#specterwrites

𝗗𝗜𝗚𝗚𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗢𝗡𝗦𝗘𝗟𝗙 𝗔 𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗘 — 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗙𝗜𝗩𝗘

It was better that the smell of cut meat in the passenger footwell and newly formed plastic and leather from a tree was now invading the smell of the car rather than that of the former one of weed that almost seemed like the car had been in a liquid dip of it as John took in the final speed bump of the street he was on as an eventual path to home was more closer in every tick of the indicator as he turned.

There was an anxious warmth in his belly as his mind buzzed with the thought of just what was around the corner almost 12 hours from now when the eventual time turned to 3 in the morning. Hell, how was he even going to pass this off as him staying up for an ungodly amount of hours, only to get out in the middle of the night, car included given the thing wasn’t exactly the most quiet thing in the world.

He had no choice but to think it over as he turned into the driveway and parked the car, knowing his mother would be confused and somewhat shocked that her son was home so early, and of all things — on an apparent lunch break. That’s why, with an of course, confused look on her face, she opened the door as the white wall just within John’s sight came into view as he got out of the car with a white box in hand.

“Johnathan, shouldn’t ye be in class?”

“It’s a lunch break, ma, thought I’d be the better child and do something lovely for my mother.”

“Usually that’s a sign that you’re up to something, don’t tell me you’re skipping classes, otherwise I will-” Of course, she thought that, even as John checked his watch, 15 minutes until his break was truly over, he set his jaw in a panic over that, as he really and truly did think he had more time than that.

“No, ma. I was just dropping off the meat now rather than having to do it after class, just don’t want to do so given I need to stay up and study.”

Fiona MacTavish knew her son lied, but never this blatantly.

“Is that right?”

“Um, yeah, got a science thesis that I have to get done, something on a characterisation of antibiotic resistance genes in hospital bacteria samples.”

What a bullshit artist you are, John MacTavish.

“Right, so, would you be able to tell me just what’s going on in this thesis of yours?”

It was on the fly now, and he’d hoped by any miraculous god that he prayed on Sunday to that he was able to try and explain it without a fault. 

“Well, with some viruses out there, you know, ones that have no immediate cure and can kill people almost within a span of four to seven days after infection, I was researching a way where doctors are coming up with a concoction of antibiotics to fight those infections, one where our bodies don’t have any way to fight it, however. These diseases are in fact starting to become resistant to it, and I’m typing up in twelve thousand words. Just how we can do that through observation methods and lab means.” It was, with an advantage to John that he could complicate the language just enough and spit out a random amount of a word count, even though it wouldn’t be that far off, to have his mother sit there. Confused.

“And when is this piece of work due?”

“Three weeks from now.”

His mother scrutinised every form of John’s stance as she took the meat from him as he eagerly moved to hold out the door for her. An act of service meant that she wasn’t able to study his face, and the less time spent studying his face, the more he could get away with the lie.

“Well, knowing how you’ll forget about it, I best let Lisa in on it then.”

Bad idea.

“Ma, you don’t need to do that! I won’t forget it.”

“Yes, you will, Johnathan. I know my own son well enough to even know when he forgot that submission paper about gene sequences on fossils.” John’s eyes widened, though he hadn’t forgotten that. Had it done weeks earlier, actually, it was yet another way for him to stay up and…go to a party, one that he wouldn’t forget either.

“Ma, you seriously don’t need to let her know. I can manage it just fine. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to be running late for class.” He certainly hoped with a change of conversation that it would slip her mind that Fiona MacTavish had to remind Lisa of a non-existent paper due as he ran off to his car with an eager hurry to remove himself from the presence of his mother.

It never did happen, though, as he pulled up to the school car park again and felt his phone buzz in his pocket.

LIS

Best get the work done or I tell Mum about the party. xo.

JOHNNY

And why would my loving sister do such a thing?

LIS

Because that’s in biology.

Mom may not be that smart, but I am.

JOHNNY

Fine. Hate you.

LIS

Love U2 Johnny.

Placing his phone away, the same feeling from earlier sat in his chest, all the while the dead silence of his class honed in on the teacher talking about molecules. And as his heart pounded in his chest, he was beginning to realise something further about just how he got into this situation with one question on his mind.

What would happen if it went wrong?

Three options came to mind of what could go wrong in a matter of split seconds: someone gets killed, he gets killed, or someone kills another person that he inadvertently was the cause of. But the highway would be dead in the middle of the night; nothing was surer. Johnny had been one to see late at night on one of his friends’ eighteenths just how empty they could be, two cars on the road, barely a car in sight.

So why exactly was that worrying Johnny so much?

He racked his mind as much as he could, sourcing the darkest places that he could in terms of trying to find its root cause, with only three things that, instinctively, came to mind.

His mother, Lisa, and Mairi.

How were they going to handle it in finding out that their boy, middle sibling, only MacTavish son on the sisters’ side of an ever-growing tree from only three uncles and aunts, was now an illegal street racer? It gnawed at him all day, even as he gently bit the skin of his middle knuckle and bounced his leg up and down in thought, only ever focusing on the board and writing down the question the teacher had seemingly left for quite a while, only to have John answer it in a matter of seconds.

How were they going to react when they find out that the only MacTavish boy on his mother’s sister's side was not going to carry the legacy on when he was more than likely going to accidentally wrap himself around a tree pole at a high speed he knew he shouldn’t have been going?

Well, that and, among other things, that John MacTavish dared not tell, that would stop the bloodline. 

His own mind became a wonder of thoughts, doubts, even as they were allowed out early thanks to the teacher knowing just who would and wouldn’t stay behind, and who wouldn’t be handing in their work on time, even if it meant not meeting the goal.

That’s how he became startled by his sister’s rough tap across the chest that took him by complete surprise, as she even got a laugh out of the brusque response Johnny had as he suddenly moved alongside her.

“Are ye going ta’ get this work done before midnight?”

“Might have it half done, mi’ not even have it done at all.” That earned him a look, only replying to it with a slight smirk.

“So long as ye tell Mum you’ve completed the work, I’ve no problem with turning the other eye on what my brother does. Just don’t be doing drugs and there won’t be a problem.”

Oh, but he most certainly wouldn’t for what he was doing — would swear by it.

If only he could swear by the fact that he could get home with ease without Finn and the two other guys standing by his car.

“Mother Mary and Joseph, why is he here again? And with his mates of all bloody things?”

Johnny turned to Lisa as he splayed out his hands.

“I dinnae,” John hesitated. “Let me just go and figure it out, alright?”

“Bloody liar ye are, MacTavish,” Lisa murmured under her breath as she waited around, not daring to take a single step near the Irishman and his friends as Johnny approached them once more.

“Boys, what’s the issue?”

“Just making sure you know what’s going on. That I’ll text you around supper. You spent that eight hundred entirely?”

“Got about seven hundred left. Why?”

“You’ll need all of it betting us three.” It was one of his mates, the one with the skinner jaw amongst the three.

“I’ll take a bet for his sister.”

That got Johnny’s attention, and not in a way that he wanted, even managing to shift the entire air around them as Johnny set his eyes on the guy. Hell, even Finn looked over at Johnny with slight concern.

“What’s your name, lad?”

“Oliver.”

“Well, Oliver. I’ll fill you in on something. Finn here, your good friend? Has tried, many times, to date my sister, and every time, he’s been rejected. So if you’re going to even try and get close to her, you’ll be dealing with someone else other than her.”

“What?” Oliver laughed in a snarky manner, looking over at the others for some sort of backup. It spoke in his eyes, in his body, just with the way he spread his arms out. “Her boyfriend.”

“Me.”

There was that awkward silence again as he looked Oliver up and down. Finn, personally, believed that he could’ve snapped a pencil between the two men and neither would notice with how heavily they were staring down one another, and Finn knew exactly who was winning.

“Right, well-” Finn tried to intercept, but of course, Johnny got the last say.

“I’ll personally see to it that you’re first to race me, all seven hundred dollars to a race with you, just for trying to piss me off.” Johnny then tilted his head over at Finn to say one thing to him and his mates: piss off. “Oh, and Oliver?”

It was only Finn that flicked Johnny a warning this time, knowing just how he could be.

“Keep away from my sister.” And that’s when he finally conceded and held up his hands near his stomach, splaying his palms.

“Aight, bruv, heard loud and clear.”

Johnny only ever then kept his own eyes on Oliver as they walked off. Before he looked over at Lisa in the distance, he wondered just how long it would be before one of the two men, between him and Finn, would toss their hat into the ring and call it a day. 

Sometimes, minus Lisa’s wise, introspective viewpoint on his inner workings of his social groups, he truly did wonder if Finn was hanging around Johnny, if only for the fact that Johnny was someone everyone truly liked.

It was a truly weird feeling, even as the sound of the car door closing brought him back from his thoughts and into the real world as he followed suit and placed his bag in the back seat behind Lisa, knowing Mairi would want to be right behind him, as if she were driving herself.

“What was that all about then?”

“Bunch o’ right cunts is what they were.”

A gasp left Lisa’s mouth as she looked over at him, placing her hand through his mohawk and messing it about, quickly slapped away and brushed over by the man. 

“My brother’s finally learnin’”

“Away and bile yer head ye bampot.”

“Fuckin’ bawbag.” She said, as he rolled his eyes and drove off, breaking suddenly to subtly get her back as he snickered, pretending as nothing went wrong. Quiet conversations were had, about Mairi, school work. But the one thing that went over Johnny’s mind, time and time again, even as he tried in all his might to push it down was wha was happening in less than 10 hours from now. Well, if he was being specific, nine hours and twenty minutes from now. 

And that was all he could mull on as he heard the car door close as he waited for Lisa to collect Mairi from school as it suddenly dawned on him what it was.

It was his main morals clawing at the mere formation of his own stomach. If he was caught red-handed, then that meant he would be disappointing his entire family, more importantly, Lisa and Mairi. But that, as well, if he ended up in bigger trouble, what the hell was going to happen then?

His knuckles only became whiter as he gripped at the steering wheel, and they suddenly loosened as they heard a familiar voice — he really was zoning out.

“Johnny, look what I made!” Mairi suddenly shoved the artwork in his face as he moved to dodge any and all possible paper attacks from the younger sibling.

“Let’s see what we’ve got here, wee yin.” As per usual, he got a laugh from her as he inspected the piece of artwork before he realised just who it was on the page.

The mohawk was unmissable and the car he was standing beside too. All the while, he tried his hardest not to laugh as he looked at Mairi. 

“Beautiful as usual, but between you and me, I think you drew Lise just right.”

“By a bawhair, rat,” Lisa warned Johnny before the two laughed before Lisa gestured a ‘give me’ motion with her hand.

Oh, how Mairi had Johnny’s heart in a complete clutch as Lisa gently took it from Johnny’s hand and looked it over. The two knew it was nothing like Johnny’s sketching in his small book. But Lisa knew immediately just who she was wanting to follow in certain aspects of footsteps.

“You know, you draw me better than Johnny does.”

That caught him off guard, as Mairi only laughed more.

“Hear that, Johnny, Lise says I’m a better drawer!” 

It was a look between the two older siblings that basically said everything. The two of them would move mountains for their little sister.

And that’s probably what was killing Johnny the most about tonight, as he suddenly cleared his throat and gave her the picture back.

“I’ll most certainly fight that when we get home, but for now, here’s your drawing. Put your seatbelt on, sweetheart, then we’ll go home. Maybe I can teach you how to draw a rubber duck.”

That had her excited for a moment as he heard the click of the belt as they started moving back home.

For the additional six hours of time that passed between picking his two sisters up and having dinner, Johnny exchanged stories about the rest of his day with his mother, with the additional shock from Lisa regarding that he’d made a quick stop at the house during his lunch break. The look in her eyes had the only male of the house looking anywhere but in those grey eyes as he focused on his mother, knowing out of the corner of his eye that she’d seen her shake her head in whatever amount of disappointment she could find this week to pile on him.

That’s why when she saw Mairi and Johnny lying on the floor, with Johnny pointing to a little portion of her drawing in an almost laptop-sized sketchpad if not thinner than one, she noticed the nuance that Johnny had used his old high school art book before moving over to his small journal, to which, god knows what he sketched in there.

“Alright, now, take your time, gently colour it in. You know how the teacher used to break off the tip of the pencil and have you use your fingers to press it into the paper?”

“Yeah?”

“Like that, but this time, you press the pencil against the paper like so the tip of it is lying against the paper — see, there you go.”

Lisa would never admit that while her younger brother was a pain in the utter arse on some days, there were some moments, even having kept them to herself, that made her see beyond Fiona’s own personal words. That having a baby brother was probably one of the best things that happened to her, well, that and she could harass him with Mairi when she got a bit older.

“How’s the rubber ducky coming along?”

Lisa practically saw him jump out of his skin like a dead fish as he tried his best to hide it before he turned around and looked back at her.

“By my standards, I’d say pretty good,” Johnny then turned around as he nodded at her before picking it up. There were only two reasons why Lisa was standing in his bedroom door, and it was obvious it was the latter. “Notice how with the light, the yellow gets darker?”

“Mhm.” 

“Move the pencil upwards and dig in to get a darker colour.” He didn’t want to overwhelm her just yet as he gently tapped her shoulder before he got up. “You’re doing a good job so far, Mairi.”

Lisa’s eyes said it all as he followed her into her bedroom, akin to Johnny’s Scottish flag tapestry above his bed. Lisa’s was adorned with two posters promoting Madonna’s album and Fiona Apple, along with a few others that he dared not ask about as she closed the door.

“So, who’s attending this party?”

“Kimberley, Finn.”

There was something in Lisa’s form that was about to grill Johnny’s answer. A lie, she knew it was. She knew her brother way too well. She knew he was doing something else entirely from the moment her mother sent over the message about the essay. But she stopped herself as she just entirely avoided putting him under that magnifier.

“Wasn’t that the girl you slept with at the last party?”

“Nearly, got distracted by a-” gotcha “What’s it matter to you anyway?”

“By a what, Johnathan?”

Johnny scoffed at the use of his proper name as he shook his head, only to have his sister cross her arms as she leaned against the door.

“We’re not doing this, Lise.”

“Mairi knows we’re talking, she’s happy drawing, got all the time in the world. So, what did you get distracted by, Johnny?”

“Why am I getting this turned on me, and why is my sister asking me about who I slept with and where I’m going?”

“Don’t even try and turn it on me, okay? All it is is just a party and-”

“Johnny. Have you got work started on your essay yet?” For once, his mother was his saving grace as she knocked on Lisa’s door as she opened the door suddenly as she gave the two a strange look.

“Started a rough working on it in my book, ma, I’ll start typing it up soon enough as I help Mairi with her drawing,” Johnny stated with a nod as he moved both past them and out of the ever-shrinking form of Lisa’s room thanks to the way she was interrogating him.

“How many words was it again, dear?”

“Twelve thousand words.”

“Are you sure you can get it done by two weeks?”

“We had extended it by another two, ma, so I can take my good time with it. I just need to find some words to extend the word count as far as I can and then edit it down.” 

His eyes were no longer on his mother’s but rather Lisa’s. She knew he was digging himself a hole, but just how far was she willing to let it go as he pointed a thumb back to his room.

“So once we’re done here, I’ll just put the kettle on and have a few cups of coffee and dig into it.”

Lisa only ever shook her head and moved back into her room as his mother made sure that Johnny was doing as he stated. Sure, he was an adult, could do his own things, get in trouble as many times as he liked, he was a free adult. But there was nothing worse than hiding a secret, a lie to his mother, as he chewed at the inner lining of his cheek as he turned around and back into his bedroom.

In all truth, he did need to do actual work, an essay on a science debate that was about ten thousand words less than what Johnny was blowing it out to be. So while time had been and gone, spending as much time as he could with his little sister and teaching her about shading, it was three hours in that his mother had finally decided to go to bed, knocking on his door gently, his fourth coffee in for the night as he turned around from his desk. Five hundred words into his essay and had a fourth coffee down as he looked at his mother as she placed her hands on his shoulders.

“Oh my god, you’re a page down, good boy,” she spoke as Johnny smiled gently as he looked down. 

“Believe that’s five hundred words or something if I remember correctly. Supposed to be having a more thorough computer class next term, science is supposed to have a major breakthrough with these guys, so we need all the knowledge we can get.”

“Aren’t scientists already using them?”

“Yes, but more so in the sense that the more knowledge that can be pushed out, they hope that someone can eventually find someone no one else has picked up on yet, that’s what Ms. George has said anyway.”

“These things are incredible, and they’ve only just gotten them into boxes,” Fiona was always surprised by computers in general, something she constantly brought up to Johnny. Johnny, on the other hand, however, knew that these were going to go somewhere big, scientifically at the least anyway.

“Next thing you know, they’ll be in your fingers,” he commented before he felt the gentle kiss on the top of his head from his mother.

“So long as you’ve got this work done out and don’t wake the whole neighbourhood with your car, have fun at the party. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“See you later, mam,”

It was as soon as that door closed that Johnny placed his face in his hands and let out a sigh that he’d been holding in since she’d walked in.

And that’s when Johnny suddenly panicked as he turned his head at breakneck speed, looking over at his charging phone on his bedside table. He hadn’t checked the message that was supposed to arrive by dinner time, too engrossed by family conversation as he got up out of his seat.

Pressing a few buttons that only beeped in return, he saw the slew of unread messages from Finn:

FINN

A158 Devlin Downs Highway

FINN

Corner of Dorans Way

FINN

Johnny?

FINN

𝗦𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗗𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗘 — 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗦𝗜𝗫

A full tank of fuel, 12:32 in the night, and a calm idle from the engine were all that glanced back in Johnny’s eyes as he stared at the gauges for the fourth time tonight. Or so, that’s how many times he’d counted thus far. He’d only seen a few cars with people sitting in them, waiting. Knowing they were there for the exact same thing — the highway race. 

Johnny hadn’t peered once around the corner, not once sure about just what was around the corner, but he’d gotten a few looks from some people he could only assume were racers much like him, even if he hadn’t seen a single car show up yet.

In fact, it wasn’t until three minutes later that three did, in a slow succession as they passed Johnny, a Subaru of some kind and a Rover, watching as they went by in the mirror and started turning right. Had he gotten the address wrong off of Finn on purpose? He was totally unsure and sceptical now of himself as he looked around him to make sure no one else around him was looking at him like a fool, nor coming down the road as he took the key out of the ignition and opened the door, as he closed it and locked it seconds later. If he was going to be a fool, then he may as well be made one as he walked past the two men who were watching him with a curious nod as they nodded back at him before he turned the corner.

The sigh that left the lungs of the young Scotsman was that of both sheer anger, confusion, but also sheer disappointment in his idiocy in not fully examining what was around the area as he saw an abandoned factory with a car park that seemed to be in better condition than the factory itself, like it or not, in front of him. Was none other than the meetup, with, to what he could count, at least 30 cars with a herd of people double that, talking to one another, separated into groups, people walking over and checking cars, taking photos, a group over there, a giant group there, and a group of black cars off in a corner that seemingly no one had interest in. Meaning, in John’s mind, they were either cops or trouble unwanted. Something of which he was not going to approach as he suddenly turned tail and aimed his line of sight at his car.

It was more so when he got to the entry point that someone was sitting there, an IBM ThinkPad on the desk, a small little pen in hand that was seemingly connected by a cable running to the computer, that the guy furrowed his eyebrows at the sight of the car, as if something of this nature wouldn’t even be able to touch the competitors of what they had.

“Tag?” He called out. And somehow, in those few seconds, he felt like he was about to have the security set on him, maybe that’s what those black cars were for. They were in on it too.

Pointing at the tag, the guy only responded with a pulling of his pen, a sign that was made obvious: he had to take the tag off his screen.

With a disgruntled sigh, Johnny fiddled with it as he suddenly saw another car pull up behind him, as it only further made him tug at the tag all the more, until finally, a twist had him merely doing the gear shift in a hurried dance of allowing him in, as he held it between his index and thumb. The guy scanned it as the computer made a simple beep, only to then look back at Johnny and then glance over at the computer screen. Glancing between both.

A sigh left the man’s lips as he pressed the button and finally let the gate slowly lift as Johnny quickly placed the tag back on and drove on.

Something about that moment as a whole didn’t feel right, and it didn’t seem so as the guy he’d just made strenuous eye contact with grabbed at his radio and looked straight down at Johnny’s car.

Something was amiss, but he didn’t know as to what.

Here was hoping he didn’t get killed by the people chatting near the black cars before the racing even started.

And as he found his way around the car park, his eyes settled on a hooded man who suddenly made eye contact in the realisation of just who it was as Johnny fumbled with the console as the window went down with a hushed whine.

“Was wondering if you’d show up at all.” It was Finn as Johnny started parking his car.

“Didn’t know the place was at an abandoned bloody factory space either.”

“You mean your German god of a Merc doesn’t have a GPS?” The two idiots beside him laughed like it was supposed to be some sort of planned joke as he rolled up the window and got out of his car, looking at the trio with an unimpressed look across his face.

So this was who Finn really was, not the guy who was at the party, not the one who, when he was alone, was awkward in his ways, trying to be close to those to whom he could never really get. No, he was the one guy who lived for trying to fit into round holes as a square peg.

“’S there anywhere I can grab a drink or somethin’?” Johnny simply asked, entirely brushing off the comment.

“Uh, yeah, in the abandoned building, some of it’s still alive.”

Johnny only nodded, thanked him, and weakly smiled at Finn as he walked off.

He might have to, for once, finally agree with his sister that she was, in fact, right. And oh, what a joyous day that would be for her.

Time went on as Johnny watched people talk over their cars, be it hyping them up, showing off customisations they’d made to the engine. Or just even entirely nerding over them, be it if they were going to compete or not. It seemed like a safe space, even with a few eyes landing on a guy who showed up in an Opel Astra, obviously known for some reason or another.

What feeling he couldn’t shake in and amongst all of this, however, was the five people sitting in the back, a black Range Rover and a bunch of, what he could only assume was, given the front styling, Nissan Skylines. It took him a moment to spot that one of them was looking at him, even as he was staring back at them. A smile on one of their faces, even as he did so.

“I’d suggest you don’t look their way.”

A questioning hum came out of Johnny’s mouth as he was immediately met with the subtle bearded face and brown eyes, just a tad too close but enough to be greeted with a smile and a step back.

“Those guys?” He nodded, fearlessly making eye contact with them. “Not the best lot you want to be hanging around with, especially with someone new I haven’t seen around before.”

So he came off as a humble type of cocky as the Scot eyed him, wondering what his goal was.

“So who are they then?”

“Well, you see all of this? Everyone huddles into various groups, big, small, massive ones if they’re racing together. They give themselves names so they can be assigned to what and who they represent. Be it a fun race to just have fun or a hands-down wager to win money, the one rule is there are never to be hard feelings.” He paused as he looked right back over to the group of cars, as one man in the middle stood out in the wash of black clothing, black cars, and best of all, no helmet. “Those guys are the Shadows. They’ve broken that rule so many times and they’ve gotten away with it.”

In the stillness of watching the guy look over to the group of five, the head of the group, who he could only assume was the group’s leader, nodded at the two of them, tilting his head down. But not a single response by both men was ever given back.

“They don’t play hard feelings — they play rough until you end up wrapping yourself around a pole at 200 miles an hour. And it gets written off as an accident.”

It wasn’t enough time to register the chill that ran up his spine before a hand clapped the back of his left shoulder, rubbing it to take his attention away from it before he finally introduced himself as he held out a hand to shake.

“Name’s Kyle, I assume you’re one of the new guys, haven’t seen you around here before.”

“Johnny.” Hesitantly, he shook the hand as Kyle kept acting like Johnny wasn’t a nervous wreck to begin with, nor was he not knowing what to do in a place like this as a group of three people moved around, hi-vis material on three of them as they caught their eyes.

“Fifteen minutes, let’s get moving, people! We’ve got highways to burn!” One of them spoke, as another off in the distance spoke the same. Obviously, they were checking how many people they had, obviously the people that run the show.

“The newbies rush, you don’t need to worry, you’ve got plenty of time,” Kyle noted before looking at the keys Johnny was gripping ever so hard. “What car have you got?”

“Mercedes,” a laugh came out of Kyle, which had Johnny whip his head in confusion.

“What?”

“Sure, it’s not gonna rust on you?”

“It does?” Kyle was very quick to catch on as he suddenly furrowed his eyebrows, looking out of the window as he tried to spot it. It was difficult in and amongst some, but from his own knowledge, more people had BMWs more than anything.

“What model is it?”

“Uh, 190E, if that makes any difference.”

“What engine?”

“Two point five from memory.”

A sudden puff of air came out of Kyle’s face as he suddenly turned to Johnny.

“First night here and you’re already packing the punches.”

Johnny looked at the man as if he was a confused puppy, which wasn’t all too far off in all things. Kyle, however, caught on quickly.

“They’ll be a lot more surprised when you take your time pulling off the line, only to beat them later on compared to in the initial stages.”

“So that’s a good thing?”

“Faster than a lot of the scrap heaps here that are a tune away from blowing up.”

A pat on the back and a smile from him was about all he got to end the conversation, to pull him back into reality because in truth, Johnny could talk quite a bit with Kyle, at least, compared to the one person he was racing.

“Right, well, you best be getting ready for a race. I’ll see you around, or you’ll see me around. Don’t be afraid to reach out, yeah?”

Johnny only nodded and gave a smile as he watched Kyle move on, as Johnny finally looked back out at the window, sculling the rest of his coffee and deciding to follow in succession minutes after.

────────────

That night, as he followed six cars, Finn, second from the front, never did see Kyle again, with no sign of just what car or who he was running with, nor what group he was in. All he knew was that seven hundred pounds was on the line, be it for his own ego, and it was made worse by one comment they’d exchanged mere moments before Finn stated to follow him.

‘Three rounds, seven hundred pounds each.’

If there was a moment in time that Johnny was kicking himself, getting himself into debt over a comment that was made in regard to his sister, this was the tightrope walk he had currently placed himself in. 

The rules were made simple: rolling speed along the street, following the speed limit unless there was someone who interrupted the flow to the small group of six cars who had a direction, a target as they smoothly moved through the roads towards one place, some knew all too well. But one of them was unfamiliar.

As they passed by various houses to their eventual destination, they spotted a few people in simple, not as fast cars, one of which was Johnny’s, hell, any neighbour would have, with someone on the other side of the bonnet and a laptop on it. Nodding as they went past before pulling out a radio. The final one, as they rolled by, started waving his arm around in a circular motion to indicate one simple thing.

Roll the windows down.

And as they slowly stopped at the red light, Johnny watched as some of them slowly started revving their engines, red lights flashing brighter than the one above them as engines came to life, only for him to smirk as he caught on pretty quickly just as to what was happening and started revving his own engine. 

Unlike the others, from what he could see, they seemed pretty stable, nothing was twisting their cars like the solid block engine under his. Somehow, under it all, Johnny had the faith that his car was going to haul it, easily, and wanted to. 

And then the light went green.

And all they did was slowly take off — as if it never happened. 

Turning into the highway entrance, they were greeted just under the directional sign by a man standing under it, car in the emergency exit. A Hyundai of some sort, he guessed. All to have all six drivers stop, three by three as fumes rolled out from one of them, and he hadn’t once looked over at who he was versus. Hadn’t seen just as to where that white Subaru had gone to, until he looked to his right.

He was versus Finn, right off the bat. And the only acknowledgement of guilt, some form of it, was the sudden furrow of brows Johnny made before it was interrupted. 

“Race starts in segment blocks, ten seconds per car. If you catch up to those in front of you, you do not pass. No dangerous antics, and most certainly, haul arse, but don’t fuck it up,” the man stated as he walked between the cars before pulling out a flashlight, chucking it up in his hand before catching it. “Flashlight goes on, race starts. I don’t want to hear an unrevised engine until you’re taking off. Understood?” He didn’t wait for a beat of silence before he walked between the cars. “Good, engines on.”

It caught Johnny by surprise in knowing that the cars in front of him were screaming a hell of a lot louder than they were just moments earlier. And all he did, in and amongst the noise, was rev his — save for the fact that his wasn’t as loud, he could hear just how ready it was to go. How eager it was beneath the hands of the driver behind it.

The light flashed, and almost immediately, tires squealed under the form of two cars, one, a Rover that seemed ever mighty and eager to move, and boy did it fucking ever. 

It slightly terrified Johnny in knowing that he might lose against that, hell, lose in the race that he was unknowingly involved in to begin with Finn. He knew that Subarus had four-wheel drive, and if it was anything as good as it could be on a massive barreling truck?

It was probably a hell of a lot better in a car that was half its form in both size and weight. And Johnny never really got to have much of a chance to think of a strategy to combat just what he could do against a seemingly nimble little thing like that in its own Japanese boxy shape. Because before he knew it, the cars were moving up again and stopping once more. Waiting as the guy checked his watch, watching as the arm ticked away as his eyes moved upwards to see the  burgundy, red, and white hoods before him on separate sides of his vision.

He was used to making the adrenaline rush through the driver’s blood — a grin that could kill the heart of girls as he looked between the two of them as he raised a hand — ready. The flashlight raised just to his chest — set. And a silent pause as the world around Johnny became seemingly quiet, still, before a white light flashed — go.

It was a sound he was still so unused to, the sound of heavy rubber jittering in the moment of its standstill in mere seconds as the tyres from the car in front of him tried to find any formality of grip. The car trying its hardest not to slide from side to side as it moved along the road, finally finding grip, all the white, the ceremonial torch holder only spoke in his radio once, spoke a few things and nodded at both Johnny and Finn to move forward.

The thing that Johnny picked up on almost immediately was as he kept the window down, Finn didn’t look at him — for not a single glance was spent in making sure that Johnny knew he was only doing this for the hell of it, to introduce him to the world of street racing.

No hard feelings, right?

He wasn’t too sure about it as he immediately received a hand on the driver’s door and paid attention to the ceremonial torch barer, looking down at him. It was obvious Finn understood the rules, given he knew the place, or so he assumed. Only logically given he didn’t go over to Finn’s car first.

“Do not slow down unless you hear an audible beep or there is traffic in your way, even if you two are still racing. So I suggest you be quick about your game strategy.” He stated before pausing as he looked between the two of them. “You’re also being watched at every bridge you pass. Don’t fuck up, but also, don’t play dirty.”

So they knew about the crew with the black cars hanging around in the car park that Kyle told him about. As Johnny nodded in understanding, the man looking him in the eyes for a few longing seconds before he moved towards the front of the cars, only to have Johnny look over at Finn once more.

And not once, by the seems of things, Finn hadn’t looked at him a single time since he’d looked over before. Was threatening for them to leave his sister alone all that it took for them to finally start burning bridges?

Contemplation loomed in his mind again as it all came to a stop as the ceremonial torch bearer looked at his watch.

Tick, tick, tick.

His eyes glanced at the wheels of the cars, at both drivers, and then right behind them as he raised his torch.

Johnny looked over at Finn once more.

Still no glance back.

It all solely relied on a moment of who was faster at response, who could get out of a standstill faster.

And then the torch came to life.

Within seconds, Finn’s car came roaring to life as it sprinted off the line, moving with ease all the while. The black beast lurched off the line.

Not the time when he needed all the power in the world, and now, more than ever, it was even more difficult as Finn got further away, and in mere milliseconds too.

20, 30, 40. Next gear.

It wasn’t going fast enough for Johnny’s liking, as he started rocking in his seat, the seatbelt the only thing stopping him from practically getting out and pushing the thing himself.

“C’mon ye wee gobshite!” The Scot yelled out as he felt the car slowly come more and more to life, in its proficient way. But it was nothing like Finn’s car, something that was eating up the road like no tomorrow, now at least four semi-lengths in front of him as the yellow needle gauge moved, in what seemed to be an ever slower and slower pace.

But it was moving, and Johnny felt it slowly coming to life.

It was at least by eight seconds that Johnny now started to feel what was becoming, just what this thing was hiding as now, the negative distance between him and Finn, was now starting to ever slowly stop, and much rather gain distance instead.

As it built up, the power started to seep into Johnny’s veins, felt as if he were entirely under control of the entire thing, like it was a high-speed train, all under the guidance of the leather steering wheel that he gripped, under his hands. 

And the best bit of it all? It wasn’t stopping, it was just going and going, the moment he went to correct was the moment that eighty miles soon launched into one hundred, a surprised little beast this thing was and all Johnny could think of was the one thing the dealer was saying.

Thing becomes the equivalent of one of them jets, ya get what I mean?

It soon dawned upon Johnny just how much power he had in comparison to everything else, because now, he was finally catching up to Finn. Even as Johnny winced and realised he didn’t have one thing on:

His headlights.

Making sure that he wasn’t going to crash the thing at such a high speed, a gripped arm made sure to keep the wheel exactly where it was, all the while he fumbled along the dashboard for a certain and particular dial.

With a flick of the lights, it was like he’d entirely surprised Finn, caught him off guard with the way he immediately looked in the rear view mirror and looked right at his dash.

And what did Johnny do? 

He moved into the lane of Finn’s, watching as his car seemingly trembled under the pressure of something so much more powerful than what it could conceive, but yet, all he did was just shift into the lane beside him and take off with the windbreak that he had. And finally shifted past Finn.

An inch, a car’s length and in eventuality, Johnny was finally a truck’s length behind him as he saw the first bridge whiz by, and though a blur, he saw someone sitting there, watching them, not excited about a midnight chase between two people in metal boxes. Obvious that he was keeping track of the race and nothing else.

But then, as soon as the truck length came, the distance between Finn and Johnny was slowly becoming more and more closer, if even it is harrowing slow and ever subtle manner.

Johnny tried with all his might to press his foot to the floor all the more, giving her what she had, but he couldn’t, as he looked down, he only saw two further gears — ones that wouldn’t help him. He had to keep it clean, and though Johnny could do that, he was running out of options as the distance grew shorter, and the speed slowly inched forward.

Even as he checked in the mirror, Finn’s eyes never once diverted to Johnny or his car, as if he was on autopilot, like everything was riding on this, and yet somehow, Johnny knew something was shifting around them in this very moment, even if Finn probably couldn’t feel it. And all he could do was get to the second bridge, even as his hands gripped hard enough to turn white and hold on just for that moment longer.

And with a second bridge passing, and Finn right on his tail, he still didn’t hear an audible beep alongside the road noise, the sound of the engine going full speed, or even the gearbox, which sounded close enough to a point where it was going to fucking explode. 

Something was heavily wrong with the way that this car operated, and Johnny, though he could tell given it was slowly diminishing back to where he was at launch, still wasn’t giving up. And it seemed that although the car itself was giving up, something in that moment, even as Johnny looked to his side again, tired of Finn’s Subaru now in view, made Johnny hold on for just a little longer, knowing that it wasn’t going to give up on him just yet.

What he wasn’t aware of in that moment was just how hard Finn’s Subaru was going. Almost hitting the limit of 120 miles an hour, Johnny’s was barely struggling to get there, even if it had just 20 more miles to run through, and as Johnny looked to the side, he finally saw movement, even if fickle, from Finn.

Sneering.

The bastard was hanging on a winged prayer, believing in it all that the thing could do it, but Johnny’s car was still not letting go as lights rushed past them at an almost dance club speed. And just out of the corner of blurred lights, flickering white faded lines.

The third pedestrian bridge had come into view.

And yet, Finn was still too close for his liking, almost beating him out. Johnny was trying to subtly move more from the car, seeing if he could extract more from it. Nudging the speedometer with his sheer weight.

Nothing.

“Come on girl, ye got this,” Johnny hushed out, his hands locked so tightly on the wheel that if he were to avoid something, it would be all too late, even in speed alone, to miss it. 

The third bridge was inching closer and Johnny was now starting to loose speed all the more. Not by any great means, but one that had him slightly in a panic. 

Panic was in the fact that Finn was now wheel to wheel with Johnny, and somehow, a Subaru Impreza was just about to beat him, beat him out of £700 and probably put him in a hell of a lot of trouble with his sister.

And then, Johnny started screaming as his arms shook at the steering wheel, as in mere seconds, the cars inched closer and closer towards the bridge.

Three beeps, just loud enough, were heard through the car, and Johnny slammed his foot on the brakes almost immediately, feeling the car heavily jitter as he fought to control it. Finn’s car flew forward as red lights blazed past Johnny’s face in a hurried motion as Johnny kept as straight as he could on the road, all the while the needle came crashing down as he kept his eyes on Finn’s car, slowing down enough, but still going. 

They weren’t supposed to stop on the highway.

Johnny put his foot on the accelerator in quick succession as he launched it back to 60 and followed Finn in just where they needed to go as Johnny calmed down from the high he was concurrently feeling, and yet, neither of them knew who had won.

That was the element of surprise, Johnny supposed. That way it was never a shock to those that had close enough cars, but knew who won fair and square, who, at some stage had semi-lengths between them, like Johnny did earlier.

And it was of no surprise that just around the highway bend, an exit was set to meet them, as they saw a flashlight flick on and off in a second pulsing motion.

This was where they were to regroup — act like they hadn’t even been doing something illegal to begin with.

It was short, simple, and they were all green as they entered the exit ramp and turned to the right as Johnny’s eyes lingered on the man walking across the now deserted intersection as if the place wasn’t even lived in.

One of the guys, who seemed way more friendly, poked a thumb at a spot for them to pull over, and they followed through as the guy went over to grab what seemed to be a hefty laptop — another ThinkPad, Johnny assumed.

And just as he ever casually walked up to Finn’s driver’s side door, he left his laptop on the hood of Finn’s car as Finn followed in succession without having to be asked as he handed his tag over to the guy, Johnny, picking up on this with ease. Quickly did the same as he turned off the car, placing it in park, grabbing the tag and left the car door open as he took the keys with him before moving over to the man, handing him the tag as the sound of a ticking hard drive that he was all too familiar with echoed on the now seemingly warm sheet metal of the car hood as the engine rumbled.

There was a quiet hum in the street around them as the world came to a halt, the sound of overhead street lights and quick succession typing came to a halt.

Everything was a hell of a lot quieter when Finn wasn’t talking, even if Johnny was trying to grab his attention to look over at him. He still had his eyes on that laptop.

“Alright Finn, there’s your tag, time results are in.” The guy stated calmly before he clicked on Johnny’s. Only to get a chord sound in response.

“Who’d you get this tag from?” The guy asked as he looked over at Johnny, quickly lifting the laptop as he made sure not to scratch Finn’s paint as it revealed a message on the screen.

Error: The specified individual cannot be located in the database. Verify the name and attempt again.

Johnny looked over at the screen as he came to realise two things, one of which had to do with what was going on.

“Uh, Finn gave me the tag…why?” Johnny questioned until the guy stopped in his tracks, his eyes looking over at Finn’s as he sighed.

“Finn, this is the third time. You know the rules-”

“Yeah yeah, I know, just- tell us the time, would ya?” So he finally spoke, but just not at Johnny.

“I need to create a name and various other things in the database first, hold on.”

Now was Johnny’s chance to ask just what was on his mind as he saw the guy’s desktop screen.

“You know who that Ford Falcon belongs to?”

The guy stopped in his tracks as he looked over at Johnny.

“Yeah, Ghost.”

“And who might he be?”

“Someone you’ll never meet if you lose. What was your name?”

“Johnny MacTavish.”

“Well, Johnny,” the man said as he looked behind him and looked at his car, typing it in rapid succession before continuing the conversation. “I suggest you don’t dig around Ghost’s ordeals; he hates it when people do that, knows about it too, and when he reveals himself, he will. He’s one of the big bosses here; make sure everything goes smoothly. He only allowed me to take a photo of his car because he knew I was good with taking photos of people’s cars. One of the jobs I have around here.”

There was a beat of silence before the guy handed back his tag, and Johnny only stuffed it in his pocket because he wanted to finally find out just who had won.

“Finn Brennan, three minutes, seven seconds, thirty-four.”

There was a reason why he did that, and Johnny’s lingering fear had him thinking otherwise about the timed result.

𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗗𝗔𝗬 𝗡𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗜𝗡𝗚 — 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗙𝗢𝗨𝗥

It all started with a simple text message to Finn.

Meet @ the car park, CU @ 9:30.

That’s all sometimes — both men had to say to one another as a simple response — no reply, nothing, but they’d still show up, even if there were subtle tears in the tread that brought their friendship together to a fraying state.

And during that week? Johnny worked harder than he ever had, all to make the car less of a contamination unit and more of a clean, non-possible drug hauling vehicle that a university student could’ve bought with ease, if they were wise with their money, which many weren’t.

Upon closer inspection, a scratched rim, a long scratch along the pane that, until close-up inspection, lingered on it, and some seriously dirty seats (which, to John’s surprise, broke one of the vacuuming machines as he pretended that it already was before he touched it) left the car relatively in a better state, alongside the small dangling pine tree that was labelled ‘New Car Scent’ on the rear view mirror as it dangled violently from the speed bump they moved over as John gripped the steering wheel. 

It took him a hell of a long time to realise how massive this thing was, in all aspects, even a week on.

The best thing about it, though? Mairi was enjoying how cool it looked, and that made Johnny chuffed as he watched her wandering eyes take in the new car around her.

Johnny, of course. Did make Mairi giggle as he placed his foot on the accelerator as the car growled to life, even though his sister, much to her complaints, yelled out his name in panic as he went 60 in a 30 in a small stretch of road that was quiet enough to safely do it, and by god did it do it as Johnny still felt the adrenaline rush through his hands as they pulled up to the primary school.

Well wishes, ruffles, and hugs from an older brother were all that were needed as John watched her run off to her friends, eventually getting to the moment where he was driving his sister in silence as the weeks’ Top 40 filled the silence of the cabin.

“So, you met up with Finn, I noticed.”

“I see it’s bother the middle child hours.”

“Oh, piss off with that, would ye? Johnny MacTavish wouldn’t have the overwhelming desire to buy one of these things unless someone put in a good word, like Finn.”

“He’s still wondering if you’re single.”

“Do not try to change the subject here.”

John splayed his palms out on the wheel as he snickered and pulled a face that his sister knew too well what he was about to do.

“You’re the one changing the subject and dodging his advances.”

“Fuck sake, ye idiot.” 

“I think he really likes you.” Daggers were a well-regarded gift sent on Johnny’s way as he tried not to laugh.

“With the way that he tried to flirt with me? Can show what a fist to the face can do if he even tried it again.”

“Maybe I should set you two up.”

“The cunt doesn’t have a personality beyond a broken fucking soup stick, and he reeks of whatever the hell you smelled like when you came back home, besides the weed.”

“Lynx Africa?”

“Maybe, smells like a bloody rotting fish anyway.”

“So that’s what the smell is around him.”

An exasperated sigh left Lisa’s lips as she shoved his shoulder. “Dumb as rocks you are, my dear baby brother.”

“But ye wouldn’t have it any other way.”

A more than rough bump was all that gave indication of buildings that Lisa and Johnny MacTavish had made it to class, and quite a few people looked on as they saw just who’d rolled up in a brown Benz with a stature that made it seem fresh from the factory rollers and not almost ten years old at that point. 

As Johnny carefully parked, making sure not to hear a horrible crunch from any part of the car, a light curse came from his sister as Finn showed up just right on time, as if Johnny was sticking out like a sore thumb, and sort of was given just how out of place the car was in a sea of Astras, Barinas and if they were lucky, a Range Rover or two.

“Lisa! How’s my gorgeous foxy thing doing?” And though Johnny was disgusted at the comment made towards his sister, maybe even willing to step in, he knew Lisa, every single time — rejected his advances.

“Good, how are your nostrils? Still able to smell anything?” 

“What?”

“Bummer, it’s made him deaf too,” Lisa simply shook her head in faux pity as Johnny smiled at his sister’s antics. “See you later, Johnny.”

“Love you,” Johnny called out as a bare second later — Finn suddenly launched the Scots arm in a proud glee with a hushed whisper.

“You got a fucking Mercedes?!”

“Yeah, I just thought it looked cool, I mean-” He never did get a chance to explain himself around that man, something about the way he often jumped into a conversation, leaving only seconds to gather thoughts before it was onto another subject, often leaving Johnny in a state of pure confusion. 

“Cool?! You understand what the hell you’ve bought into, that thing’s a beast, and it’s only got four cylinders.” 

It suddenly made Johnny hesitant to even further that conversation and have a lingering thought that maybe he shouldn’t have revealed the car to begin with. Even as two other guys, Johnny nor Finn having no idea, nodded over at his car — it had obviously drawn some attention to him unknowingly and Johnny wasn’t liking it for a man who kept to himself.

“Nice car, bruv, you looking for a dash tonight?” Confusion struck the Scot as he looked over at Finn, before Finn only looked back at him, wondering if he’d caught on.

“He’s asking ya if you want to race, ya numpty,” Johnny’s jaw became slack in movement as he looked between the three men in sheer confusion. Why would he want to do something in a car like this? If he did, he would’ve used Finn’s car, or something a little more…race-worthy. “Yes, he does.”

An immediate turn of the Scot’s head towards Finn had the Irishmen smiling before one of the two guys turned their backs and walked off, the other soon obviously following.

“See you round then, you know where.”

All hell broke loose from the moment they were out of the earshot of the two.

“Finn, you did not just set me up tae race this thing?” Johnny gritted as slightly bared his teeth towards the man, as Finn responded with a panicked splay of hands.

“Hey! They came to us, I suppose that’s the luck we need, no?”

“We?!”

“Oh, calm down, ya giant baby, your car’s fine enough as it is,” Finn commented as he kicked the tires. “She’s passed the MoT, right?”

“Barely, the tyres are seconds away from balding and I only have eight hundred pounds left.”

“Well then, how much are a bunch of tyres for these things?”

Johnny just rolled his eyes with a sigh and started walking to the back door and grabbed out his bag, closing it as he placed the key in the car and turned it before it locked, only to start walking off as Finn realised he might have said something wrong — and he did, as someone who raced and knew tyres were of a more fickle matter.

“You should know how much they are, your shit-box chews through them given how many times you said you’ve run through them.”

“I only spent about four hundred on mine, that’s unless you’re looking for the really expensive ones then yeah, it’ll set you back that much, Johnny.” And yet, he still ignored him, all to a point where Finn grabbed him by the shoulder and stopped him, finally turning around and giving him a look as the Irishman fished out a few things from his pocket.

A white plastic tag with a suction cup sitting on the back of it made its way into the tanned Scot’s hand as he looked over at Finn with detest — he’d persuaded him in. Given the two people were still around, it was obvious they were waiting on Finn.

“Everyone gets this tag to put near the top of your windscreen when you race, it pings back to the tag we have in a certain location your time across an artificial finish line and sends it back to the computer who had the faster time, given we can’t have someone out on the highway in the middle lane, or well — two anyway.”

And then he gave him a card, seemingly to a garage that obviously, where Finn had gotten tyres from. It was a place just over from the meat shop that had caught his eye, just near Aldi.

“Here,” Finn spoke as he cleared his throat. “When you get there, go and ask for Bruno. He’ll tell you what’s going on with her, and you’ll need that eight hundred for fuel.”

It seemed as if there was a spark in John’s eye. Humour him, what could truly kill him, other than high speed, of course.

“You owe me, John MacTavish.” And just before he completely turned around to face his back toward the Scot, he gave him one little inkling further of information. “Oh, I’ll text you where it’s starting out. See you then.”

It was with the realisation of this that John’s mind was anything but honed in on his university classes as he formulated a plan in his mind about just what the hell was going to happen, tapping his pen against the paper as he looked at the bird of science formula. Sure, he had figured that bit out long ago, knowing where it might end up, correcting his mind in its mistake, but only knowing that, by the teaching method, it probably wasn’t going to end up possibly causing the campus building to melt down.

“Mr. MacTavish,” the teacher called as Johnny was suddenly pulled out of his thoughts.

Go get the tyres changed during lunch, go grab the meat, come home, drop it off to ma. Get back to class, though you’ll be late, maybe get fuel - yeah, fuel is a must.

“Only a head student with such a mind like yours would know — what’s the equation for the redox reaction taking place in the galvanic cell?” The teacher was standing there, waiting for his answer as one student cleared their throat.

“It’s-” He only had one shot.

“Zinc is oxidised at the anode, losing electrons. The hydrogen gains electrons and reduces itself to H2 gas at the cathode. That would mean it’s something about zinc ions and hydrogen gas being produced, right, sir?”

“Hmph.” His teacher dismissed, “Keep daydreaming like that, MacTavish, and you’ll eventually have the rug slipped right out from under your feet. Understood?”

“Aye, sir.”

It was about the only moment during class that stood out entirely to him, the second one of today as his brain went into autopilot, writing down the homework sections that were asked of him in the weekly handout of printed booklets of paper he got, all in the name of making sure he understood just what was going on with the classes that his mother and he were currently bleeding money for. 

So when he got out of the car at the repair shop, with a man that only seemed to fit the description of who Finn called Bruno, a man who seemed beyond his years and dressed like the place wasn’t two infringement notices away from getting shut down as he wiped grease from his hand with what seemed to be a cut from a kitchen towel — however professional.

“What can I get yer?” John’s nose wrinkled for a split second at the mere presence of him as his voice indicated one thing, he smoked, and for way too long too.

As he fished out the card and handed it to Bruno awkwardly, the man seemed to chew on the side of his cheek as if it were a piece of chewing gum as he suddenly looked up at him, as if Johnny wasn’t the one who would’ve been doing the same if given the chance.

“Nice car ye got,” as he started taking a walk around it. “Tires are big enough to keep the bumps out of the cabin, not thin enough to where you’ll pop if something hard enough hits ‘em like those new ones.”

John kept his eyes trailed on the man as he examined the ever-gentle brown golden flicker of the paint as he nodded and squatted down to look at the tyre size.

“One-eighty-fives, sixty-five, fifteens. Think we got ‘em in stock, Pirelli’s if anything.” 

And cue the lost Scottish man with no idea what he’s saying as the man came up to him.

“Yer got this voucher from Finn right?”

“Aye.” The bastard had just tried to upsell him on the most expensive tyres to give him payback for one-upping him unknowingly with the Mercedes, nothing surer.

“Well, Pirelli’s are some of the best in the industry, that’s your tyre size though, so make sure you remember that, write it down somewhere, put it in your phone’s voicemail or somethin’.”

Johnny went to reach for his phone but was only stopped by the man in the process.

“It’s on the house, just make sure you lose against him.”

⟡

It was nice, this once. Not having the half-cold slop of a mystery meat bacon and egg sandwich that made John wonder if it was actual bacon, some form of pork or something else that made it seem like pork — all the while a half-cooked egg and a teeth-breaking English muffin greeted his mouth that not even two coffees nor water could ever get the taste of such a disgusting atrocity out of his mouth.

It did, however, give John a proper view of the Blue Falcon that still remained out front of the meat shop, able to take it in for its entire worth and note the small details. Not a speck of dust had seemingly landed on it and if it did, with how curvy the thing was. It seemed like it would fall off it — but what took his attention was his inability to move off of the license plate. 

V820 GHT

Be it sheer luck that he got that plate or even by a custom means. John knew without a doubt it was to grab people’s attention, but the only question that fell as he finished off the rest of his coffee and by a simple mark, a better Egg and Bacon muffin. Who owned that Falcon?

He didn’t know what to do with the rest of his time waiting around as he eventually went into an op-shop to check out what they had in the book section other than the creepy dolls and old children’s toys that gave John anything other than a quiet and peaceful feeling that a little shop that seemed hidden in the middle of a shopping strip, had.

And it got to a point where John sighed and gave up after he saw way too many copies of Stephen King and not enough from small little authors who had enough of a story to tell about a small little murder in a town that turned out to be part of a bigger plan in a later book. Eventually finding his feet stumbling back to MacGregor Meats, and eventually seeing that familiar blonde-haired man chopping away at this time, what seemed to be pork.

And as the doorbell chimed, the man turned his head, not enough to see just who it was, but enough to let whoever had come in, that he was paying attention to his surroundings. 

“Be right with ya.” The male voice spoke calmly.

Chop

“Take yer time.”

John saw his entire stature stiffen — it was the Scot again, and though it seemed he wasn’t entirely happy with his presence, it seemed that he didn’t entirely enjoy it either.

Chop

“Looking for the lamb pack again?”

“Barbecue pack this time, also wondering who owns tha’ Falcon out front.”

…Chop

“Wouldn’t know.” Back to square one.

“Well, you think I couldn’t talk to the manager or-”

BANG

Johnny almost jumped through the roof as the blonde male wearing a mask slowly turned round and looked at him.

“Stop asking about the Falcon.”

“I just want to-”

“Stop. Asking.”

“I just want to know who races it.” Johnny demanded with clarity. “There’s a tag in its windshield. I want to go against him.”

There was a twitch in his eye as the man shook his head, almost in disagreement before he turned around and placed the knife down, going around to wash his hands as he made John stand in silence. Had he really pissed him off that much about questioning him? He didn’t know as he came back and shifted out a meat pack onto the bench before it and grabbed at the plastic film to wrap it up.

“So?”

“Told ya to stop talking about it”

“So - you own it?”

“Wouldn’t know.” He kept his eyes trained on the meat as he carefully placed the film over it, cutting it at what he thought was the right amount as he lifted it up and pushed it firmly against the bottom of the box to make sure it was stuck to it.

“So you don’t drive?”

“Can’t say.”

It was a drier and drier conversation that John was having moment by moment as he gritted his teeth in frustration as the meat pack was now placed on the surface next to the cash register as John naturally beckoned him over.

“Thirty-eight seventy.”

John fished out his wallet as he handed out a fifty-pound note over to the man as he grabbed his change, blindly doing so as he kept his brown eyes squarely on the Scot’s own ocean blue ones as he handed his change over, only ever looking down to place it in his hand as a subtle known mark of respect.

“Can I at least get your name?”

John could see him think about that question for a few seconds, almost deciding to almost say no at the last minute, of all things, until he spoke up.

“Riley.”

And of course, John’s phone had to go off just as he was about to say his name back as he nodded. Having to take the call as he quickly hurried off, meat pack in one arm all the while grabbing at the door to try and answer the phone.

𝗚𝗘𝗥𝗠𝗔𝗡 𝗪𝗘𝗘𝗗 — 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗛𝗥𝗘𝗘

It was at 1 pm on a Monday afternoon that Johnny, out of sheer boredom due to a class recap and what was focused on, decided to skip classes for the rest of the day, citing only a recap on what was learnt. Having known his teachers’ habit of once an exam was done, they would go into a full-fledged two-day recap of what the work was about and just what to expect going on. Johnny, of course, knew what the next subject was with his science course: chemical reactions.

Though excited, playing noughts and crosses with a bunch of car listings and a pen seemed to take his mind to other places as he sat on the public tram, in a window seat, as he looked within the general region of Oldham, at the cars listed. Though only ten within the region, it was enough to work for Johnny. Though three options were so far out, two had caught his attention. Maybe it was the fact that they were flashy, or that they spoke to Johnny more so than a white Vauxhall Astra. Johnny tapped his pen against the paper and the picture that housed a red E30 convertible. Great shape, seemingly, but high kilometres. He knew without reason that this was not good for cars like this, because it usually meant it was driven off a cliff, so to speak. And that’s what was itching at John MacTavish’s mind as he approached closer and closer to Shaw and Compton as an elderly lady smiled at him, pulling him away from his thoughts as he nodded and smiled back.

It was quite a bit of a walk, sure, as he tugged his bag pack a little tighter to his chest on the warm day. All he had to do was go and knock on the door, approach the owner who was selling the car, and see what they had to offer, because though offering five thousand pounds for it, the original owner might, just looking at Johnny alone. Put a personal hike up on it with that Mohawk alone. But sometimes, a gust of fate rolled through, and as Johnny’s eyes settled in on the bright red of the BMW, he realised the photo was in its good angle.

As he looked back at the magazine, Johnny had seen that in fact it had been taken on its right side. The left side, however, that stood in front of him, as he looked at it down from the street, was rusted. The door had seen better days and the window was seemingly missing from the passenger door, although he hoped the owner had forgotten to wind it up. But all Johnny did was suddenly place his magazine against the fence and pull out his pen as he placed the cap in his mouth as he looked at the image and sighed as he crossed it out as he looked at his, hopefully, last option.

A Brown Mercedes 190E, and only with 78,000 miles on the clock. Going for seven thousand, maybe this would be his luck, or maybe, as he stuffed the pen back in the lid and closed his magazine with a sad look in his eyes about the state of the car, the very same fate he was about to suffer though, only with another German giant.

It was a pain, having to travel from place to place with public transport, openly knowing that he could’ve taken his car, but one of John’s fears was that if he’d rocked up in something like the 205, much like mohawk on his head, they’d also charge him, more than likely offensively for wanting a car of such extreme measure compared to something so minuscule and stupid. That’s why when he eventually got off the tram, and to a town past Oldham called Failsworth, he was starting to second-guess his choices in even stepping foot in the place as he got deeper and deeper into the nest of small homes and a street that – to his dismay – had to walk down just in order to find the damn thing. But that’s the beauty about a mess of hay, you are eventually going to find that needle you were looking for, and by the gods on John MacTavish’s side did he ever.

In its initial stance, the Mercedes was just calmly sitting there as he flipped to the page as it was advertised. Curious eyes flicked back and forth from the page and to the car, with seemingly no discrepancies. So maybe something was wrong on the inside. Comparing it to his Peugeot, he stepped forward towards the owner’s front door, knowing that if he were to take a chance on it, it was going to land him in a better spot than the 205, even if the thing was, and without little to no knowledge on John’s part, a quicksand pit. 

It took a while after John knocked on the door for anyone to answer it, but by the sound of a dog barking, someone had to be home as he heard someone yelling in response to the dog. John raised his brows in a subtle manner in the thought that maybe he was going to be in for more trouble than he was truly asking for. And he was, as the owner opened the door and…

It was a fucking drug dealer.

“Whatchu want, bruv?” The man asked as John tried not to be knocked out by the sheer smell of two things — Lynx Africa and the pungent smell of weed, stepping back as his eyes began to water.

“Uh, well, ah was wondering about th’ Mercedes for sale over there.” It was dead obvious that the man was fucking high with how relaxed he seemed to be as he opened the door and almost stumbled out of it.

“Yeah, oh yeah, dat fing,” he giggled as John raised a brow in confusion. Maybe it was best if he came back another time. “How much you want for it, bruv?”

“Ye’r serious, ye sure ah shouldn’t just—”

“Whatchu do for a livin’?” The Scot swallowed down any last remaining saliva in his throat as it turned to a desert, muscles tensing as he wondered about the guy’s next move, if he was gonna try anything.

“A’m a university student”

“Shit, that right, bruv? So ‘ow about I hook you up wit one ‘ah them sick ‘welcome to uni’ discounts, betta’ than the tosser in Downing, yeah? How much was the car again?” 

“Seven thousand”

“Five and we got a deal, yeah, bruv?”

John looked him in the eyes; the guy could immediately tell about his nervousness standing around him. 

“Ye’r nae trying tae, ye ken, scam me or anythin’?” 

Whatever he was trying to intend in seriousness was never in that dealer’s eyes, as he seemingly laughed off any worry that the young Scot might have about being scammed.

“Why would I scam a good kid tryin’ get ‘is grades up, bruv? You got the five-k or what?”

With slight hesitation, and a fool for doing so, Johnny took his bag off and unzipped one of the pockets, revealing the money all neatly stacked in thousand-dollar piles. As he looked around and handed it over to him, before he looked around with the drug dealer, suddenly looking at his body language and squinting — he wasn’t thinking he was an officer or something, right?

“So, whit a’m ah needin’ tae dae tae modify th’ thing ta’ make’ it go quicker?” Johnny cleared his throat, a chill running down his spine as he tried to seem confident, more confident in the dealer at least with the way he was balancing.

“This thing? Don’t need a thing, just give it some time, bruv. Thing becomes the equivalent of one of them jets, ya get what I mean?”

“Aye, need any work dane oan her?”

“Air filter, maybe a new back seat after a bird and some good time, ya know what I mean?” He laughed as he slapped his back. “But that’s about it, innit.”

Deep cleaning of the back seat was the mental note John made as he laughed, awkwardly, and looked anywhere but at the man and back onto the car.

“I trust her with you bruv, go ‘ave fun with her, yeah?”

“Aye, wull dae” John said.

How John MacTavish got away with a two-thousand-dollar discount on a car bewildered him as he sat at the main road and waited for traffic — though there were more issues than the drug dealer had initially let on, like the oil level, being a hell of a lot lower than he’d like it to be, and the car smelling like weed and other things that he had to leave the window open for. Everything seemed just about fine with it save for a few engine lights that he had no idea about. But enough, he’d hoped, to get the car back home safely where he could work on it.

Save for the intense panic that John had as the car suddenly shuddered mere seconds away from home, where he struggled to get the car started, panicking in thinking it was dead before it had even reached a safe place, looking in his mirror and hoping no one was behind him. It took him a good minute to get the car started again, and he had no hell of an idea as to why it did other than the rough start it made in an eventual failed retaliation against its owner.

It was no wonder then, that as he pulled into the driveway, he could hear the pained movement of the engine as it shuddered and stopped in its movements before John had to slam his foot on the brake to stop it from rolling down the small incline that would lead to all the more of an issue as he placed the car into park and pushed on the handbrake. He couldn’t even wind up the windows, but he’d hope he’d have the luxury of doing so soon as the clouds above them seemingly held back on a temporary high of John’s happiness of no longer having the small car beside them, which was another thing that John noticed as he stepped out of the car and looked back at the two.

The size of the fucking thing.

Though it didn’t seem much at first, as Johnny eventually stepped back further and took in how, in every form, more massive the thing was, almost doubling it in every aspect as he saw the door to the house open up as he locked eyes with his mother.

“Whit urr ye daein’ hame sae early?” It was seconds away from disaster as it dawned upon him — that he never did once revel that he had the money for a new car, or…that he was getting a new car. “’n’ whose motor is that?”

John remained still as he shifted a hand up to scratch his somewhat lengthening mohawk as his mother looked at him straight in the eyes and then back at the car.

“Whit wis’ th’ rule?”

“’twas cheap”

“Dinnae ye dodge aroond this John Ádan MacTavish, ah tell ye nae tae bring a sports car back hame ’n’ ye did, git in th’ house. Now.”

John sighed as he just did one thing as he walked up to the car and placed the key in the lock, as it locked before his mother decimated him with a look that didn’t even allow him to have any option other than one of a tail between his legs. If she was going to react like this, heaven knows what she’d be like when he told her who he got it off of.

It was an unspoken tension, a look anywhere else other than the eyes of his own mother as he harboured snacks, water or anything that needed to be brought up to his room. The reasoning? The moment John MacTavish balled the jumper up to his nose, the smell of weed had soaked into his jumper, probably his shirt too as he’d realised. His mother probably had caught some of the smell too as he stood there, eyes closed as a deep sigh of contentment moved through the relatively quiet room, save for the hum of the giant desktop computer that showed an open Office Document and a forest green background, almost like the colour of his car.

Right, the car.

He was still yet to talk to his mother about that, when he could, of course, go and look her in the eye. And he didn’t smell like weed.

As he grabbed a bunch of clothes out of his tall boy, as he almost rid himself like someone exposed to a toxic material, Johnny was about to sneak off to the shower and hope that his own questioning would be why he was having a shower twice in a singular day.

But instead, he got his mother just about to knock at his door as he still, panic still ripe in his eyes, as his jaw clenched and went to speak up before his mother looked away out of decency.

“What in the lords name are ye daein’?” His mother questioned.

“Was about to have a shower”

“Ye don’t need another one”

“I do”

“And why would that be?”

Because your son has now become a weed addict, he needs to rid himself of the smell of it.

“I smell like-” his thoughts interrupted him. “Forgot to wash my body today, so I smell like a dead fish.” His mother still stood there, back turned, before he looked down and realised, and closed the door behind him, quickly putting his probable weed-soaked pants on before he opened the door back up and smiled at her.

“I just came to ask what else you’ve been doing besides getting a sports car because sports cars don’t smell like devils lettuce.”

Fuck.

It was better to tell the truth now than to keep it hidden from her as he finally came out of the bedroom – and what better timing than Lisa also showing up as she looked between the two of them.

“I may have bought it off a drug dealer-”

“You did. What?” He saw his sister slowly approach and place a hand on his mother’s back as she moved past and smiled at her, all the while, Lisa tried her hardest not to laugh at Johnny’s situation.

So this was payback for calling her every name under the sun.

“I bought it off a drug dealer.”

Her mother just gave him a look – John was old enough now to not be in serious enough trouble with his mother, but enough to still feel the earth move from under her feet when she spoke in a certain tone, and he had not felt that very same shake from the ground ever since he put putty in his older sister’s hair to ‘make her hair shinier’.

“You certainly hope there aren’t any drugs in it, otherwise that ten-foot pole or whatever your sister was talking about yesterday will be so far up your backside, Johnathan, and out your mouth you won’t be touching any form of car for the rest of your bloody life, do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma.”

“And if I do catch you doing any drugs or smelling like them without an excuse, I believe you best believe I’ll let your sister deal with you personally.”

He gulped at that. He’d seen his sister angry – knew what the MacTavish women were like when they’d had enough, and never once stepped in the path of one because he would be taken with it. But to personally be the target of said path?

𝗧𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗧𝗡𝗧 𝗧𝗢 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗥𝗔𝗜𝗡 — 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗟𝗢𝗚𝗨𝗘

It was strange, hearing that low hum at 2 o’clock in the morning. When all that was around were that of empty streets, barking dogs, and the light rumble of voices. Sometimes becoming uncontrolled bouts of drunk laughter. He never took note of much else, the traffic. The loud sounds of throttled engines as they tore through the sound of quiet. It happened every couple of nights. How they hadn’t stopped it, changed the way the highway structure behaved. He didn’t know.

Because John MacTavish never understood the urge to move faster than the speed of sound. Something akin to a cheap thrill rather than something paying off in the long run. That’s because he was on the scientific side of it, saw that an engine could run down as fast as the car itself. Hell, though he’d played Need for Speed or Gran Turismo, given they were fresh, new. It never appealed to Johnny what a car did. Other than at a certain amount of compression, creating a combusted explosion. And that bit, he was most interested in.

That’s why as his bunch of drunk friends, close to no sailors’ legs, walked along the bridge. With a giggle, one of them made it wobble before one of the girls screamed out to stop, all the while they all laughed. John carried on like a scared cat as the very same one shaking it saw him flushed with panic as he stopped.

“Fuckin’ Lavvy heid” John called out in slight anger before one of the girls came up to him. A way to tease him, but the very same one who screamed out for the guy to stop.

“Such a big baby you are, Johnny boy.” She spoke as the others continued on, hands moved around him as she hugged him from the side.

“‘Cause ye kin talk Kimberly ,” John bit back as he laughed, “ye wur panicking then!”

“No, I wasn’t.” She stated back, trying to brush off the fact that John would, of course, remember that she, in fact, was.

There had been a strange little bout of intimacy between the two over the past couple of months. And both of them could see it . They’d been so close to kissing on many occasions, but in some parts, something would always distract them. Make them turn away or get interrupted by something they didn’t want as a distracting factor.

But Johnny always seemed to dwell on it. As if it was an early warning sign not to get too close to her. But close enough to where she could feel the blood race in her body. Could smell the lingering hints of sweat, a mixture of various drinks that hadn’t settled in on John yet. But enough to where she could single out what he’d had at the party. One of which was the stench of tequila. It was too close for Johnny. Almost like a siren call, that woman. She was trouble, and he knew that trouble wanted him as much as he wanted to sink into the flame of her body.

“You catchin’ up, lovebirds?” An Irish voice called out, loud for a quiet area, no less. John stared at her, looking at her lips, then back at her almost toxic green eyes with the way the two stood there. Had they kept looking at one another…

“Coming,” Kimberly called before she smiled at John. We’ll get back to this, you and I, later.

So Johnny stood there. Rebuilding the pieces of his mind as he figured out what had happened between the two of them. Before he swallowed what little saliva she had sucked out of him from looking at her. When he heard that sharp whine, a loud crackle. He knew what it was, heard it every week. The roads below them were a festering playground of cars. When people weren’t on this section of highway strip at this time of night. And somehow, they’d decided that tonight would be the perfect time to do so. Four hours before the sun always came up.

Lights flickered through metal poles. Two boxes of shaped metal came blazing through at speeds a cop would drool over. As he watched them grow bigger with the shortening gap of distance below him. It was a dangerous dance as the pair of them corrected their steering. The only thing heard were the screaming revs of their motors. The rubber compound of the tires pounding like a cardiac arrest in someone’s rib cage. Passing under the bridge and blowing Johnny’s hair back as he rushed over to the other side of the bridge to see what they were doing, where they were still going . Flames shooting out of the exhaust as one of them finally shifted. And the acoustics bounced along the fence the houses had protected them from that sound.

He kept his eyes on where they’d last seen them, a white car, a small thing compared to the blue comet he’d seen chewing miles up on it but taunting it no less . As Johnny stood there on the footbridge, the smell of petrol lingering in his nose as he heard the sudden rev limit hitting at the sound of a winner . It was a familiar pattern he’d heard time and time again. And this time, he’d managed to see who was behind it. But from that sheer moment alone, Johnny MacTavish’s brain chemistry had altered. Be it worse or better now for the life of a scientific university student.

It soon came to be that after that moment in time, Kimberley had never gotten back to what they were about to do, for she was already sitting on the lap of another boy, the very same Irish bastard that was calling out to them, making out with him in a careless fashion . All the while, they got further drunk around them, and those two took it to the room. And all the while yet, Johnny’s mind flashed to how smooth the cars had been, spoke about it many times to his friend in a heavy Scottish brogue that only another Scot could understand as he let his body send him into a state of memory so deep he didn’t believe it was a dream, where he was behind the wheel instead, but unable to control the car . It took handwork from thought to get something like a comet to dance.

And that thought left him as soon as he’d awoken, his mind not thinking any longer of the girl, or of the race last night, but of the looming and loud crack of thunder in his head from the hangover he had, a simple sign that he’d drunken too much — but what was new . Because even as the thunder rumbled in his head, it took on the shape of the dancing cars, even as he grabbed his phone out and took minutes to get through a menu to find ‘Messages’ as the phone beeped at the warning of low battery, with a simple message shot out .

MK B home soon. J x x

And as soon as he’d sent out a message to both his mother and sister, he’d shut his phone down so he could save whatever battery remained . And as the morning came to, and the others soon came alive, no one reminded him of the Brogue rambling he’d done about dancing cars . Rather, passed it off as a drunken and now, it seemed hungover state that Johnny was in. Hell, even laughed at his drunken state given he’d often act child-like in his drunken reprimands which also came with a god-awful pig-like laugh that was only worsened when it started out in an evil cackle too .

He never believed how bad his laugh was, for though people often spoke about it, there was no real evidence. And that was more than enough for John to not believe it as a firsthand account. Even as they swore up and down that it happened again amongst the brogue rumble of his voice accounting for some kind of dancing . So with a coffee sculled down, a strip of bacon stolen, water and a painkiller taken, John was out as the party had been set up .

So it became no wonder John felt a weird sense of déjà vu wash over him when he walked over that footbridge again. To see it full of life, the 9 a.m. traffic coming through in droves as per usual. Watching as he looked on at cars whizzing by at the typical speed.

Not the speed they were going last night, no, about two times slower, if at best. And even as he stared at all the cars going past, John felt his brain doing something, he didn’t know what, it was still the hangover finally breaking through . But he’d feel lesser pain if so. He didn’t care, for he was too tired, but it was a great observation nonetheless in why cars made such a great deal of, even if it didn’t interest John .

Because then he thought about his own, his shit box of a 205 he had at home, on the precipice of another incident that left the car collecting dust . It was almost as if the car itself had made him personal enemy number one the moment he turned on that ignition. So he too hated how the cars whizzing past carried a wind mixed with that very same fuel that made his brain flash back to the very same moment . If not where he was several hours earlier.

𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗦 𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗣𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗜𝗗𝗜𝗢𝗖𝗬 𝗕𝗬 𝗝𝗢𝗛𝗡𝗡𝗬 𝗠𝗔𝗖𝗧𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗦𝗛 — 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗧𝗪𝗢

John never knew what to make of yesterday. Not only did he take his sister, against her will, on a scenic route, all to look at the car that was out front of the meat shop as they went past. With his sister’s help, he did find out that it was a Ford Falcon. Something far away from the home it called Australia of all places. And when he went to go and look up a few results, found it to be a car that stored some controversy for its looks alone. But wondered about how the hell it got imported to begin with.

No website gave him a clear enough answer, and the weird guy with the mask didn’t even know who it belonged to, to begin with, and it seemed he didn’t care much for it either. So, he thought over dinner, he might go and investigate himself, and though he did that. He didn’t end up very far.

No, John MacTavish ended up back at the very same bridge his drunk body had leaned against as he stood over the railing. Now sober, waiting and looking for something to be happening over a quiet highway. He stood there for a long 15 minutes as he moved back and forth to look between oncoming and outgoing traffic, and the only thing that had caught his attention was a few people who had sport packages, or giant cars that were nothing but built sports cars that had an exhaust to match.

It made the man feel moronic in the hopes that he could see it again, hoping that they wouldn’t give up time before they versed one another and would do it on a completely busy highway, but that didn’t seem to be the case as he walked himself back home and gave wonderment to one thing. If he had any hope of finding it, he needed to delve himself inside it. That’s what his mind had concluded as he looked at his stash of saved money, not enough to buy a proper fancy car, but one that gave the 205 to at least a good home, for someone who, with pity, liked it or a scrap yard that only added to the cost of what would be a new car.

“Johnny, dinner’s duin.” It wasn’t Lisa, but instead Mairi, causing Johnny to crane his neck towards the door and smile at the younger sibling.

“Be right, doon lassie.” He spoke with a gentle smile. Everyone knew that John had jobs while he was studying, here and there, be it a pizza boy or even working in the café at the university, which, appreciated, but no one knew about the extra money he’d been stashing — all seven and a half thousand pounds of it. Money he’d gotten from various paying jobs, money from birthdays and friends that didn’t know what to get him, other than money.

It would’ve been a conversation that would’ve gotten a scolding from Lisa, but one of proud growth from his mother given she was always hounding him to save his money where he could — even if that meant having missed out on Lisa’s birthday present for two years in a row now. But he knew exactly what he wanted to get her, and they still had it in stock, which of course meant he could eye it after he came home with anything else that was better than the 205 begging to either rust away or finally be put out of its misery.

Dinner was a quiet affair other than a shared thanks, a prayer to the Lord as much as Johnny didn’t see the purpose in doing so, though not complaining. And a compliment on how well cooked the roasted vegetables were.

“Lamb haes been cut sae weel, where did ye git this from?” Fiona asked as she looked at both of them.

“Lil’ place next tae Aldi called MacGregor Meats, seemed cracking’ enough. The guy thare wis th’ only one workin’” Fiona looked on in surprise, murmuring about how she would have to check the place out before Mairi chimed in.

“Johnny, ah need yer help wi’ science homework later.” He only grinned as he chewed his food down.

“Whit doesn’t yer brain ken aboot that now?” Johnny spoke as he laughed at the look of mock offence coming from her as a response. Lisa had taught her well, but Johnny did say when she undertook it, to understand. That it was going to be a more and more difficult subject as it went on.

Forces, as a concept, was what revealed itself to be what Mairi needed help with, and Johnny had spent almost an hour and a half with her in trying to understand the entire concept of it. Of course, within the realms of her work, many jokes were pulled on his behalf to make sure she was enjoying the work, knowing John’s own experience with it was more of a pain compared to a laugh at his own expense when he showed off the magic of static electricity.

As he made his way to bed, almost within the realm of half an hour later, mohawk still stuck up in parts due to the static electricity, his phone vibrated on his bedside table as he immediately gave it a glance before going towards it, shirt and jumper coming off in the process as he read through the text message.

Need 2 talk about work, my place 2morrow?

One of Johnny’s university friends, who happened to work with him, somehow, the dumbass was managing to study mathematics, even if his other classmates knew he’d often find very strange and often bewildering ways to cheat, including unchecked variations of copying other students’ work.

Yep, be there @ 8.

A sigh left his lips as he turned the light off in his room and let the darkness pass over him as he got more and more comfortable in his bed and fell asleep until the next morning.

The very next morning, the taste of coffee and peppermint was the only thing invading John’s nostrils and mouth as he walked down a couple of streets that he’d remembered like the veins on the back of his own hand. It was a good thing a majority of the streets were quiet given he could walk on the roads, without panic that someone was coming down the road at a hurried speed. The only thing he could hear as he walked down the road was the sound coming from the very same house he was moving towards. Confused with how audible it was as he inspected the windows, seeing that both bedroom windows were in fact closed, but still able to hear the sound of a recent Destiny Child’s track, and by his friends’ torment, more than like a good couple of hundred times.

“MacTavish!” There was the Irish bastard as Johnny smiled and walked up to him as the man pulled him in for a hug, Johnny doing the same, if only out of cordial courtesy before nodding at his sister’s bedroom.

“Finn,” he countered. “She’s nae playing th’ fresh Britney song?” Johnny questioned, knowing the exact reaction he would get.

“Do not give her any bloody ideas. She’s been playing that bloody say my name song for weeks, god knows I need to hear that oops song again. It’s already on heavy rotation on the music channels. she should play some of dat Toni you like.”

“Ye leave that poor woman alone, aye?” Johnny warned with a chuckle before he threw a thumb in the opposite direction of the house. Before the man nodded and walked back into the house.

“Ma, I’m going out with Johnny fer a bit, yeah?” Always loud he was when he announced himself, as Johnny winced.

See, the issue with Finn Brennan wasn’t the fact that he was Irish, but all over the place. Johnny never knew how to put it, but it was something that came alongside being friends with him. Though no initial complaints, as time had gone on in the four months since they’d met, it had become more of a tolerating relationship that was one-sided, rather than a close and caring one that Johnny was so well known for.

As their feet hit the footpath before them, engaged in conversation about other things other than work, which Johnny was here for, they ended up back at their work, knowing they couldn’t resist how heavenly the food was, and of course, opting to take the amount they chewed down out of their paychecks. With a happy boss and food in front of them, Finn had an egg and bacon sandwich and Johnny a melted cheese sandwich. It didn’t take long before the social conversation started picking up after Finn got out of the bathroom.

“So whit wur ye sayin’ aboot work again?” Johnny asked as he took a big bite.

“As much as you’ll hate me fer it, need ya to take over shift fer me.” Yeah, he did as Johnny immediately coughed in response and Finn almost jumped out of his seat. “Fuck Johnny, ya alright mate?”

“Fine,” another cough “wen’ doon th’ wrong pipe” with two thuds on his chest, Johnny swallowed down the rest of the food that had settled in his mouth before he continued speaking. “Ah ken ye mean well, bit ah kin only take two, a’m needin’ tae study this week wi’ th’ tests comin’ up again this week.” He almost immediately scolded himself when he heard Finn groan with discontent.

“Comin’ from a guy who went to a party a couple of nights ago and fucked Kimberley too, ya bastard.” Johnny furrowed his eyebrows.

“Ah passed oot th’ moment ah git in th’ bloody house, ah didnae even touch Kimberley. A’ we did was get close ’n’ that wis it, ah dinnae even ken whit happened after that.” Johnny threw back and all it got was a nod and raised eyebrows — of course he didn’t believe the story. He would’ve much believed what he was texted rather than what would’ve been considered a horse’s mouth as Johnny took a bite yet again into his toastie and rolled his eyes when Finn wasn’t looking.

“How’s ye sister, she still single?” There was a main grievance that Johnny had, as his body almost frozen into place had it not been for the movement of his boss smiling as she placed down his coffee in front of him as he smiled.

“How many times dae ah hae ta' say Finn, she’s nae interested in ye” John stated as he started digging into his coffee, knowing the exact response he would get out of Finn.

“Oh o’ course she is. Last time she saw me, she was swooning over me.” In all honesty, at this point, Johnny felt like chucking Lisa a message to confirm or deny that and showing it to Finn to prove a point. Much like her ten-foot pole analogy, Lisa would be willing to give Johnny a hug even if it meant she’d be smelling like fish as she exclaimed yesterday. But Finn? She would need more than a ten-foot pole and, given her exaggerations, something akin to the Great Wall of China.

“With th’ wey ye keep swooning over Lisa, mah bloody 205 has a better chance o’ making it past this year than ye dae wi’ Lisa.” And that was a way to change conversation topics off of Lisa, because there was another fault with Finn as a friend when mention of his sister came up, and he didn’t want to relive the way he’d planned a date for her.

“Oh yeah! Dat 205, piece av trash dat t’eng is right?” Finn commented as he took the final bite out of his food. “Say, how about ye take my car for a spin? Might not like it though. She may av done a few uh, pulls ‘ere and there.”

Was that why Finn was asking to have his shifts covered? Curiosity killed John’s mind as he spoke up in interest, even dropping the rest of his toastie to prove how much he was now invested in it. “Ye mean like drag strip races or actual races?”

“Actual races,” Finn confirmed. “Highway races actually, never win anything out of ‘em though.”

His mind flashed back to the white car he saw moving to gain grip on the bitumen surface as its red lights went out and it lost itself to the darkness and dim lights of the highway lights as Johnny looked into Finn’s eyes.

“Ye were there Friday night, weren’t ye?”

“Think I know who was racing den. Had my money down on someone, but I can’t tell ya, not till you have a car.” The bastard that Finn Brennan was as Johnny sighed at the sudden disposal of useless information.

“Kin ah borrow yer car?” Johnny asked.

“Are ya a fuckin’ loonie?” Finn raised his voice as he smiled at the patrons looking on. “De t’engs barely bloody passed an MOT, the tyres are baldin’ worse than me dad’s head and the engines actin’ like a fucken’ diesel and you wanna drive de t’eng ?”

Silence on Johnny’s end as he tried to think of the right thing to say, to even respond to such a thing as that.

“Aye”

“Yer a freakin’ numbskull fa’ even sayin’ that, right, come with me. We’re getting’ ye somethin’, you want homework, I’ll give ye homework” With an unfinished coffee, John tried his best to, without making a mess of it — finish it off as he nabbed at the rest of the this melted cheese sandwich and moved right behind him. Finn never seems to let John live a moment of peace, as both boys hauled out of the café and off towards a place Finn was leading them to.

An awkward girl doing her shift at the supermarket and some flirting on Finn’s part in the mean time had John MacTavish slightly disgusted, knowing he’d seen this being replicated on his sister. He had his mind elsewhere as a sudden hard paper magazine was slammed into his chest with change as it dropped on the floor. Johnny grumbled curses underneath his breath.

“Ya want a new car ye luck is bound to be in dere. God knows I might have a shitbox of a car, but dat magazine never fails,” Finn stated as he raised his eyebrows at the woman at the register as he waved at her and she…smiled? John shuddered at the thought before he moved along and grumbled a thanks, even with the change in his pocket.

“Sae how up-to-date is this thing anyway?” Johnny questioned as they began walking back to Finn’s place.

“Comes out every week. You need to keep atop of what you’re looking for in question. You might find a hunkerin’ SUV, though. If you’re thinkin’ about racin’, I’d say not.”

“Pull o’er th’ line ’n’ run out o’ fuel anyway”

“De fuck did you say?” Finn questioned as he raised a brow.

“Dae nae worry,” Soap replied.

“You Scots are fuckin’ weird with ye accent.” A tinge of irony was in the air as Soap looked over at Finn in front of him.

It was a hell of a walk back as Finn and Johnny spoke about work and of course, Finn spoke about his ventures with women all the while, confirming that his sister was in fact single, to which Johnny only retaliated with an ‘Ask Her’, his response? One of fear, one that would much rather ask the youngest MacTavish man over the two sisters that wouldn't have a bar of the fucker compared to John who was just a level beyond tolerant.

With a bear hug and a hesitant one exchanged on Johnny’s behalf, Finn’s sister had finally changed from Destiny’s Child to none other than Christina Aguilera, as he rolled his eyes at the random belting she could be heard doing, as Finn nodded in agreement before the Irishman walked to his front door and closed it behind him. Leaving Johnny standing outside the front.

𝗔 𝗗𝗘𝗔𝗗 𝗙𝗜𝗦𝗛 𝗢𝗡 𝗔 𝗧𝗘𝗡-𝗙𝗢𝗢𝗧 𝗣𝗢𝗟𝗘 — 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗢𝗡𝗘.

The moment that John Ádan MacTavish stepped foot in his street, it was almost as if he’d moved an invisible tripwire. Attached to the door of his cream-coloured house down the street, squinting as the light of the morning sun all but worsened his throbbing headache, water long gone as he chucked it in a bin near the park that seemed almost a country and a half away as he saw one woman standing miles down the footpath arms crossed around her chest as she stood there waiting. No, his mother had more of a concerned, meeting him in the middle sort of behaviour, knowing he’d spent a well-earned night with friends after completing an exam. A mixture between resentment and knowing he was going to form an aneurysm at the mere sight of who presented themselves in front of John had him wanting to turn around. In fact, he even tried it, hoping that he wasn’t seen. The street before their house would serve a great purpose.

“Better turn right back arund Johnny, before ah stairt running after ye” It was Lisa, and not even seconds into the sentence did Johnny’s mind pound all the more knowing what was about to be around the corner as he gave up, walking back towards the house as he closed the distance between the two of them — swearing that his mind was going to give him the final warning before it burst a vessel at being too close to his sister.

“Th’ fuck hae ye been?” It was silent enough to not cause a scene, but sharp enough to pierce his ears, to awake the entire neighbourhood and look around to see what was going on. At least she had the decency to do that, but not enough to baby him in his actions.

“Loud” Johnny warned as he raised a singular finger to her before it was slapped away, grabbing him by the shirt and trailing him along with her.

“Git inside, ye eejit.” Of course, Lisa was a tough love kind of sister, and as much as he hated it, he at least knew how to handle himself in moments like this, which did, yes, include walking home, with a hangover. “Cannae complain that ye let us ken ye were after a party bit whit th’ hell were ye even daein’ at the party anyway? Ya reek like a deid fish.”

Johnny turned around to look at Lisa like her mere existence was unwanted, even if the same feeling was mutual. As he inhaled the smell of his faded Shania T-shirt, he reeled back in the realisation that he did — in fact — smell like a dead fish.

“Got wasted tae celebrate an exam we passed whit’s wi’ th’ questions, Detective MacTavish?” He’d never hear the end of it if his mother got involved, as he slinked up the stairs, and knowing Lisa, she was more than likely going to, but he knew why. That was the thing with having an older sister like Lisa: he could always keep her on her two feet. And she hated it, as much as she loved him.

“Making sure ye didn’t shag an unlucky lass.”

“Whit’s it tae ye?!”

“Och! For once mah brother was touched wi’ something ither than a ten-foot pole.”

“Away ‘n’ bile yer heid.”

And right on cue, Lisa had a smug look on her face as another voice called.

“John. You apologize tae yer sister.”

Johnny stood there, at the top of the stairs, looking at his sister with mere disapproval as she raised her brows. She’d won for now.

“Sorry, Lisa,” John called before his eyebrows furrowed. “Not that ye deserve it.”

“Heard that ye wee shite!”

“Lisa!” That got John to at least laugh a part of the headache away in the domestic scene before he moved off to his bedroom. A warm twenty-minute shower and an unquestioned two-hour nap later had him waking around midday before he woke up to his mother’s calm knocks on the door — something that Johnny raced to as he placed his shirt on out of decency and a paced time he got to have rather than having his privacy invaded by one older terror from his mother’s womb and a younger one that was, much to his dismay and constant talks on how not to be, learning from her older sister.

As he opened the door to smile at his mother, he was handed a stack of washed clothing that his mother knew he could’ve had done himself as he let her in and he went to place the clothes down on the bed as he sorted through the clothes as he went to begin placing them in their assigned spaces in his tallboy.

“Need ye tae go ’n’ dae some shopping’ wi’ Lisa.” Of course she did, the old witch of a woman loved seeing her two eldest be friendly with each other, that wasn’t the reasoning at all.

“Cannae ah go wit Mairi?” John begged his mother as he gave her puppy eyes.

“Be nicer tae Lisa ’n’ I would’ve considered it, unless you’re dragging ‘er ‘long as well.” Yep — death sentence, in his mother’s form before John sighed as he put his head down and nodded, was he good enough to drive? Maybe he was feeling a bit ill...

“Dinnae even think about getting out o’ it, ye’re goin’ wi’ yer sister.” She pointed at him as she scowled at him before she chucked a finger in the direction of the door. “Ye’r old enough tae handle yer sister, git.”

There was no room for an argument in the MacTavish house once Fiona MacTavish had the final say before she took over John’s duties of placing things back into his tallboy.

It felt like the world, for a moment, was against the man in a house full of women as Lisa stood beside the door and threatened to chuck the car keys in his direction to see if he was paying attention or not. He, of course, was, but it wasn’t without a flinch as she snorted at his sudden jolt.

“Chicken shit, y’er.” It was only a roll of his eyes from Johnny as a response as he took the keys from her and flinched in her direction, which, in turn, got her back.

“Chicken shit, y’er.” He mocked.

The small little 205 could never handle more than one passenger in the car with the way it both leaned in John’s favour and made the man look like a hunkering giant due to his mass in, what could only be seen as a clown car as it moved along the highway — he was yet to get a better car, if his job could only pay a lot more for what he was trying to achieve . And, if it never had an issue to begin with.

“So, whit did happen at that party anyway?” There was the caring Lisa that he knew.

“Finally, th’ black hear’ finally haes colour in it.” That earned him a slap on his arm in response before John finally explained what happened. “Ye were richt about th’ lassie, except ah git distracted by a bunch o’ loud cars.”

As she turned the dial for a part of the heater, putting her hand on the air vent, she grumbled in realisation that — there was in fact, nothing coming from the car at all, even with the fan speed cranked all the way and back again to turn it on and off.

“Ye getting distracted by ‘ther things? Na surprise there”

“Aye, seems tae run in th’ family”

“Shut yer trap”

“Thing hasn’t worked fur ages, ah will gie ye mah jumper when we git there”

“Ta”

She hadn’t, of course, forgotten about the conversation that the two had dropped as he chucked the jumper in her face as she gasped, getting out of the car as he moved to the boot as she took her time putting his jumper on as she scolded him in the mirror, only getting an ever polite smile back as he closed the boot. That earned him another slap on the arm in eventuality as the two got ready to go, and John, was on this time, doing the heavy work of pushing the trolley around as he conversed with his sister, mindful of the early morning crowd that had bustled in at the time.

“How did mah brother git distracted by loud cars?”

“Ah dinnae ken, they seemed, gallus?”

It took her a moment to realise that where he had been the night before, had been filled with many reports in the newspapers about locals, even news casters showing that no cop had once gone to chase after those and that local neighbours were quite tired of hearing them blasting down the highway every night with their engines at ‘full blast’ or, so it had been reported, given some papers had been known to blow things out of proportion.

“Ye mean th’ street racers? They wur th’ ones ye wur sae interested in?”

“Micht o, wit that blue comet an’ all’” A chill went up his spine at the sight and the way his sister looked at him as if it was his mother standing right before him as his eyes settled in for the sudden scolding he was about to get.

“Ah will nae take up ma brother been’ wrapped around th’ pole thank ye, god kens how th’ hell you’d wanna even join th’ forces whin ye kin end up in some identical wey.” She of course had no power to stop him, it was in the MacTavish blood to go and be rebellious, and John, of all people, got a good part of that out of his two other sisters.

“Ah dae need a new car though.”

“Yer nae-” People turned towards Lisa, as if the both of them had been caught red-handed as they moved along, John all the while staring daggers into his sister’s sudden loud outburst. “Yer nae getting an illegal race car, God kens you’d murder ma wi’ a heart attack.”

It was some part of the entire truth though, and John did need a better car than the one he had, and though his mother might die in the process at a car that might have a loud exhaust in the morning, usually, nothing went wrong with them because they were so well looked after. Or, that’s what his mind believed, because there was nothing that seemed to stick out on that car that made it seem to go faster, it just was.

And yet, here he was, thinking as his sister talked, all the while thinking nothing but about that blue car, the comet, he called it. He could never actually put his mind on it as to what it looked like, except it was fast, and had a modified exhaust, because the science side of Johnny’s mind knew that no way in hell was a normal car capable of that unless something had been changed in it.

“Earth tae Johnny?” A voice interrupted as he shifted attention to his sister, now on the left side of him as he pushed the cart along.

“Aye?”

“Gonnae gimme th’ keys?” Lisa questioned as she held out her palm.

“Oh, aye.”

“Dinnae be daydreaming bout the race cars again, Johnny, ah swear.”

“Na!”

“Then whit else dae we hae tae git?”

Silence, on Johnny’s part. Had he been that off in the clouds?

“Eejit brother ah hae” Lisa scolded as she shoved the list at his chest and looked at him. “There wis na lamb in Aldi, sae ya need te go ta th’ butcher. Good luck, ah will nae help ye” And as she began pushing the trolley away to the bay, she stopped in the middle of the parking lot as a car stopped before her. She waved a hand over to Johnny to get moving. A sigh moved from his lips as he looked around.

MacGregor Meats looked good enough?

Hopefully, there wasn’t going to be a cockroach roaming across the floor like there was in his last visit to a place like this. What he was greeted with, but, as he came in was a calm doorbell that rang as he pushed the door open, and a place that looked like, though sure, had seen better days, was holding up in a way that didn’t make the place feel like it was seconds from shutting down, but instead, that an entire family looked after it.

“What can I get you?” A man yelled before he finally revealed himself. Dirty blonde hair, whiskey eyes, a black work apron, and a mask that covered a good portion of his lower face were what Johnny was greeted with as he all but tried to take in the features of the well-built young man and try and order at the same time. How did Lisa even do that?

Johnny stumbled over his words — like a fool — as the man all but raised his eyebrow in wonderment if he was having a stroke or had seen something behind him before he finally spoke up.

“I’ll tak’ a lamb pack,” Johnny spoke.

“Sorry?” The man said, utterly confused.

“I’ll take one of yer lamb packs,” Johnny enunciated.

“Could’ve said that,”

“Aye, ah did,”

“Fuckin’ Scots,” the man mumbled.

Thing was, Johnny had caught that, as a slight smirk moved across his face as he watched the back of the man face him as he pulled, what seemed to be, lamb, towards him . Obviously pulled from a refrigerator as he started cutting into it, though there were packs of lamb already sitting there ready to go, it was obvious that he’d gone above and beyond for John as his eyes roamed out towards the window and glanced at the blue Ford in his line of sight. It looked new. It looked like the blue car he’d seen, was it a new Ford model they’d announced?

“Dae ye hae any idea as tae who that car belongs tae?” John asked before he only got a chop of the knife as a response into the lamb’s flesh.

“English?”

So he was toying with him, and that smirk came back as he did as he instructed.

“Well, I say, good sir, does one happen to have a pinnacle of an idea as to whomst’s vehicle that belongs to?” It was a terrible mocking, but it got a reaction out of him, a glance back, even as he stopped cutting the lamb and got to see those whiskey-brown eyes for a second more, rolling in the back of his head too.

“No. I don’t.” Was his simple answer before he finally chopped a few more times and made a move, ever still as he was to begin with in his movements other than cutting the lamb as he brought parts of it all together before he grabbed some clear food wrap and began placing it over the box.

The way the man carried himself made Johnny see him almost wiser in his years than he was, as if he was a lot older than his own face, wit, body, and looks had even let him. Given the maturity he carried seemed a grade all the mile above John’s own as he turned around and placed the pack, now in a plastic bag and covered in paper wrapping, finally nodding his head over to the counter as he pressed a few buttons as the plastic clattered against the metal.

“That’ll be 70 pounds,” he stated as John handed over the cash before John moved to take the meat.

“Hae a cracking’ dae, aye?” John said before he smiled. If he wasn’t going to understand him, why not walk out with a final hoorah as the man gave him a look of discontentment before he waited for the door to close and for the Scot to disappear.

From the moment John MacTavish’s Scottish blue eyes gazed upwards into the beautiful atmosphere above him, he knew he was utterly and completely fucked. It all started with one moment in time, watching the infamous ‘Ghost’ launch one of their newly brought F-35s testing it out for another squadron, making sure all systems were in check. Watching it from the fences as the utter decimation of their ears thanks to the lack of protection were good faith to the man taking it, for what seemed to be a joy ride. And as Kyle and John stood there, seeing it hovering just mere meters above the runway, their joy was all but uncontainable in knowing just who was behind the sticks.

Conversations were the only thing that took over the engines' mighty roar as Kyle and John yelled at the inanimate object in celebration.

“Ooh yeah! Ooh yeah!” Kyle yelled out.

“Ooh, go ‘un, go ‘un” John egged right back.

And then, just as it pulled up, sure it was now at best pulling upwards of 5 gees, the men on the ground cheered.

“Go on you fuckin’ beauty!” Just as it was making its way further into the clouds, graciously curving its own form into the shape of them. 

They were ecstatic, joyful, even, at least one was, to see a man so tall, almost built like a damn statue from ancient history managing to tame a beast so wild, and wicked. And yet, knowing that it was almost second nature in that man's blood to fly it, because that bastard was the only one allowed, thanks to the great charm of the bastards in the west, to have an F-22 Raptor. The only one in the UK, belonged to a man who had no name, never showed his face to the people he didn’t know, including the two men who stood there on the grassy knoll outside of the airbase cheering him on. 

What a weird shitpot of luck that was, almost as if the gods of fate above had been watching the two men above, seeing them be so supportive of a man who never had the cheers of his fellow squad members, but instead, feared him. Tried to rebel against him, just to get a far enough away distance to stay away from a man and his, as some people called it ‘Raptor’s Ghost’.

Those that had seen it, had been lucky enough to tell the tale, at least, on the side he came back to, fellow squadron and captain, but those who had been on the receiving side of those guns as they lifted from their molded seam, only saw a wisp of a dark gray aircraft, before a fiery explosion filled their cabin.

Yes, there was one thing to be known about this ‘Ghosts’ jet — he’d specified that he must have it in a darker gray. Just a couple of shades darker than what the original metal was painted as. And the thing was? Somehow, amongst his captains ranking, the government and even the fuckers down in Lockheed — they’d said yes to the request. Even if a few bureaucrats in the Pentagon were waving the red flag from the start.

So he guessed that’s what the plan was then, to go and catch a sneak in the middle of the night of what it looked like, though Kyle tried with all of his might to persuade him otherwise, John was dead set on seeing the beauty that stood in the dead of the night in Ghost’s hangar, wielded far away from the rest of the base, but close enough to know that the rest of the team always, haunted by a Ghost, he guessed that’s where the name came from then. Given that this was usually seen beside the B-2, a call sign of Ghost would’ve been fitting for someone in a something like this. And it seemed like fate was tempting him all and amongst this, because, as John approached the hangar, as big as it was, there was a crack left open, not closed, like all the other times he’d passed it in his own jet. Only to then realize this was the reason why they had called him Ghost to begin with, no one thought he was around, until it was too late.

Everyone knew this Ghost, was a guy, they’d heard his voice, never heard him laugh, was only ever a man of a few simple commands and went off when requested. What caught John MacTavish off guard however, was not only the hangar open, but the place had reeked of oil and fuel, only to be diverged its acoustics of the tin metal in the sound of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, a far cry from the throat roar of the hotdogged engines, John could already tell what Ghost had been doing to the poor thing. Either someone had been here recently or there was still someone here, but that never mattered as his Scottish blue eyes once more, got him fucked over, classical music be damned.

The metallic gray was no longer present, much like he had seen on the various photos that had beautifully given the thing a personality of beauty, and yet deadly. But instead, it was given a more, mature grayed look, as if it was a rehashed version of the F-35, the very same one he had been seen in this afternoon in a reskinned jet. Sudden realizations hit the man when thinking in Ghost’s logic, not too shabby for a Ghost when John had realized that much to his enemies disliking, when they suddenly realized that the jet was no longer a most recent US fighter, it was too late to break off anyway.

And much akin to John’s own footsteps, he’d realized that he was pulled in by the absolute sheer squared beauty of the thing and had moved right into the Ghost’s trap.

“What are you doin’ in my hangar?” Ghost lowly spoke, standing to the side, having seen him since he strolled in here. 

“Jesus wept!” John spoke as he suddenly turned around, the closed distance between them was something almost scary at just how close and personal this man had gotten, and all amongst that, he seemingly had the goal to wear a bloody balaclava, all the while wearing a stripped down version of the gear they would have to haul around on their bodies. Was he really that comfortable in wearing the same shit each day? At least the only thing invading his senses was oil and fuel. 

“I said what are ya doing here?” Ghost questioned before his eyes glanced over at the hangar “Squadron leaders gonna know about this,” his voice loomed.

“Sorry,” That’s all the weak bastard had as he tried to pick himself up faster than he could pull back on his own stick. “A’m interested in that piece of art ye’v got there, heard you were the one flying the Lightning around this mornin’”

“So you were the two hanging around the fence”

John stiffened at the sheer mention of that, he’d seen them? He didn’t think he had given the height already gained as he passed the pair of them from the runway.

“Wanted to watch her give her a proper launch, sir” John hesitated as Ghost only snorted and shook his head at the mention of the last word.

“Flight Lieutenant to you” This Ghost guy seemingly didn’t want to have him out of his hangar after all, but there was no doubt that heavy brown eyes were on him, painted darker then the plane before him as his eyes registered on MacTavish’s uniform still barely on given the zip that was seemingly fought with, the sheen of sweat that was just above the ridgeline of his eyebrows gave away just how much he’d been working during the rest of his day, when he seemingly wasn’t cheering this man on, then again. MacTavish did seem like a familiar last name, what could hurt but to take a guess.

“Apologies,” John moved ever so closer to the jet, almost as if he were to go ahead and, to the thought running in the back of Ghost’s mind, steal it. Poor bastard, probably wouldn’t be able to handle the ride as well as he could. “Does that mean I get to call you LT then?”

The cocky chatter over the radio, often with another teammate, only gave Ghost all the more confidence to take that stab in the dark to try and pinpoint just who he was.

“You can, so long as you tell me if you’re the one flying that bloody F-16 around.”

John’s eyes suddenly went wide, and of course, that cocky Brit saw it, and with his own pair too. His soul had actively left his body in the acknowledgement that someone had noticed his maneuverability, everyone else had F/A-18’s. But MacTavish was the one that stood his ground when he said he wanted a former fighter pilots F-16, ready to be given back to the Americans, decommissioned, probably in a scrap heap, and yet, here he was, breathing new life into it and treating it like it had just come off the factory rollers. Though, his only fault that he seemingly had with it, was that of the lack of gun ammunition, paling in comparison to something like the beast that stood before him.

“Uh, and why would tha’ be?” 

Ghost paused, raising a brow in confusion, maybe he was going to have to talk to John’s squad leader, had he really not seen beyond his two feet at just who he had under his wing, the man could maneuver the thing as well as he could like the jet he stood before and maybe, if he ever took the chance (which, in high unlikely doubt he would) he could probably pilot Ghost’s, if not, with just a bigger amount of hesitation.

“Just wanted to give a recommendation to the squadron leader as to who to take under our wing, old talents retiring at the end of the year, figured I’d give whoevers flying that F-16 and the one with the yellow strip along the body of the ‘18 a fighting chance at joining the 141” He brushed it off, like it was a chance to come clean. Ghost knew that MacTavish was the one flying the thing, often put in a good word about it to Price. And Price often agreed, that and ‘Gaz’ who was often his wingmanaccording to Price’s notes were often hotshots, but never in an egotistical, ‘wanting to show who’s boss’ way, it was always one of teamwork, and he quite enjoyed seeing them chant as one of their other teammates took down a target before they did.

“The 141?” MacTavish asked

“Yeah, just need to find out who the pair are in the two jets first” Ghost was toying with him as he finally made a move over to his own, inspecting the various scratches that were seemingly evident in the light, but gave the aircraft a seemingly weathered look, one that, Ghost admired. 

“There a reason why they call you the Ghost?” Quick this one was to change the subject, avoiding it, but copying him all the more in his movements as John did the same, placing a gentle hand along the aircraft as his calloused fingers felt a deep scar along the face of the jet, maybe that’s why he rarely had repairs done to the thing other than ones that were required. Maybe that’s why he wears the mask, he’s damaged, just like the bird before him – but he still flies, still finds meaning in the daylight and blue hues of skies.

“There a reason why you’re dancing around the question?” Their hands moved along the surface of the steel at almost the same time, unknown, but as if they were tracing one another's patterns as the question was left in the air for a bit too long before they finally moved to the nose of the aircraft, having no choice but to look at one another as they did so.

“Could say the same,” He watched as Ghost moved towards him, facing him, how he towered over the man with that stature of power, and yet, the only real dominating power he seemingly had left was his rank, and the jet. Because all the smug bastard did was place his hands behind his back and look down at the Scotsman, as if inspecting him as he did the jet, to see if like him, he too had scars beneath that mohawk and blue eyes that seemingly contrasted ever so beautifully along the dark gray. “What happens if one of us already knows the answers?” 

“Then I guess one of us will have to await the answers of the future, but if they already know the answers, they shouldn’t have to wait too long” They both knew one another were staring, helplessly, but stopping it neither as eyes behind that mask squinted ever so gently. So he did have his scars, one on the chin, must have had a bad accident for it to get that bad, and the blood from it too.

“Then I guess I’ll ‘ave ta’ see me way out of this museum then huh? Wouldn’t want ta make a scene now aye?” John smiled, physically having to retch himself from the spot he stood in, not wanting to move away from the view that was before him.

“Don’t quite appreciate customers making a scene and disturbing the nature of this art” So he wasn’t the only one to quickly move along with what he was suggesting as he followed him, only ever a few steps behind, maybe that’s why he got that name, loud as anything in a jet, then he never exists once the engines shut off.

Ghost eventually stopped following him as John made his way out near the doors of the hangar, lingering around just a bit more before he stopped in his tracks, just maybe, if he really did have the answers, he could see how his future LT would respond. “Don’t think I could handle two pieces of art in a museum, never been able ta handle more than one” He swore up and down he saw the man’s head snap into place about that comment, a slight squint at the body language that John was trying to portray as he moved through the hangar doors. “Have a good night, LT”

“Officer Mactavish.”

Payback time.

“Aye sir?” And they’d fallen into line already, a wingman, of sorts, to a Ghost.

“Call me Simon”

Now MacTavish was standing there, being a complete idiot, baffled by the fact that he, of all people, managed to get into the inner circle of a man named Simon, a Ghost. A snort was then heard through the airy atmosphere as he suddenly turned around and walked back towards the stairs of his office, looking back over his shoulder, leaving him in a scrambled state that was the brain of John MacTavish.

“You’re not too bad yourself,” He paused, “For a F-16 Pilot.”