Wait For Me || John "Soap" MacTavish x OC (Call Of Duty)

2. It seemed more effective than a phone call

Back at base, Soap had retreated into a thick, sullen silence, completely out of character. He had tried to vent that cloud of uncertainty in the gray, empty gym, hoping that the sharp, deafening clang of the metal barbells would drown out some of the annoying buzzing in his head.

He tried running, jumping rope, punching the bag, but he felt absent, unable to make a decision that in other situations had been so natural that it hadn't even dented a fragment of his stolid optimism.

When the black sky, swollen with clouds, oppressed the room beyond the windows, he gave up and allowed himself the luxury of a shower. 

As the boiling water cascaded down in a single stream, pounding his feverish thoughts and melting his tense and aching muscles, he allowed only one thought to make its way through his tangled feelings: he had to draw her. He would let out everything he had felt, and then he would see everything from a new perspective.

Right?

After dinner, he smoked a cigarette in the cold, dusty air to calm his nerves, then, with his notebook weighing like a brick in his pocket, he convinced himself to take advantage of the noise of the common area to clear his head.

In fact, the inside of the old hangar was a fucking circle of hell. However, in the air saturated with tobacco, laughter, and testosterone, Soap found his peace. 

After bumping shoulders in greeting, he pushed through the crowd and found one of the worn leather armchairs in the far corner of the hangar, right next to the semi-deserted pool table.

He sat down awkwardly, his black boots almost touching the floor lamp nearby, and finally pulled out his notebook. Anyone who saw it from the outside would have called it something else, probably a diary, given the amount of absolutely trivial information it contained, at the bottom of hundreds of beautifully rendered sketches.

He began to trace a few lines, at first timidly, his ears ringing with the roar of laughter and the clinking of glass bottles. He wanted to be able to clearly focus on what he had just sensed moving behind those clear amber eyes, those complex and restrained feelings.

So the movements of his hand became feverish, the more he drew, the more he wanted to capture. The waves of long hair brushing against her ears, the black stethoscope marking her slender neck, the sharp face, the straight nose, the small fingers touching the tattoo on his arm.

He blinked as if dazed, his fingers aching, and wondered if it had really happened or if he had simply fantasized about an encounter that had never happened, an intimacy never felt.

Suddenly, the weight that had settled on the back of the armchair made him jump, stealing an obscene and utterly Scottish curse from his lips.

"Oh... you're screwed, mate." Gaz snickered over his shoulder, his dark eyes greedily scanning the pages of the journal and his young, amiable face spread into a wide grin.

"Are ye enjoyin' yerself?" Johnny dismissed him, his lips curled in disapproval.

"Come on, Soap. It's not the first time a woman has turned your head, I don't understand why all the fuss, just ask her out."

Even though his petulant tone was annoying him, Gaz was right. Johnny had always known he was attractive, as did Kyle, and more often than he could remember, they had used this confidence to their advantage.

"You're not afraid of falling in love, are you? Mate, listen to an idiot, if it happens, good for you, otherwise you'll have had a great fuck." He concluded at his mumbling.

Again, he was right, and Soap tried with all his might to push away the thought that this time it was different, that there would be more implications than a simple shag, however glorious it surely would be.