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“Ah get that you come from tae city,” he continued, phone in one hand while he braced the other one on the back of your chair. A part of you wondered if you should be worried; cornered in a far off room by a commanding officer wasn't the best start to happily ever after, but whatever. You were here to drive him up a metaphorical wall, not a white picket fence. “And ye probably never had tae deal with farm animals, but ye can’t go ‘roond spoutin’ nonsense like the other day.” 

Was he still on that? You had hit him with that well before the weekend, and he hadn’t wasted time with cornering you. It was Monday. God, you thought, I am blessed to live rent free in the Scottish Highlands. 

He wiggled the phone entreatingly. 

Staring back from the screen was Google, “are eggs dairy” typed into the search bar. Pressing your lips together, you slanted a sideways glance at him. He looked back, expectant. 

The nice thing would be to let him win this, you knew. A little tee hee, so sorry sergeant, let it die down before you hit him with some other out of pocket shit. But you hadn’t gotten this far in life by letting men win, even pretty ones. 

Especially the pretty ones. 

“Ohh,” you breathed, nodding to yourself like you’d had a world breaking - egg cracking, even - revelation. Sgt. MacTavish smiled, broad shoulders relaxing as he leant back, dipping back out of your personal space. “I get it now.”

“An easy mistake,” he placated. You both knew it wasn’t. 

“No, yeah. You still think birds are real.”

An atom bombed dropped slower than his smile did; there one moment, gone the next. Total annihilation. You would have to play this one carefully. Not laughing hysterically would be a herculean effort, but so worth it. 

“What tae fu -”

“No let me explain,” you cut in, flapping your hand at the wrist. It annoyed men, for some reason, a floppy wrist. Like a weak handshake, it triggered their little neanderthal brain. “I get that it sounds weird out of context. But like, okay. So in the, like, 1970s, in America? They had this President, right, Ronald Reagan?” Wrong. “And he, like, hated birds. So he formed the CIA,” made even funnier by the Task Force tangentially being CIA controlled, “And had them capture and kill all the wild birds, right? Except obviously people would have noticed if all the birds just disappeared, so he had them replaced with robots.” 

You stared at him for a moment, waiting to see if he was keeping up. He stared back, lips pressed together and nostrils flared. “Or androids? I don’t really know. Are they different? I think they’re synonymous. Anyways, he had robot birds made so that he could spy on the American people during the Cold War. And, like. He couldn’t do it with domesticated food birds, so he had them sterilized. And cows evolved to make eggs because birds couldn’t.” 

You nodded, and smiled, empty. Vacant. Not a thought in this head. “So I guess you used to be right,” you finished, patting his arm like it was a consolation. 

MacTavish opened his mouth, closed it. Let out a breath through his nose like an angry bull. For a moment, you wondered if this was it. Was this really all it took? The Birds Aren’t Real Conspiracy? You had so many more. GMOs. Bananas. You could be a very convincing Flat Earther. Buffalos. God, you loved the buffalo bit. 

“Who,” he stopped. Started again. “Who told ye that?” 

“My Governments teacher,” you answered immediately. “Mr. Schumacher. I loved his class, he taught us soo much.” 

“He lied.” MacTavished butted in, voice low. You bet he sounded like a blender in the morning, all gravely bass. You wanted to coo at him, at how cute he was, all ruffled. Instead, you did your best sure, Jan and shrugged. 

“I mean, I think a teacher would know better than the internet, but if you say so, sergeant,” you agreed placidly.

Stressed, he rubbed a hand over his mohawk. And then, phone still in hand, he pointed at you, and left. 

You watched him go, agreeable with the way his jeans sat on his ass. You wondered if he ever wore those bedazzled Buckle jeans. You wondered if you could ever get him into a pair either way. The door slammed behind him, shaking a layer of dust off the ceiling tiles. After a moment, when you were sure he wouldn’t be coming back, you tossed your package of paper towels into the nearest box. 

Six months later, and Sgt. MacTavish had kept a distressingly cool head. You weren’t fond of it; it left a lot of questions. Where was the line? How would he react when it was crossed? How did he handle anger - was he a shouter? Mr. Cold Shoulder? You had seen Sgt. Garrick at his limit; a shouter. Captain Price was authoritarian to his core; disappointed, and willing to hand out fitting punishment to ensure it didn’t happen again. Ghost, terrifyingly, appeared to be a cold shoulder kind of guy; the kind of petty, what are you talking about, I’ve never heard of Trooper Johnson a day in my life while maintaining eye contact with said never existed Trooper.  

Initially, it hadn’t bothered you. But the longer it went on, the more you wondered. And obviously you couldn’t do anything serious to trigger him. You weren’t about to risk your tenuous place on the 141, even as a tertiary member. Which left your favorite method - playing as stupid as humanly possible. 

Never about anything work related. You had fought tooth and nail for the respect you earned as one of maybe 20 female front line soldiers. No, you had to act stupid about the stupid things.

You started small. Spotting the mohawked sergeant in line at the cafeteria, sliding your way behind him with a beatific smile at Troop Russell, who let you into line with a resigned air. Carefully brushing your shoulder against the sergeant, welcoming his easy greeting like a witch letting children into her gingerbread house. 

“You know,” you started, in a way that anyone who shared a barracks with you knew was a bad sign. “I’ve never figured out why people think chickens lay eggs.” 

Smiling vacantly to hide the incandescent joy of shit-stirring, you watched as the sergeant stuttered, brows closing together in confusion. You could practically see the thoughts growing in that pretty little head; is she being serious? Is this a joke? 

No joke, you thought giddily, still maintaining a deviously blank poker face. Go on, you know you wanna. 

“What are ye talkin’ ‘bout?” 

“Eggs,” you answered, slow enough to cast a questionable tone. Like you couldn’t understand why he would be confused. “They come from cows.” By this point, the line had stalled, Sergeant MacTavish bewildered enough to cease multi-tasking. You couldn’t blame him. Walking single file while cafeteria staff handed you food was probably a difficult task when dealing with yourself. You wouldn’t know - you were everyone else’s problem, never your own. 

Pointedly, you looked at the lone, hard boiled egg resting on his plate, and then past his shoulder to the stretch of no man’s land between him and the person in front of him. At least a meter of space. He jolted into action, the hiss of his plastic tray frissioning against the metal ledge covered by his pretty, deep baritone. “Eggs are poultry, lass. They do come from chickens.”

“See, everyone thinks that,” you shook your head. From the corner of your eye, you can see Troop Russell, chin tucked to his chest. Troop Russell has never won a game of poker in his life. You’ve never played poker with him, but you know this for a fact as well as you know that chickens do, obviously, lay eggs. “But they’re wrong. They come from cows; its why they have a second stomach. Its how they regurgitate eggs.” 

They key to saying this kind of off the wall shit, you’ve learned, is to never give anyone time for a reasonable retort. It’s why you decided to corner him in the lunch line, a bunch of military ducks in a row that clears out relatively fast. Content with the microwaved chicken sandwich dressed up with a single leaf of lettuce, fruit cup, singular rolling egg, and squat baby water bottle on your tray, you decide it’s time to make your escape.  

“C’mon, think about it sergeant - if eggs come from chickens, why are they in the dairy aisle? With all the dairy?” And there it is, quick but beautifully vindicating; a flash of what the absolute fuck across his adorably disgusted little face. Not yet fed up with your shit, but certainly in disbelief of it. 

“Anyways, have a nice lunch, Sergeant,” you grin, practically floating to your usual table. Moments after you settle onto the bench, Troop Russell is sliding in next to you. “This is going to end horribly,” he points out. 

“But hilariously,” you counteract. “Don’t ruin this for me.” Deciding to start with your victory egg - the catalyst of your nonsense - you make eye contact with Sergeant MacTavish as you bite into it. Three rows away and seated diagonal from your own table, he’s ignoring the seemingly content ramblings of Sergeant Garrick to squint at you. Confused. But, like those dumb ass kids who saw a gingerbread house in the middle of haunted woods, you knew he wouldn’t walk away. Oh no. Too baffled by the incongruousness, he would walk right in. 

Blame it on daddy issues, or problems with authority, but you refused to work with a man without knowing what he was like madder than a bull. And something about easy, pretty Sergeant MacTavish told you whatever outcome? It would be fun.