#robertleckie

“Regret stealing from the army yet?”

“Fuck no.”

He feels the answering chuckle reverberate through his body. Hears it settle low in the other man’s chest, rumbling and joyful like the little waterfalls that occasionally break the monotone of the many waters on this island. He sighs as Hoosier settles down beside him. Will deny leaning in to the feeling of warmth next to him until his dying day.

“Chuck’s taken Runner to see the Doc and ’bout damn time, too, all that hoverin’ was making me sick.”

“Don’t talk about sick,” moans Leckie, “please.”

“All that letter-writing you’ve been doing must be addlin’ your brain there. Don’t think you ever said please to me a day in your life, Leckie.”

“Leave me alone, I’m miserable.”

Leckie opens his eyes after voicing the complaint, somehow needing Hoosier to take it more lightly than it sounded. Isn’t shocked to find the man’s face mere inches away from his own. He could count Hoosier’s eyelashes, map out the vague sun-caused freckles on his skin, see glowing embers reflected back at him from within the man’s eyes. 

There’s little warmth in Hoosier’s withering words.

“The fuck you are. You’re just dumb as shit sometimes.”

“I’m miserable,” he repeats, mumbling the words and carefully shifting over to Hoosier’s warmth even more. All but crashes his forehead against the man’s chest. “I’m hurting. I feel so bad.”

There’s a brief, silent pause.

“Are you done?”

“Yeah.” He lifts his head to smirk up at Hoosier after he registers the almost fond exasperation in the man’s voice. “Are you?”

He’s not sure how it happens. One moment, he’s smiling at Hoosier. One moment, Hoosier’s answering smile is just a little on the side of vicious. One moment, he anticipates the vague threat that’s undoubtedly going to lodge itself in his ear. One moment, Hoosier places one arm across Leckie in order to gain some kind of artificial upper hand. One moment, he utterly miscalculates how close Hoosier’s face really is to his own in this.

The next moment, their lips meet.

It’s brief, but not so brief that Leckie can pretend he imagined it. It’s quick, but not quick enough for Hoosier to pretend they didn’t cross that one last barrier they still had between them.

He watches as Hoosier closes his eyes. Studies the man as though he is a collection of words in a foreign language he has never read before but wants to learn. Spots one corner of his mouth going upward ever so briefly before the man’s expression slides back to a careful neutral.

It’s too careful. Guarded, even.

Leckie breathes the way he imagines dragons do, with an angry huff escaping his nose before the rest of his exasperation passes his lips. Hoosier’s eyes fly open at the sound. Open, vulnerable eyes. Open, scared eyes.

He reaches for Hoosier before the man can scramble backward. Reaches for Hoosier and grabs shirt, neck, hair, anything he can cling to that pulls the man closer. Feels the man’s muscles tighten under his grasp before they relax at the touch that Leckie makes as soft but firm as possible.

“You’re a dumbass,” he announces, face no more than an inch away from Hoosier’s. “You really, really are.”

“Fuck you, Leckie.”

Hoosier’s voice might waver into unsteady territory, but the man’s body reacts to Leckie’s proximity as though they have always orbited around one another while charting their eventual collision course. Hoosier’s leg wraps over his, his hand is in his curls, his body is a cage around him that he never wants to escape from again. And if he responds by tangling his legs with Hoosier’s even more, if he reacts to Hoosier’s hair-tugging with a shuddered gasp, if he makes himself smaller to fit beneath Hoosier’s warmth, then that’s just the way he’s going to choose to die in this foxhole at the end of the world.

He’s not sure who closes the gap between them this time, either. Doesn’t think it matters now that Hoosier’s mouth is on his, Hoosier’s tongue dances slow and teasing circles around his own, Hoosier’s weight settles atop him, and Hoosier’s ragged breath mingles with his own just like that. He smiles as the kiss turns lazy, sloppy, erratic. Kisses back like he’s never done anything else, like this is a familiarity they slipped into without either one of them noticing.

“Do you”– a murmur against his skin –“feel”– tongue trailing down to dip just below his ear –“any” – hand on his hip grabbing at him tight enough to leave the type of bruises he likes –“better” – a flash of a smug grin before teeth scrape across his skin and Leckie almost comes apart right then and there –“now?”

“I don’t know,” he rasps out, voice betraying him long before his words do, “how about you kiss me again and I’ll tell you?”

“Hey,” he says, voice slightly hoarse, “missus Basilone.”

Lena’s laugh is something he’ll never tire of. It wraps itself around him tighter than any embrace. Warms him, touches him, merges with him until he is certain that every part of his insides consists of nothing but her laughter. He loves the way the corners of her eyes crinkle as she laughs. Resolves to let those become the only wrinkles time can touch – no frowns, no worry lines, no angry set around her brows should ever take dominion of his wife.   

“Hey, mister.” She sits down on the bed. Smooths her dress down carefully as she does. “Good morning.”

“Is it still morning? Or are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

Another laugh. “It’s almost noon, how about that?”

“Sorry about that.” He rubs the remnants of sleep out of his eyes. Rakes his hand through his hair and groans softly. “I’d wanted to get up earlier. Make you breakfast.”

“You? Make me breakfast?”   

“I could learn, okay?” he says, laughing as she giggles out her disagreement. Points a finger at her in mock-warning. “I will have you know that I make the best pancakes in the whole country.”

“The best, huh? Well, I think you’re all talk, John Basilone!”

“Tomorrow.” He decides it casually. Like he is suddenly in the position where tomorrow is an option, and he can say the word without worrying that it will jinx something in his life. “You’ll stay put right here in our bed tomorrow and I’ll make ’em for you.”

“Oh will you now?”

“Mhmmm,” he hums, recognizing the teasing lilt in his wife’s voice well enough by now. “Unless you have other ideas?”

“Mhmmm,” she echoes, laughter breaking the rather serious expression she is trying to put on her face, “I might have one or two..”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like.. hmm.. kissing my husband? Spending more time with him in this bed?” Her eyes flicker over him as she speaks. His skin heats up from her gaze alone. “I think I am going to need to catch up again, you know?” Her voice dips and weaves longing into his core. She swings her feet up onto the bed and slides closer until they almost touch. He wants to reach out to her, but his limbs are defenseless against her and he stays suspended in time. “John, I just want this to be us.”

“We are, sweetheart. Anything you wanna be, all right?” He reaches out now to tuck a stray curl behind her ear. His hand lingers on the side of her face. “I’m home now. War’s over. We’ve got time.”

“Time for us.”   

Her eyes are bright. Her voice barely wavers. He knows she’s been acting tough for him, drawing up smiles and writing gentle letters that smelled like the ocean and vanilla wrapped into one. He knows these months have been harsh, with every thought of her being the only thing that dragged him off that beach in Iwo Jima and kept him standing even when he believed he was going to die. Now that he’s home, back with her, he hardly knows what to do.

“Time for us,” he repeats, knowing this to be the one truth he’ll never get tired of repeating for as long as he lives. She’s all he knows for sure. Everything that matters resides in her. “Lena..”

His hand weaves into her hair. He pulls her close, so close that their noses touch, so close that he inhales nothing but vanilla. He pauses just like that. Drinks her in even as he tangles his fingers around her curls and tugs teasingly at a few of the more errant ones that threaten to escape his grasp.

“John,” she whispers, and he feels like he can breathe for the first time since the war. “My John..”

Kissing her feels like coming home. Her mouth is soft against his own. There’s a reassuring kind of tenderness to it that he hasn’t felt since he left her. He feels the curve of a smile that he longs to chase after, but then she gasps and his mind draws a blank on whatever he intended. He pulls her closer against him until he doesn’t know where he ends and she begins. Breathes her in, holds her tight, anchors himself in her hair and in her mouth and in her presence until he remembers who he is.   

It takes only a second for her to press up against him even closer than he thought she could be. She crowds into his space relentlessly and usurps all thought that is not made of her. Her hand flies into his hair as she kisses him back with a hunger he hasn’t known in months but will never forget how to sate. Her other hand is on his cheek, on his neck, on his brow, on his shoulders, everywhere she can touch that is made up of him curving and curling around her like she’s the one thing on this earth he needs to protect.   

“Lena, Lena,” he murmurs against her cheeks, against her lips, against the pulse of her heartbeat, “Lena.”

He kisses her anew, over and over again. He kisses her as she shifts into his lap, all previous decorum forgotten. He kisses her as his hand slides up her thigh beneath that dress he loves so well. He kisses her as she kisses him, hungry and wanting and needing. He kisses her the way he dreamed of kissing her. He kisses her like the sunlight kisses her, soft and gentle. He kisses her like the darkness of her hair that spills all over his hands, longing and intense.   

The best part is that she kisses him too. She kisses him like she is intent on breathing new life into him. She kisses him until all thoughts of blood and sand dissipate in the light of her embrace. She kisses him with her hands woven into his hair and her movements slow but steady like a boat swept up by a gentle tide. She kisses him until he remembers where he is, until he recalls every last thing he has ever learned about her, until he knows for certain there’ll be a tomorrow and a tomorrow and a tomorrow.

“Just us,” she says again. A laugh bubbles up between her mouth and his. He captures it in another kiss. She laughs even harder, after. “You, me, and those six kids you mentioned.”

“And the dog,” he says, leaning back just to see the amusement in her eyes. “Don’t forget the dog.”

“Ah, yes, the dog,” she says, giggling against his mouth, “how could I forget about that?”

“I’ll get you flowers every week. Pancakes every morning. Kisses whenever you want.”

“Whenever I want, hm?”   

“Yeah, whenever!” He laughs, too. “Promise!”

She looks at him, suddenly serious. Her hand tightens in his hair.   

“I want those kisses right now, John Basilone.”