Happy Valentine's day! Sending with a lot of love💕 I wonder what the platoon boys would be doing this time of year👀
Thank you for remembering me - Happy Valentines to you too and everyone else reading. Much love. 💕
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― Chris Taylor falls into what can only be called melancholiac tendencies; if he was prone to partying with the boys just a day before, he retreats into himself and some lonesome place around camp on this particular holiday. If he was keen on jiving to music and letting off some steam with booze and weed, he grows more solitary and introspective, taking to pen and paper and genuinely speaking, if you're not aware of his feelings for you, he might legitimately spend the day writing 'what if' love letters to you --- things he'd say, things he feels, things he thinks, things he feels are far too high stakes and risky to say, things he holds a secret, things he'd want you to know if you were an item, things he's embarrassed to say out loud to anyone, journaling all the weight of his emotions into a confession he might never send to you, opting to burn it instead, unsure if he feels any better for it or worse. Is he relieved or agitated? Is he being galant to leave you alone and unbothered or is he chickenshit? Valentines Day somewhere in the deep bush of the Cambodian border ends with him sitting by a small fire at dusk all by himself, gazing into it, burning the papery remains of all his verbalized, written down care for you.
― Thing is, O'Neill wants to be a romantic, but he probably feels he cannot because the clique he's in is so macho, militant and downright chauvinist that they undoubtedly never let him live it down if he just openly wooed you on this day and actually gave you something like he actually wishes to deep, deep down, so to overcompensate himself for being stuck between a rock and a hard space, O'Neill spends Valentines Day being insufferable, nagging, suggestive and passive aggressive towards you, wiggling his eyebrows whenever you pass, halfway trying to schmooze you, halfway poking at you, irritating you, bugging you and genuinely doing anything so you'd fucking notice him or at least make sure to remember he's here and buzzing around you like a fly. He might even ask you, in a veiled attempt to bring up the subject, whether you have anyone special for Valentines and if you're expecting a letter from some schmuck asshole back home or from another platoon just so he could highlight that today is indeed a special day, and would you look at that --- he so happens to be here too. He thinks he's being slick, but everyone notices he's a lovesick puppy for you.
― Bunny is in the same macho-militant clique as O'Neill is, but the difference is that his unhinged nature renders him immune from peer pressure or judgement purely because he doesn't care for judgement, seeing how it bounces off from him like it would off of anyone detached from empathy and he's the type of person who makes said clique the way it is in the first place, so, oh, you'll get a Valentines Day gift from him alright, you better believe it; but it'll be on the grotesque, questionable or grizzly side, as is to be expected from Bunny. Is this a pig's heart in a box? Luckily, too small to be a human's (perish the thought). Is this a wisp of his hair and...human nails? Why is he giving you a molar attached to a neck chain? Who's...molar is that? Did he really just ink a rendition of your face stuck unto a model of a naked body unto his own skin? Oh, he named his firearm by you. Sweet. See, in Bunny's world, these are all genuinely, in a weird way as wholesome of a gesture as a gesture gets, but to everyone else, it'll be strange at best and spine-chilling at worst. Now, would he expect something back from you? Sure. You better at least let him hit it from behind today, geez.
― Rhah Vermucci feels Valentines Day is one of those Capitalist inventions meant to empty a sucker's pocket trying to appease some broad who's already emptying said sucker's pocket every other day of the year too without giving anything back; suffice to say, he is cynical about it, the way he is cynical about most of society's comings and goings. But, that doesn't mean he still wouldn't do something for you, albeit in a roundabout, concealed manner that wouldn't give him away for the man of double standards he can sometimes be, the gift he leaves you with anonymously being oddly and surprisingly...wholesome and even pretty damn romantic. You have no idea how however left this for you in your tent acquired a small statuette of Venus or a tiny Cupid out in the middle of a nowhere warzone or when or where they picked a jungle flower, but you're genuinely touched by the gesture. Of course, Rhah might scoff at your secretive mooning over the present and whatever cheesedick left it for you as typical nonsense to his friends, but something about how fixated and impassioned he is towards everything you do gives him away as your secret admirer to everyone who knows better. King is probably nearby giving him the amused stink eyes.
― Lt. Wolfe is the only one out of the bunch that would openly give you a Valentines Day present, but not just that --- he'd give every woman present on base a Valentines Day present too. The identically same one. Every nurse, secretary, cook, cleaning lady and hooch madam irregardless of age; Everyone. Might think it is good for morale and a collectivist attitude. He is much akin to those corporate bosses back in civilization who make sure to exclude no lady, simply because one gets the impression he seeks up suck up everyone, gain allies and score points wherever and with whoever he can by being helpful, making it difficult to know who from the bunch he has actual feelings for, if anyone. Naturally, the other men at base might snicker and covertly laugh at his attempts because there is something undeniably head college boy about his behaviour and Wolfe's purely democratic approach to the situation could either weirdly charm you or leave you confused whether he cares for you or is simply trying to be a good, 'by the book' Lieutenant. He himself probably feels this is a good way going about actually awkwardly giving you something without making himself a target for too much ridicule; something he circumvents by simply including every other woman too.
― Man, King doesn't care. If he has a boo? He's giving her something. Doesn't matter if she's present at base, somewhere nearby or half the planet away --- she's getting remembered by him, baby --- and no amount of peer pressure, gossip, snide talk, being looked down upon or mockery could prevent him from doing that, because as he'd be the type to claim that all of these boys want to do the thing he's doing right now when you peel back their layers of bullshit and self-delusion, but it is their own pride that prevents them and in a way, he has to feel a bit sorry for them. So, yes, he spends Valentines Day openly and happily penning letters, trying to write poetry however fraught with grammatical errors (although, for this special day he might ask a trusted friend to proofread the thing) he might hand make a present, send her records, spend his paycheck on whatever tourist trinket in acquired in passing, but considering the shit circumstances and limited means for a gift one is faced with out in the bush, he'd legitimately go above and beyond to be thoughtful and he could be one of the rare men within the platoon who gets a gift back as well. He's probably the happiest and most smiley of the bunch during the day too and many, many days afterwards.
― Dreamcatchers, charms, bracelets, precious rocks and stones, a nazar, amulets he made on his own, necklaces meant to protect, small vials of bottled dried, fragrant flowers to place under your pillow, God's Eyes, something carved from a piece of something he swears is a chunk of meteorite that crashed into the jungle and other various trinkets Elias would personally hand craft and gift to you are part of the unique staples intended for you for Valentines and they somehow feel extremely meaningful and personal; more so than just a casual 'I like you' or 'I care for you'; coming from Elias, however jovially or playfully he might give you these things to play himself off as nonchalant, it halfway feels like an engagement or receiving a promise ring from someone. In fact, him flat out giving you a promise ring isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility either. There's no sense of half measures or lukewarm intentions with him. He is very serious even if he has a twinkle of mischief in his eyes that might occasionally cheat and insinuate otherwise to someone who doesn't know him very well. There is a gravitas to what you receive from him; the type that makes you think long and hard about the future weeks after Valentines is already over.
― Barnes does nothing on Valentines because he continuously does things for you all year 'round that are intended to make your life in this hellhole easier, and if you're away from him, back in the world, the case is much the same. He could be ten thousand miles away, but he believes it is a man's place to take care of his woman, paycheck and all. But, if you're near, he doesn't wait for a specific time of the year. The quiet devotion is constant and wordless with him, like a quiet yet eternally persistent current that shapes rocks. He protects you. Gives you his share of rations without comment. Makes sure you're warm. Tends to your wounds whether you want him to or not. Gives you the last drop of water from his canteen. Carries you on his back for miles when you're unconscious. Steps up for you. Makes sure nobody gives you a hard time without you even knowing. It is this complex web of acts of service that ensure that even in an active warzone you're as okay as a person can be okay, which is a big privilege. You make it out alive even if he has to take a bullet for you, which he just might without even being a thing with you. You probably think he is a brute, which he is and it takes years of maturity for the scope of his care for you to actually ripen in your mind so you'd realize this man actually saved your life several times in a row. Perhaps it is precisely on Valentines Day that Barnes pulled you out of a burning hooch and synched off half of the upper layer of skin on his arm, condemning himself to a lifetime of even more pain so you'd be unharmed --- and that is his gift to you.
