Johnny noticed he was gripping the tactical knife blade too tightly when the reinforced layer of his gloves almost gave way to the sharp edge. He gritted his teeth, instinctively, not out of pain but something much deeper.
An untamed spark of fury, too similar to terror, gnawed at his pride in waves.
He felt powerless, there, waiting, seated in the semi-dark hangar at the deserted table of a briefing about to begin. He allowed himself those few seconds of solitude to let his emotions flow, to be carried away by their impetuous current before dissociating Soap MacTavish from Johnny once more.
Crumpled in the aluminum chair, his elbows resting on the old plastic table, he let out a hot breath between his clenched teeth. He watched it turn into a thin condensation in the freezing air descending from the Urals to the valley and cursed himself.
He should have said something to her. Anything would have been better than indifference, perhaps even the Captain's stubborn anger. Instead, he had been afraid, as if speaking to her was enough to break the spell, dissolve her like snow in the sun.
His thoughts lingered fleetingly on Yael's slender figure leaning out of the still-flying helo's cockpit, her terrified amber eyes scanning the ground below. For a moment, Soap allowed his mind to wander freely, dreaming of reaching out to her and grasping her.
He could feel her sliding lightly into his grasp, her soft hair intertwined with his fingers as he pulled her close to his chest. His heart blatantly missed a beat, he was daydreaming like a damn girl.
He shook his head slightly, as if to dispel a bothersome thought, and tried in vain to stop his foot from tapping nervously on the hangar's concrete floor. He could feel the echo bouncing off the metal walls into his chest, in perfect sync with the rapid beating of his heart.
Deep in the pocket of his combat vest, even beneath the assault rifle's cartridges, he felt the small ring weigh like a millstone.
He hated that fragility, the way the mere thought of Yael could somehow penetrate the layers of Kevlar he wore, all that tangled baggage of rage and duty that squeezed his chest so tight he could barely breathe. It seemed so simple and, at the same time, incredibly violent.
Even now, with his heart shattered, he couldn't stop thinking about her, about how she had crossed the world to come back to him.
Ghost's heavy footsteps suddenly echoed in the quiet of the hangar, almost making him jump out of his seat. Johnny acknowledged him with a curt nod, mentally thanking him for preventing his brain from dwelling on such dangerous associations.
The lieutenant hadn't uttered a word since they'd left the Captain in the medical hangar, not to him at least. Yet, MacTavish felt his gaze boring coldly into the back of his head through the grimy holes of the white mask sewn onto his balaclava.
The imposing figure sat down beside him, heavily, with a thud that spoke volumes about how much he actually had to reproach him. He seemed on the verge of saying something, his arms crossed over his enormous chest, but Garrick and Laswell's hurried footsteps suddenly broke the tense air and the moment was already over.
Behind them, in nervous strides and an almost imperceptible limp, the Captain entered with the sullen demeanor of a caged tiger.
When Kate began to project the laptop screen onto the whiteboard in front of them, illuminating the dense gloom of the hangar with a familiar pale blue, Johnny deferred to Soap MacTavish without hesitation.
Whatever daydream he'd been indulging in retreated to the depths of his heart as Price's voice bounced furiously off the metal walls, climbing up their straight contours to the very roof.
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Wait For Me || John "Soap" MacTavish x OC (Call Of Duty)
FanfictionYael Williams, an emergency surgeon at the Royal Infirmary Hospital in Manchester, is haunted by a painful past. Dedicated to her work, Yael is brilliant and tenacious. However, her traumatic past has made her introverted and distrustful. A chance e...
