Chapter Text
I
There was tension and excitement in the air. You noticed as soon as you stepped out of your flat. Everyone seemed happier than normal and the city was more colorful and brighter. (There was no rain for once).
It confused you for a second or two until you noticed that most people were wearing the Glasgow Football Club baby blue shirts and well, everyone in the city knew that when the GFC played, there was nothing else more important. Usually, the fuss about the sport and the team wasn’t that much, but today was a weekend day and everyone looked like they were going to spend their day seeing the game live or supporting it wherever they needed to be.
It was a sight to see since children in the streets were wearing baby blue jerseys with paint on their faces and some adult men were wearing the jerseys with their kilts. Others were holding banners and flags around and if you didn’t know what you knew, you’d sworn that Scotland’s national team was going to play against England in the World Cup final. (Which honestly will be more than thrilling to more than one Scottish you know).
The excitement was somehow contagious, but you kept your way. You weren’t Scottish nor a football fan, so it felt like taking part in something that didn’t belong to you.
You continued your day, seeing blue all over the place in every corner, and at some point, you were so annoyed that you considered hiding in your flat until the next day when celebrations would take place making things worse or everyone will be angry and whining and the city will be desolated.
Either way, it wasn’t going to be good for you so you decided to keep with your day. You weren’t going to let the color blue intimidate you or stop you. You had things to do, and you promised Johanna some help with some school activities she needed to organize for her students.
Johanna MacTavish was your best friend in the world and a coworker. She was a primary school teacher (while you were a secondary teacher), but she was the one who adopted you when you first came to Scotland. Not just in your job as your mentor teacher, but also as a fellow human. You were homesick, regretting all your decisions, and having a hard time adapting, but she made it better, she and her mom of course.
Mrs. MacTavish was a small and round woman with very big and impressive blue eyes. Eyes that her two children John and Johanna got from her. She was a saint, even if she didn’t think so much and had been a teacher too. A Math teacher, which made her an institution by herself but also one of the best humans you have met. She had raised her children alone and even if she wasn’t a teacher anymore, she still tutored children in the neighborhood for free, knowing that math wasn’t an easy signature for everyone.
Those two made your life in Scotland a truly bearable experience. They adopted you in some way, and they always joked about it with loud laughs and bright eyes.
“The only thing ya still need to be a MacTavish through and through is the last name”, they always said, and it always made you panic, especially since Mrs. MacTavish started talking about her son immediately after.
You had a hard time sometimes understanding her accent, but you understood indirect messages very well.
No mother would ever talk about their single son if she didn’t have two hidden motives: matrimony or showing off.
And since you knew Mrs. MacTavish and how much she hated the military since it killed her brother, Kevin, injured her father John, and almost killed her nephew, Joseph, she was not talking about her military son to show off his career.
In the years you have known them, you have dodged all their indirect messages and attempts at making you get along with the only male MacTavish of the family. Destiny has been helping you since you two met a few times and has always hit it off in the wrong way.
Not your fault he was an idiot who thought he was funny.
Also, your first meeting ended up with you with a broken nose in the hospital thanks to him so no, you weren’t going to marry John MacTavish, even if it was Mrs. MacTavish’s dream.
When you arrived at the MacTavish household, you could tell they too were in a festive mood for the game.
When Johanna opened the door and let you in, the first thing you caught was her brother’s voice somewhere, and then you noticed that she was wearing her GFC baby blue jersey too.
“Are you going to see the game? I thought you needed help with something for the children”, you said, trying not to sound annoyed.
She rolled her eyes while she put your jacket away.
“No, gonna see it through the telly, John’s is the lucky one”, she rolled her eyes before grabbing you by the arm to drag you to the lounge.
In the lounge, you find a view that causes things it shouldn’t have caused.
Mrs. MacTavish was sitting in her favorite armchair, like the Queen of Scotland herself, knitting a blue Christmas jumper while discussing something with her son and, to your complete annoyance, in the settee close to her, was your enemy number one: John Kevin Neill MacTavish, the one and only.
(Thank God he was the only one because you would seriously commit murder if he had an identical twin. Well, he did have a twin, which was Johanna, but they couldn’t be more different).
To no one’s surprise, he was wearing the GFC baby blue jersey too, but he was also wearing some jeans and some sneakers that matched with the GFC jersey. You knew very well how a hardcore football fan he was (there were a lot of pictures of him around the house from when he was younger and he was part of the Juvenile Glasgow City Team), so it shouldn’t be a real surprise to see him wearing the jersey and then standing up to look at the two of you like he was on his way out, but for some reason it was.
You hated blue today and you were sure that you’d hit someone if they showed in blue again, but for some reason you saw him there wearing blue and you didn’t hate it anymore.
Because, for a moment, the crazy thought of one John MacTavish wearing that baby blue GFC jersey wasn’t annoying at all.
It was…breathtaking.
He looked breathtaking wearing blue.
Like the color was made for him.
You mean, he was objectively a handsome man. The military and football in his younger years, gave him a nice build, a build that he still had and that he liked to parade around by wearing shirts too tight or no shirts at all not caring who the hell was present. (His mother hated it when he did the latter).
You know for a fact how he looked without a shirt, you have seen it more than once, willingly, and unwillingly, but for the seconds your eyes land on him, the fact that blue looks nice on him and that matches with his big blue eyes passes your mind.
And for a moment you are questioning yourself and your sanity.
Yes, he was handsome, but he was Johanna’s twin brother and an idiot.
You didn’t like each other since the first moment you met, and nothing was going to change that.
Thank God the thought is away from your head as soon as it enters.
Mrs. MacTavish sees you standing next to Johanna, and she stops what she is doing (her conversation with her son included) to grin at you and give you a welcoming hug.
She was the only Scottish person you have seen today who wasn’t wearing blue.
“Welcome back, darlin’. Ya here to help Johanna? That’s nice of ya, she hadn’t been able to come up with anythin’ for her wee children since last night”.
“Maw!”, Johanna exclaimed, almost like an embarrassed teen.
You held your laughing, but John didn’t.
“Honestly, I pity yar students, since they have ya as their teacher”, he said.
“Ya one to talk, when yar a slave of the government”.
“Like if ya weren’t one, yar a teacher in a public school, ya idiot”.
“At least my job is humanizing, what does yar do?”
And then there is a brief awkward silence.
You felt very out of place, but they always have this type of argument whenever John’s military job is brought out. It was ironic, honestly, that he was in the military when her mother had been an anti-war activist all her life after her father, brother and nephew's service and when Johanna followed her steps.
“I keep ya safe”, Johanna rolls her eyes.
“Aye, ya keep me safe from what? People defendin’ ideas such as yars? Have ya ever thought that maybe they have been told the same thing ya have been told? That you two are equally stupid?”
“Alright, Johanna”, Mrs. MacTavish suddenly said, just when John opened his mouth to speak. He closes it as soon as Mrs. MacTavish uses her teacher's voice. “Go to the dining room. And ya, better hurry up or you’ll miss the match”.
And after glaring at each other for a moment, John moved to the door, brushing way closer than necessary with you.
Your heart skipped a beat when your nose caught his cologne.
You blinked to return to the world when Johanna dragged you to the very familiar dining room.
Mrs. MacTavish and John exchange a few words at the door, and Johanna mumbles a few others while she tries to show you some of the ideas she had for the activities, but for some reason all you could think of was his cologne in your nose and the image of him wearing blue.
What the hell was happening with you?
You think you are going crazy, especially when you see him return a few hours later with a bright grin because GFC won the match, and he was there to see it.
You ignore the little smile that it brings.
Until Johanna gives you a look you don’t like.