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

22. How copy?

Johnny left the small brick house, the sun barely painting the still-reddish dawn clouds with white hues. The icy air of the early morning nipped at the tip of his nose as he lit a cigarette before getting into the car and heading towards the base.

He had left a kiss on the forehead of the still half-asleep girl, a heavy breath that left her lips with a hint of frustration.

"Don't worry, leannan. I'll bring ma ass home before ye can realize what kind of idiot I am," he whispered to her in an amused growl, but a pang of worry crept somewhere between his brain and his chest, cluttered with feelings for her.

The doctor's arms around his neck pulled him down again, her eyes closed as she pressed her mouth on his briefly and desperately.

"You're a prick, MacTavish. But you're my prick. So, make sure you stay in one piece," she muttered, loosening her grip, but her fingers trembling slightly on the back of his neck.

The sergeant burst into a laugh so genuine on her lips that it knotted his stomach. That's how it was between them, an absolute, spontaneous intimacy, as if they had known each other for a lifetime, as if Johnny was born only to hold her in his arms, his body so close to hers that he could feel the gentle beating of her heart.

That woman had taken everything from him, to the point where he could no longer separate his own existence from the desire he felt for her. He had compromised himself, so to speak.

When he wasn't forced to be Soap MacTavish, Yael occupied his mind as she now occupied most of his notebook. He had voluntarily given her the ability to hurt him deeper than anyone else. He trusted her. It had never happened before.

He smiled at the thought of having done exactly the opposite of what Ghost had advised him a little less than a year before.

"Be careful who you trust, Sergeant. The people you know can hurt you the most."

Lost in thought, the burning cigarette butt almost burned his fingertips. With an absolutely Scottish expletive on his lips, he climbed into the jeep, habitually checked that there was a gun in the glove compartment, and started the engine.

It was on pure instinct that, on his way to the base, he pulled his car over in front of an old jewelry store in the center of town. He hesitated for several minutes before going in, smoked a cigarette, checked his phone, until he convinced himself to push open the black glass entrance door.

The scene must have seemed absurd to the young saleswoman, in a prim blue suit and pulled-back hair, who greeted him.

Tactical uniform, military chronograph, empty holsters on his thighs and a mohawk, Soap couldn't have looked any less like the kind of customer she was used to receiving. Nevertheless, she smiled at his bewilderment and listened with benevolent patience to his confused request.

Johnny had to mentally thank the damn royal family for the affection that bound her to Scotland, when the girl, at his indecision about the diamonds, showed him one last ring.

On the thin white gold band was set a single round stone, not a precious stone, but Highland marble.

Balmoral. That was its name.

Fuckin' Brits, MacTavish thought to himself with amusement.

It seemed absurdly small to him, as if it might break when he barely squeezed it between his fingers, and, at the same time, so similar to what he felt for Yael that his stomach did a flip.

A grunt of assent, he couldn't bring himself to say anything else, and the girl disappeared behind the main counter in a flurry of vertiginous heels.

MacTavish watched the small hands busy themselves on the blue velvet box, on the thorns, his massive body shifting his weight from one tactical boot to the other, nervous, out of place. He didn't even accept a bag, instead, he slipped the package directly into his SAS-badged jacket pocket and disappeared.