Call of duty imagines

Soap [you cheater]

The common room of the SAS barracks had seen better days. Faded posters of retired football clubs clung to the walls with unsticky tape, and the battered sofas had absorbed years of sweat, spilled tea, and the collective exhaustion of men who ran on caffeine and spite. But on this particular evening, the room's main attraction was the flickering television screen, where a digital car hugged a virtual track with all the grace of a drunken driver.

"Turn to the left!"

Soap MacTavish's voice cracked through the stale air like a gunshot, his body lurching dramatically to the left as if sheer physical momentum might influence the pixels on screen. The controller in his tight grip received the brunt of his frustration, buttons mashed with enough force to make them whimper in protest.

The car, predictably, veered right.

"Ye absolute—" He bit off the curse, jaw tight, as the vehicle scraped against a barrier with a screech that seemed almost mocking. Sparks flew across the screen, and somewhere in the corner of the room, Gaz snorted into his tea.

Onlookers had long since abandoned any pretense of minding their own business. Price watched from his chair with the quiet amusement of a man who had seen soldiers break under far worse pressure than a racing game. Gaz had given up pretending to read his field manual altogether, his grin hidden behind the pages. Even Ghost, who claimed to find the entire affair beneath his notice, had angled his skull-patterned balaclava just enough to catch the show.

The car spun out. Once. Twice. Then three times.

"Ugh! Ye'r pissin me off!" The controller sailed through the air. Not with any particular aim, but with the pure, unfiltered rage of a man who had survived bombings, firefights, and the relentless Scottish weather, only to be undone by a children's video game. It bounced harmlessly off a cushion and landed in a tangle of wires that had seen better decades.

Soap erupted from the deflated bean bag chair. His exit was less a walk and more a storm, heavy combat boots thudding against the linoleum floor in a rhythm that matched the pulse of his frustration. Each step was punctuated by a sharp exhale, breath hissing through clenched teeth like steam from a kettle left too long on the stove.

The kitchen light buzzed faintly overhead as he burst through the doorway, and the fluorescent hum seemed to mock him alongside everything else. He yanked open the refrigerator with enough force to make the glass bottles inside clink together in alarm. 

"Fucking gamin' system is a cheater," he muttered, the words emerging as a low growl from somewhere deep in his chest. His Scottish burr thickened with emotion, consonants sharpening into blades. "Built-in bloody aimbot, that's what it is. Should be illegal."

From the table, you looked up from your newspaper, old news from a week ago. The sight before you was almost too good to spoil: Soap MacTavish, decorated sergeant, demolitions expert, and one of the finest soldiers in the British military, reduced to a petulant child by a pixelated race car.

"Having fun over there, MacTavish?"  Your voice cut through his muttered curses like a blade through water, light with barely suppressed laughter. You leaned back in your chair, crossing one ankle over the other as you watched the ticking time bomb in human form. Soap's head snapped toward you, and for a moment, his glare was molten. Then something flickered behind those blue eyes; awareness of how he must look, perhaps, or the first stirrings of embarrassment. He reached into the fridge and emerged victorious with a can of beer, popping the tab with a hiss that sounded almost like a sigh.