Call of Duty Oneshots (Mostly Ghost)

delicate.

He promised himself something that exciting yet tiresome day.

A silent pledge he never expected to ever think or say. Ever.

With the memories that would forever be as fresh as the day he got them and the haunting heirlooms that he swore to never pass down if this day came to fruition, he didn't think he'd even live to see a single day of parenthood.

Why would he when his hands were stained red down to the bone? No matter how many times he'd tried scrubbing it away, too much of a close similarity he'd like to admit to the guilt-induced crisis Lady Macbeth had, his skin seemed permanently saturated in the scarlet color.

Those damned spots, however, could not be found in a moment as soothing as this one. Aside from the remnants of old wounds, his hands were clean.

As he allowed tiny fingers to wrap around his one scarred digit.

As he memorized each little toe, the curvature of the nose his child inherited from his own face, and how the blonde tuff of hair matched his late mother's.

As he treated this small being as if the sheer weight underneath something so precious would break the delicate frame somehow.

He'd spent most of his life not allowing love to slip through the cracks of an impenetrable fortress his heart had become, but here he was. In the company of two people he'd now do everything in his power to cherish and protect with every imperfect fiber of his being.

Five years ago he would have laughed in someone's face quite unapologetically if they'd ever told him he'd be in this position. Wife sleeping off the arduous labors of childbirth. Their child's sleeping head tucked into the crook of his arm. Skull mask nowhere to be seen.

His eyes were as heavy as the adoration squeezing his heart, but it was worth every second as he sat rocking back and forth in the early morning hours.

It was then that the promise crept up from the back of his mind, springing a thin line of unshed tears across the horizon of mahogany irises. His throat ached with emotions he'd not felt since finding out - since those two lines popped up on that strip of plastic.

If he had no control over the past, then he would make damn sure the future would be better.

To give them something he never had: a childhood every child deserved.

Filled with love.

Surrounded by compassion.

A sense of...

Belonging.