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The thick jungle canopy pressed down upon them, the humid air clinging to their skin like a second layer of filth. Sweat pooled in the crevices of their bodies, mingling with the dirt, the grime, and the blood. It was falling dark. They were on the edge of a small clearing on Peleliu, although it could have just as easily been any other godforsaken island in the Pacific. Another place where the enemy lurked in the shadows, always waiting.
Leckie sat with his back against a tree, rifle resting across his lap. His fingers traced absentmindedly over the wood, his thoughts distant, locked away somewhere far beyond the jungle. His mind had a tendency to wander—to home, to the past, to the future he wasn't sure he'd get to see. But tonight, his thoughts kept circling back to one thing. One person.
Hoosier sat just a few feet away, cleaning his own rifle with the same methodical patience that Leckie had come to recognize. Everything about Hoosier was deliberate, from the way he moved to the way he spoke, never wasting words, never wasting effort. He was a man who apparently had learned early in life to be cautious with his emotions, to guard them closely. And yet, Leckie had seen cracks in that armor—small, fleeting moments of warmth that most of the others missed.
A flicker of golden light from Hoosier’s lighter cast shadows across his face as he lit a cigarette. He took a drag, exhaled, then without a word passed it over to Leckie, before lighting another one for himself.
Leckie took the cigarette, their fingers brushing for a fraction of a second, brief but somehow lingering at the same time.
"You keep lookin’ at me like that, Leckie, people are gonna talk," Hoosier muttered, smirking around the cigarette in his mouth.
Leckie huffed out a laugh, the sound dry, like cracked earth. "Let ‘em. Not like I’m planning on sticking around for the post-war gossip columns."
Hoosier's smirk faltered, and Leckie regretted his words instantly. They both knew the odds. Every day they stayed breathing was a borrowed day, a stolen moment. Death was as constant as the tide, rolling in without mercy, without care for who it took. And yet, in the stolen moments of quiet, they had this.
"You ever think about home?" Leckie asked after a long silence.
Hoosier nodded, gaze fixed on the jungle beyond. "Yeah. My mom’s probably still yelling at my brothers to set the table right. They never listen. Always put the forks on the wrong side."
Leckie smiled at the image, at the simple domesticity of it, at the way Hoosier’s voice softened just a little when he talked about home. "She sounds like a force to be reckoned with."
"She is."
They lapsed into silence again, the jungle humming with unseen life around them. A distant burst of gunfire sent a shiver up Leckie’s spine, but he didn’t move. He should’ve been resting, saving his energy for whatever hell tomorrow would bring, but his body was too tense, too aware of the man sitting next to him.
"You ever think about after?" Leckie asked.
Hoosier flicked the ash from his cigarette, his jaw tightening just a fraction. "Not really much of an after to think about."
Leckie felt his natural tendency to argue rise, wanted to tell Hoosier that they had to believe in something beyond the war, beyond the bloodshed. But he knew Hoosier well enough by now to know that hope wasn’t something he allowed himself easily. It was too dangerous, too fragile. Instead, Leckie nudged his boot against Hoosier’s, subtle, a quiet kind of reassurance.
"If there was an after," Leckie ventured carefully, "what would you do?"
Hoosier glanced at him, something unreadable in his gaze. He was silent for so long that Leckie thought he wouldn’t answer. But then, finally, Hoosier sighed. "Dunno. Maybe find a quiet place. A job that don’t involve gettin’ shot at."
"Sounds like a dream."
"Yeah."
Leckie turned to look at him fully, studying the angles of his face, the shadows that war had carved into his features. He thought about all the things he wanted to say, the things he never could. That he wanted to see what Hoosier looked like in peacetime. That he wanted to know what his laugh sounded like when it wasn’t laced with exhaustion. That he wanted to sit on a porch somewhere with him, watching the world go by, not as soldiers, but as men.
He wanted to tell him that some nights, when the fighting died down and the jungle was still, he imagined a different life. One where they weren’t here, weren’t stuck in an unending struggle for survival. One where he could reach for Hoosier without the weight of war pressing down on them. One where they had time.
But words were dangerous. Words could get a man killed in more ways than one. So instead, Leckie simply said, "If you ever find that quiet place, save a spot for me."
Hoosier met his gaze, and for a moment the jungle faded away. It was just them, sitting in the dark, clinging to something unspoken, yet real.
"Yeah, Leckie," Hoosier said quietly. "I will."