Chapter Text
The sun weaves through the riverbank like silk and its threads follow—like how your exhale sets heavier and his eyes follow the frame next to him, a gentle gaze towards your direction hilts on you, “Chilly?” he rasps, thicker than the coat hanging over your shoulder. You laugh it off, but you don’t shake the lie that is; today was colder than usual. And the second both his arms wrap around you, you shred any second thought of unfairness in your physicality and instead you let yourself melt into his ever radiant heat.
You liked the way he was patient with you. You’d dragged him out here without offering a reason, and he hadn’t asked a single question — just followed along, gladly, like a dog who’d been offered the sun. But sometimes it scared you. How this man, this ticking time bomb of a person, could quiet himself for you. How he shrank away from any form of aggression, how he always softened the moment your eyes met, even when you couldn’t find any warmth in them.
You wished you were more spontaneous—you had friends who were, and it just killed you not to just try to be like them. Like him. You didn’t know what it was he saw in you at first, but he didn’t have to say anything when you just knew it was right. He’d fill in your silences.
“Where else would we get this stunnin’ view?” He chuckles, eyes flitting out towards the river as he cages you in, trapped between him and metal railings. Which you couldn’t really mind like he wasn’t your personal walking heater and teddy bear.
You thought of how hard it was to love you—but he hasn’t given you any hint of doubt. All these thoughts; they were all your faults. He shouldn’t be blamed for your discrepancy.
“Am I not just that?” you chime in, faux offense in your lilt, tilting your head up just right to blow hot air under his chin. That gets him to look down at you, almost hitting—no dislocating your nose in the process. His brows and lips are harmonized into a frown and that’s what gets you into the fit of laughter you’re always left having with him, even when it’s not entirely his fault, or anything he’s said. Just him being… him. Was amusing all on its own to you.
And he’s never felt so proud to have anything, ever, in his life. Not the countless number of badges of honor he’s gotten throughout his military career, not the number of bruises he’s gotten and survived through—would ever compare to hearing you laugh again. Even if it was jabbed at him—especially if it was at him.
“Wha’?” his frown deepens in his face, but you know it is well hidden with amusement behind his melodramatic pauses. “I was talkin’ bout you .”
“Sure you were, MacTavish.” You let out a soft laugh—halfway through, the air thins, and something in your breath catches you.
The sharp pain pulling you out of his embrace. And you blink once to make sure it was real, and that something hasn't just jabbed you in the wrong spot- No, this is when the world decides to remind you, like a switch has pulled the strings in your head, and you go quiet for a while.
He doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t press. Doesn’t nudge at you unnecessarily.
He just waits.
Waits like you weren’t about to drop the biggest bomb in his life.
You knew it was bound to detonate, you just didn’t know how big of a crater it would form.
…
“Johnny.”
He smiles when he hears your voice again, hums your name too, only questioningly worried in his reply.
“I love you.”
The words make him look at you—not that he wasn’t already, like really look at you. Maybe it was because it was the first time he’s heard that from you. You’re still staring up at him from under his chin, it makes him step back and spin you around to face him. There was a beat in his chest as he held you close still. “What would convince ye that I feel the same and so much more?”
You brush him off, the skin wrinkles around your eyes. “I don’t need convincing to know that.” And he mirrors the warm smile you shoot, because that makes his heart clench in some way it hasn’t.
“Then Ah love y' too.”
It does yours too. Just a little differently.
A little more devastating.
You're both walking now, the water was awfully still and you needed the distraction on your side, inconstant. Something to remind you that time hadn’t stopped, that it wasn’t so forgiving and that the world was still turning. Even when it felt like it was frozen for a while, in a moment that could ruin you.
The words slip out easier than intended.
“I’m not feeling all that well.”
Not the grandest gesture to something you’ve kept for a long while. It stops him in his tracks the second he hears the words, fixing the scarf around you immediately and pressing his cold hands against your contrasting temple, like checking for a cold. How you wish it were a cold.
“Ye okay, bonnie?” He answers worriedly.
You nod. Smiling meekly to the eyes you envy, you wish you didn’t have to burden him with the news, but you knew you’d never forgive yourself if you didn’t. He’d never forgive you if you didn’t. But your cowardly nature eats you up again. It was a pest. Acted like one too. Constantly driving him away to tell him like a grand declaration you had hidden to confess, only to back out and return into the shell you’ve built. Only to start that cycle all over again. And for what? In hopes of not losing him? You’re losing him either way.
Or… likely the other way around.
Last time, you had pulled him away from the nice retreat he had with his friends. It was just the two of you, overlooking the camp from a higher point. You both talked like usual. A stupid comment on how his friends could clear an op in seconds but couldn’t figure out the new barbecue set up. Placing bets on which one of his friends would settle with one soon. You nudged him and nearly knocked the both of you down the small hill. Then the topic of the future came up. And it felt like it was appropriate to tell him at the time. But then you heard something about children and raisin’ wee bairns in his words and it shattered any hope of telling him anything of your sickness right then.
How could you tell him?
At all?
It felt like forever ago that he wasn’t home, and it was just you. Going and returning from the hospital and back home like you were at someone's beck and call. He doesn’t know that. Doesn’t need to. He deserves to come home to your soft smiles, a warm and waiting bed. And you gave him just that. But it was hard enough keeping this away from him. Maybe because you were a bad liar, and he had always been terrible at picking things up with you. It wasn’t a very nice combo.
Your eyes dart away from his, but you’re not okay. Why did you say you were? You were trying to keep something together, just didn’t know what. Was it some sort of semblance?And God , the silence stretches like it did when you had this in your mind. The golden sky keeps glowing like nothing is wrong, and you hate it for that. You think you hear him in your head, What’s wrong?
“What is it?”
You wish you knew.
He’s really worried this time. Now that you haven’t answered him. He says your name once more. You think you see the golden sky bleed violet through his eyes when he reaches out for your cheek.“Yer not okay,”
Your fingers dig into fabric and you shake your head. Teeth into your tongue, pinning it hard.
“...I’m sick, Johnny.”
And he doesn’t move. Something flares behind his eyes when he blinks to look at you, jaw locking tighter when you mention it again. And when you think he’s about to say something.
He doesn’t.
You've always hated it when he’s silent. Something he’d do in an attempt for composure.