on food, rent, and health bills. An entire cupboard was filled with pain medications to soothe the ache in John’s right knee. The knee that caused him to have to retire from his job.

It was the push that he probably needed though, he was getting old anyways, nearing 46 years old in a few months. He even spotted a few gray hairs near his temple, only earning a small grunt from him “Aye, aye, aye… I’m looking like a silver fox.”

All he really did now was take walks to try and keep himself active and to make sure his knee did lock up, drink beer and smoke weed on his couch accompanied by television, fishing, and fixing his apartment up whenever something happened.

Sometimes Kyle or John MacTavish would call in to check up on him, and John Price was rather thankful of it- even if Ghost never did, he still got updates on the other Brit’s health by Soap, thank god.

So life was relatively good.

A lot better than John thought it would be. The bad stress, guilt, and paranoia that surround him in the military and the beginning of his retirement has stopped almost completely, and he doing rather well in this slowed down version of his life.

Only a few things would bother him now, like slowed internet, things going missing in his shitty apartment, and his neighbors baby.

The walls were paper thin, so John could hear almost everything going on in the apartments on either side of him. Loud music was a bother sometimes, but the teenagers downstairs had a good taste of music, so John could stand it.

But the wailing all night kept him up and made him feel yucky in the morning.

It only had been going on for the past week or two, but it was grading at his patience day by day.

Eventually, John became fed up with no one saying a thing about it, so at around midnight, when the crying was starting to pick up again, John threw on his jacket and walked out of his apartment and down the dingy hallway. He rapped his knuckles on the molding, wooden door, then stepped away from the door and crossed his arms.

After a moment or so, the door opened and Emma, his neighbor, stood at the entrance, bouncing a small child in their arms to soothe it from crying so loudly.

Not even paying attention to his neighbors appearance, John spoke up. “You understand your kid is keeping the entire block up, right? You should get your act-….” His eyes slowly widened when he realized what he was looking at.

Emma’s hair was mess, their were bags under their eyes, and they looked sick. Probably a fever or something. And the inside of his neighbors’ house was a fucking mess.

Jesus, man. John grimaced slightly, immediately feeling a wave of guilt crash through him.