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

25. Made to feel joy

In the static, muffled, almost imperceptible hum of the radio that buzzed in his ears, the suspended reality of the stripped-down cargo plane's interior seemed almost unreal. 

Soap gazed absently at the dense shadows in front of him, not really seeing any of the contours, blurred by turbulence, of the riveted wall and the tarpaulins that covered their equipment. 

In the tense silence, the rarefied air smelled of the Captain's sweet-burning cigar, mixed with the sharp, metallic scent of aviation fuel. 

His rough fingers, protected by gloves, gripped the combat vest tightly, his back stretched out on the steel that vibrated through his bones. 

He listened to the slow rhythm of his own heart pounding in his skull, confined by the reinforced helmet. Waiting. 

Once they reached the required altitude, they would get the go-ahead to jump and then, perhaps, the forceful whistle of the wind would level out his thoughts. 

Until then, however, it was difficult to distract his brain from the memories. They flowed in random order, like from an open wound, overlapping, vivid. 

Suddenly, Johnny felt his pulse speed up in his ears, dulled by the headphones, and the image of Yael appeared so clear in his distant eyes that he was forced to find a firmer grip on the vest straps. 

It must have been a day like any other. The sergeant had just returned from a mission and had surprised the doctor at the kitchen counter, her fingers glued to the laptop keyboard and a coffee mug pressed to her lips. 

She hadn't even given him time to greet her, so quickly she had run to him and, just as quickly, the girl's lips had met his in a desperate and moved kiss. 

Johnny had melted in that contact like snow in the sun, an irrepressible smile spreading across his face, still dirty with grease and soot. He had rubbed his nose against the girl's in an intimacy difficult to explain and had offered her the refuge she sought in the broad plane of his chest. 

"It's beating really fast, Sergeant. I didn't think you were so shy," Yael had whispered, her breath lightly warming the fabric of his shirt against his troubled heart and her warm fingers wandering over his back. 

A rough, almost nervous laugh had risen up his chest in a cheeky puff. 

"Well. It's not like I've been kissed by just anyone, leannan," MacTavish had mumbled against hers, but he was bluffing. As his hands drew her even closer, it seemed to him that the world could collapse on that moment of instinctive and total closeness. 

Under the hot skin, suddenly, the tremor, however slight, of the girl had seemed unmistakable. 

"Can we stay like this a little longer?" she had sighed, her forehead pressed against his sternum and the soft waves of her long dark hair tickling his bare forearms. 

"As long as ye want, bonnie." 

Perhaps it was there that Soap should have recognized the signs of fear in her, perceived them with the manic care with which he handled an explosive device, with which he held his breath before firing. 

Instead, he had chosen to ignore them. To pretend they weren't digging into her with the same perseverance as his love. 

"Thirty seconds to the drop zone!" 

The green light of the go signal exploded on the roof of the fuselage, along with the call of the jumpmaster, and the ramp lowered with a familiar screech of pistons. 

The deafening whistle of the wind filled the environment, covering the violence of his memories. 

Soap MacTavish didn't need regret, nor pain, he just had to follow Captain Price and parachute into the pitch black darkness at twenty thousand feet, nothing else. Focused, lucid, precise.