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

24. Unbroken

Soap drove the jeep to the base mechanically, almost in apnea, his brain on autopilot. Only his heart, pounding furiously in his eardrums, anchored him to that reality saved by the pale light of dawn.

The world, outside the damp window, flowed far away, to what seemed like a sidereal space from him.

Through the veil of dullness that had fallen between his thoughts, it was difficult to distinguish the feelings that crowded in his chest, messing up his breath. Anger and love had merged into a single maelstrom that threatened to engulf him, to take away any sensible reason.

If only his jaws hadn't been so clenched, he would have screamed. Instead, he tightened his fingers even more around the steering wheel, his knuckles bruised and his nails digging into his flesh.

He didn't even answer the guard post at the entrance to the base, he showed his documents in a dry gesture, chewing on a growl that threatened to rise up his chest.

He walked the icy concrete of the runway between the deserted hangars in nervous strides, his boots sinking into the grey puddles, the familiar smell of fuel and gunpowder indiscreetly rising up his nostrils, settling in his lungs, all the way to the barracks.

He fumbled for the key in the pocket of his tactical jacket, a finger barely scratched the velvet surface of the small ring case and Johnny felt his heart skip a beat.

He opened the door abruptly, his fingertips stumbling, his tongue tied in an unrepeatable Scottish impropriety and his blood boiling in his veins. He didn't look inside, not because his eyes could linger on the small framed photo on the aluminum desk, he threw his duffel bag on the bed and deluged out straight to the gym.

He worked out for hours, until he hurt himself. Until his joints didn't pop, his knuckles didn't bleed, his muscles didn't scream, and his sweat didn't cloud his vision. Anything for the physical pain to ease, at least in part, the emotional one. Because the deafening beats in his chest covered up the hammering of his thoughts.

He would have gladly stayed in that dull bubble, at the limits of his physical and mental endurance, rather than face reality. A reality he had calculated and contemplated from the moment he decided to ask her out, which had hurt him more than anything else.

The very idea that his hands, his lips, would never touch her again seemed intolerable, unnatural.

He swallowed hard, chasing after a more regular breath, but when he noticed that his fingers were threatening to throw one of the metal dumbbells at the mirror, he convinced himself to go back.

He had always had a great recovery after a workout, instead, even under the hot shower, the faint scent of industrial soap in the almost suffocating humid air, Soap couldn't shake off the adrenaline.

He walked back through the austere concrete corridors to his quarters with a pounding heart, blood buzzing in his ears and his jaw clenched. Again, he carefully avoided looking at the framed photograph, he didn't need to see it to remember the girl's smile, the effect it had on him.

With a fury he didn't recognize, he prepared to empty his duffel bag, the smell of Yael mixed with the smell of his clothes almost made him lose his head. It was then that, from the pocket of his tactical jacket, the small midnight blue velvet case rolled between the starched sheets of the bunk.

Johnny's stomach did a backflip.

Instinctively, he squeezed it in his rough palm so hard he thought it would fall apart.

It had been so easy to imagine that moment.

He had planned everything, he would take her to the moors behind MacTavish's house, under an impossible starry sky, the same as his childhood, he would kneel down like a moron and ask her to marry him.