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“Have you ever thought about doing’ anything else in life?”
The rain is pelting on the cold asphalt in front of them, as it had been for the last three hours. Their shift is going to end in just about ten minutes, and, as expected, nothing happened while they were there keeping watch.
John takes out his cigarettes, silently offering them to Mik. The Lieutenant takes one, bringing out a red lighter from the front pocket of his kit.
John watches his face barely move to take the first blow from the cigarette, the skin on the side he sees too scarred to stretch properly. His dead eye moves in little spams, staring in front of them.
“You ask me a difficult question, Captain.” Mikele speaks in a murmur, just as he always does. “What got you so curious?”
John lights up his own cigarette, leaning on the concrete wall behind them.
“I’m getting old, Mik. I’m thinkin’ ‘bout the future.What I’m goin’ tae do when I’m out o’ ‘ere.”
“You’re not that old.” Mik grimances. “Thinking about leaving?”
“Ah’m forty-five, it’s time.” John sighs, “Donnae dodge the question.”
Mik scoffs and licks the canine that peaks through one of his lip scarring, “I worked as a barista when I was…sixteen, seventeen.” He whispers, as if he’s telling a secret. And maybe he is, giving that he barely speaks about his life before the military. Or about himself, in general.
Price and Gaz picked on John when he chose him for the new task force, when Mik was still a sergeant. Sarcastic, scarred, with the darkest humor and roughest laugh, Mikele “Bloodhound” Torresi was the perfect mix of witty responses and a fiery brown eye.
“I- I loved the job.” Mikele keeps talking, a bit choked, as if he’s scratching the words out of his throat. “When…When I was little, I dreamed of opening my own coffee shop.” He whispers again, his accent growing heavier, this time leaning his shoulder on the wall, facing John. His only functioning eye is looking down, his nose wrinkled. “I still do...think about it. When I miss home. You don’t have the culture of coffee shops here- it’s really different from what I was used to growing up in Rome.”
“Yer from Rome?” It is well known that Mikele is Italian, it’s sawn into his kit and stamped all over his documents, but John never noticed if there was a city linked to the soldier’s name. He doubt there is.
“Grew up there, ye.” Mik nods, taking another cigarette from John’s pack. John doesn’t ask. He snorts, though.
“What ya laughing about, Captain?”
John shakes his head, fondness blooming in his chest. “I’m picturin’ ye at sixteen. I bet ye were even shorter.” He lies, just to mess with him. Mikele was a lot shorter than him, all long curls- definitely out of regs, but who cared, really?- and sharp teeth, and an ever sharper tongue. John is struggling to picture him younger, with still a bit of baby fat on his cheeks and still both of his eyes.
“Fuck off, sir.” Mikele grumbles, trying to hide one of his small, lopsided smiles, always too tight on his scaring to be comfortable. “I was a menace, from what I heard.”
“Worst than now?”
“Way worse. Bet you couldn’t handle a sixteen years old me, sir.”
“Jus’ how much damage can a teenager do in a coffee shop, come on.” John laughs.
“You’d be surprised.” Mikele blows out another puff of smoke, and his eye turns sharp, the nostalgic and vulnerable expression quickly wiping off his face. “It’s your turn now, Cap. Spill.”
A truth for a truth. It’s always like this between them.
John sighs.
“Ah’d like to settle. Find a small house in Scotland. Maybe ‘ave a cat or two.” John speaks drily, his own vulnerability hard to voice. It was a curse for soldiers to think about the future, everybody knows, but he’s just a man. And men dream.
Mikele looks at his watch, nodding. Their shift is finished.
“You are too much of a romantic for that, John,” Mik throws his cigarette on the ground, stomping his foot on it. John almost laughs at the quick change of wording. Mik’s hate for authority never quite went away, especially off the clock. “And greedy. We all know what you really want, be honest.”
“Yer really annoying, ye ken?”
“It’s why I’m your Lieutenant and not Garrick’s.” He grins.
They gather their things, slowly walking towards the base exit, on their way to their own homes. Rain is still pouring.
“Ah’d like him back, ye ken that. Everyone kens.” John grumbles. “‘Ave a little wooden cabin, some pets. Grow old together.” John shrugs, “But it’s just a dream. He doesn’t want that- doesn’t want me , not anymore.”
“You know what I think.”
“Ah’m just realistic, Mik. When we were together, you were still serving coffees- It’s been a lot of time. Too much.” John pinches the bridge of his nose, “I haven’t seen him in five years too- he might be dead from what I know.”
“Bullshit, I know you ask about him-”
“ Still, ” John grunts, “It’s been a while. It’s just a stupid fantasy. Maybe in another universe we- I dinnae ken, magically both survive this life and get to ken each other all over again in some stupid way-”
“In my coffee shop I bet.”
“Ye, like some kind of bad sitcom, but,” John sighs again. “This is not a sitcom, and we will not get back together. It’s what it is.”
“I hate when ye say that.”
“I cannae fight in every aspect of me life, Mik. Sometimes you got to let go of something to keep goin’.” John grimaces. He sounds like his dad. “Or some bullshit like that, I dinnae ken. I’m proper knackered though, so stop bugging me about my private life.”
“Ye started, Cap.” Mik quips back, a grin still stretching his lips. “I bet ye’d be cute though, two old fucks goin’ ‘round Glasgow, bickerin’ and drinking coffees-”
“He hates coffee.”
“Fuck, you’re so gay for him Cap.”
“Please jus’ shut the fuck up-”
“I’m goin’ to tell him you still remember he hates coffee-”
John stops dead in his tracks, turning so fast he fears he broke his own neck. “You what?!”
---
Mik has to run laps for two hours the next day.
It’s not his fault the Captain didn’t give him the chance to tell him his old-lieutenant-slash-love-of-his-life asked for both of them specifically for a mission, and Mik agreed without asking him first, lying and telling Captain Riley he was perfectly okay with it.
It’s worth it, though, when he sees them, weeks later, talking shoulder to shoulder on their way back, Captain Mactavish close to dozing off with his head on the other’s shoulder.
.