someone smart once said nothing at all {pacific - leckie, leckie/various}
Title: Someone Smart Once Said Nothing At All
Fandom: The Pacific.
Characters/Pairings: Leckie. Leckie/Basilone, Leckie/Vera.
Rating: R
Word Count: 4,594
Author's Note: Long overdue response to onlywordsnow's prompt. I've never done this before and it was an arduous process but I can't say it wasn't fun.
Summary: Up to Part 5, with speculation. He writes until his fingers cramp, ignores the rain, ignores the looming idea that this is all the punchline to some joke that he isn't in on.
. . .
Dear Vera,
He’s erased the first line three times, gray smudge down the paper and it blends with his fingerprints, the dirt and the gunpowder that never seems to leave his hands.
“You really think that’s going to do any fucking good? For all you know, you might be dead by the time those get to her.” Hoosier’s got a cigarette dangling between his lips and the tips of his boots kick at the ground beneath them.
“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” He rattles it off without too much thought, one of dozens of quotes floating around his head. It has been said that war is long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror, and Leckie has yet to come up with a convincing argument otherwise. Hoosier’s staring at him and Runner’s bothered to open one-eye for the occasion. “Jack London.”
“Professor Leckie makes a return,” Hoosier replies, stubs out his cigarette. No one pauses at the sounds of ruckus outside. This is Pavuvu, not Gloucester or Guadalcanal; they’re not waiting for the Japs to pop out of the damn bushes, take them all by surprise in the dark of night.
He feels no measure of safety, even from that small comfort.
This place is a nice break from the rain, even with all the waiting around.
-
Bob Leckie used to have faith in something bigger than him.
(“God is always watching,” his mother had clasped his hands in hers; he had expected them to shake, where they hadn’t, “he will keep you safe.”
“Amen to that,” he had replied, and somehow it sounds more sardonic and broken in his head than it probably did in the moment.
This war’s gotten to him in the present, damn near just as likely to throw a monkey wrench into his future as well - if he’s even got one - but it hasn’t settled for that. No, it’s got to affect his memories, his past, too.)
He’s still got that faith in bigger things than himself, he just no longer believes that thing won’t lead him astray, that it will keep him safe. God created Japs, God created this war, God set the stage and they’re just the players, acting out his will.
This is the punch line and he’s not in on the fucking joke.
-
He bumped into Vera outside of St. Mary’s, and his eyes played tricks on him, casting bright yellow and orange spots into his field of vision, white blankets of powdered snow laid out in front of him, in much the same way as the candles had thrown shadows on the walls of the church.
The place, more than anything, complicates things.
-
“John fucking Basilone’s selling war bonds back in the good old US of A,” Hoosier again, stumbling in towards his bunk, smelling of alcohol, among other things.
Leckie cracks his neck, says nothing, just focuses on the cards in his hand and the tics giving away what’s in Phillips’.
“Who’s that again?” Runner mutters. It’s sarcasm. Probably. News travels slow as molasses but it still travels.
Chuckler looks at Hoosier over his shoulder, doesn’t pay attention to the angle in which he holds his cards and if Leckie just looks a little to his right -- “Who gives a fuck?”
Hoosier hits the bunk face first before he can answer that properly but everyone seems to take the groan he gives as an answer all the same.
For a moment, he tries to conjure up a face to go with the name, the title, the heroism - what the fuck ever - and fails.
Then he folds.
-
Once, when they were young enough to play in school yards - and even later than that, folded hands and lingering glances, the words ‘improper’ and ‘inappropriate’ thrown around too carelessly - they were friends.
Thing is: before St. Mary’s on that cold December day, before red lips that curled in a half-uneasy smile and shopping trip detours and the trail left behind of his footprints in the snow leading out of the church, parallel to hers -
Before all of that, he hadn’t thought of her in months. Maybe longer.
(The problem with parallel lines is they never quite cross.)
-
He does not spend all his days thinking about Stella, after Melbourne.
(He spends some of his nights that way, though.)
-
In Peleliu, Hoosier gets hit and that’s the last Leckie or any of the others sees or hears of him.
It’s a leg wound and he gets it in his head that Hoosier got lucky because now he can get out of this godforsaken place. He gets it in his head that he’s jealous, maybe even a little happy for him.
(If it’s a lie, it’s not the first one he’s told himself out here, among the trees and the tanks, the never-ending supply of ammunition and the fast-fading supply of things like hope and humanity.)
-
There’s a Bible with his stuff, one day, the same one Sledge had paged through, the one he had told the man to keep.
It’s all he can do not to chuck it into the water, let it float out to sea with the bodies and the things that have no place here anymore.
-
It’s quick:
One minute, there is a gun, heavy and too warm to the touch. He’s fairly sure he fucked up his ankle about half a mile back and, before that, it was raining in sheets because, hell, they didn’t have enough of that in Gloucester. He feels the need to clear his throat, to cough, to inhale something other than the smell of gunpowder and smoke.
The next, everything goes black.
-
He will never hear the shot.
-
Somewhere down the line - maybe all the way back in Guadalcanal - he’d gotten it in his head that he could love Vera.
That he did love her.
Whether it was true or not, it was something to believe in, something to have faith in, and he was certainly in short supply of that.
-
How fucked are you now, how fucked are you now, how fucked are you now, you’re surely fucked now
Hoosier’s voice plays over and over and over in his head, their voices melding into a harmony.
And then.
-
“Hey, Leckie,” there’s a hand on his cheek, gentle slapping, someone trying to wake him up, “Leckie. Come the fuck on.”
It’s Chuckler hovering over him, his hand, and Leckie wants to grab his wrist, make him stop, but his arm isn’t following orders anymore than he has been as of late. His words get stuck somewhere between his tongue and his lips.
“You’re fine; it’s nothing but a scratch.” He thinks, distantly, that you couldn’t tell that from his voice. There’s panic there, he knows. He’s experienced it, his hands covered in Hoosier’s blood and he senses that he’s about to find out how this went down for the other man. “Not a damn thing but a scratch.”
Leckie has enough sense left in him to think about waiting for that white light everyone talks about straight up until his world dissolves into darkness again.
-
The next time he’s awake long enough to remember it, it’s nearly two days later in Banika, and Dr. Grant’s pulled up a chair next to his bed. His legs are crossed, hands folded over his knee, and there’s a mix of concern and steady reassurance on his face.
He imagines it’s supposed to appear fatherly but he has nothing on which to form a basis for comparison.
(“Your mother said I was fool not to buy a Ford. Hope she’s not right.”
In the background they called for Bus 45, direct service to New York City, and his stomach had lurched while he watched his father lay hands on the car like a prized possession, a sharp contrast to the firm grip in which he shook his own son’s hand with, rigid and formal and as cold as his ice blue eyes had been.)
“Couldn’t get enough of this place, could you?” Leckie lays his head back, the muscles of his neck stretching and when he sucks in a breath pain blooms in his gut. He grits his teeth, doesn’t wince, and the doc nods once before he leans forward, face turning serious.
He already knows what happens next.
-
Later, he stops the man with a hand on his wrist.
“Was anyone brought in with me?”
Chuckler’s face is burned behind his eyelids.
“Yes.”
“Were any of them - did anyone by - ” and the struggle is all for naught because Dr. Grant shakes his head and anyone with a lick of sense can draw conclusions from the wordless dismissal.
He’s the only one that lived.
It’s just as well.
-
Dear Vera,
It looks like I might be heading home sooner rather than later.
He leaves out the part about him being injured much in the same way he left out the part about watching Lebec eating his gun. These are the harsh realities and they’re all better off back home with news reels and big, bold print headlines that end in exclamation points and speak of victories.
-
He sees Gibson, once, makes it all the way down to the little prison cell masquerading as cozy hospital accommodations that they’ve got him in.
“It wasn’t quick for you,” the tips of Gibson’s fingers bleed from under the nail and his eyes are bloodshot, “and now it’s all downhill.”
-
“Fancy running into you here.” Leckie’s on the edge of sleep straight up until he hears the voice. He blinks and then Hoosier’s right in front of him.
He registers the voice, then the face, then the wheelchair. The knee of the leg he was shot in curves into a stump. Leckie swallows, forces his voice to even out as he says, “Bill.”
“In the flesh.” He wheels closer. “At least most of it.” He cracks an actual smile and Leckie doesn’t have a fucking clue what to do with that. “What are you in for?”
He lifts up his shirt, displays the scar that runs ugly and red along his abdomen, and Hoosier hardly even blinks.
“Their handiwork?”
“There’s an alternative?” He cocks an eyebrow, just this side of comical.
“Yeah. They ship your ass back to Guadalcanal and do it there.”
Leckie’s fairly sure he wants no part in ever setting foot in that hellhole again. “What are you doing here then?”
“Pit stop on the way home, my friend.” There’s a cough, behind them, a nurse makes a dash to the bedside of another man in far worse shape than the two of them. Captain Midnight is back in his bed, silent and still in the midday light that filters in. The air is stale and he was tired of this place after the first time he got here.
“Yeah,” he looks away, “me too.”
-
“Sometimes, prayer helps,” the nurse places her hand on his, the day they take him off most of his pain meds.
He has the good grace not to laugh until she’s out of earshot.
-
“You ever hear anything about Chuckler and Runner?”
Hoosier shrugs, nonchalant.
Leckie figures it’s a better answer than any of the others he’s gotten. He takes the ambiguity when he comes by it because sometimes it’s better to wonder.
(This time, he gets it in his head that they’re still in it. They’re still fine.)
-
Home is a lie.
No, they ship him off to fucking Camp Pendleton now that he’s all whole and healed and by the time he’s wondering what he’s doing on the wrong fucking coast they’re giving him some spiel about war bonds.
He’s heard all about this song and dance before and he wants no part of it. He just wants to get the fuck out of here.
They sure want him though. Wounded in combat looks real damn good on paper and he’s a pretty face that they can show off attached to that Purple Heart. Besides, he’ll sell better than guys who are missing limbs or have their faces all cut up. His dress blues cover his scars neatly.
It’s calculated, sickening, but that feeling has become so routine he barely even notices it anymore.
He says no, followed by some more spirited variations on the sentiment, and, surprise surprise, they take about as well to that as he imagined they would.
Which is how he meets up with John Basilone again.
-
The first letter he gets since Guadalcanal is three lines long, and from his aunt in Philadelphia.
Your father passed away Sunday morning.
His eyes flit to the date, finds it postmarked a little over three months ago. The significance of the date registers before the significance of the event.
He remembers months and years as locations on a map instead of numbers on a calendar, a skewed perception this ordeal’s giving him that’s bound to cause problems. Three months ago, he was heading from Banika to Pavuvu, heavy bag slung over his shoulder and the long walk to his docks with the sun burning into his back.
Three months ago his father died.
He’s got a mother, five sisters, one brother that’s still living - you’d think the first word he got about this wouldn’t be from an aunt he saw once or twice a year. You would be wrong.
-
He scraps his latest letter to Vera, burns it with a cigarette between his lips, and asks when the hell he gets out of this training base that’s of no use to him.
Been there, done that. Game over for him, at least it was supposed to be.
-
His first encounter with Basilone, on home territory, isn’t really an encounter with him at all.
It’s Virginia Grey, famed actress, all cascading blonde curls and lips match the purse match the dress. Her hand is on her hip and she leans at an angle that she must think is provocative. It might be, too, and he might just be far too wary and sick of this whole situation to notice.
“So they’re courting you,” she looks him over, appraising in such a way that’s usually reserved for men and considered too forward coming from a woman unless the title ‘movie star’ or ‘prostitute’ can be found in front of her name. “I can see why.”
“Thanks.” If it comes off as insincere she pays no mind to it, electing to keep her focus on the gold cigarette case in her hand. She offers and he shakes his head, doesn’t speak until she’s got a lighter raised. “I’m turning them down anyway.”
Her eyebrows raise, perfect arch. “Yeah?”
“Not exactly comfortable being someone’s poster boy for this war,” he replies, not bothering to tack on all the reasons why. Because he wanted nothing more to go home practically the minute the first shot had been fired, maybe before that. Because he joined up out of some misguided obligation. Because it was supposed to make his parents proud. Because it didn’t and the only thing he achieved at the end of the day was that scar on his belly. They hadn’t won a fucking thing yet and if they did it, it would be to none of his credit.
A door opens, followed by a quick “Sergeant Basilone” and Leckie shoots a glance over his shoulder, sees a barely familiar face that he wouldn’t have been able to place without the name and the uniform. That and the fact that his fucking face had been plastered on posters and billboards and, he supposes, news reels - not that he had been anywhere in the vicinity of a theater in quite some time.
“John,” Virginia beckons him, lacquered lips that spread into a wide smile, and Leckie’s watching body language of all things, the stiff, contained way in which Basilone holds himself. Marine or not, Leckie hasn’t walked that straight since basic. “This is the man they’re courting to replace you.”
His face is blank. “Yeah?”
There’s a moment where he flashes on the 7th all dressed up for Sunday school, Doc Stern bitching about letting the wound on his leg go too long, Chuckler lighting up next to him, and the good-natured barbs flying out of Basilone and his buddies mouths.
Leckie squares his shoulders. “The real Marines are here now.”
He’d call that recognition in the other man’s eyes, and if not that then his reply proves it. “And have been here for some time.”
-
Twice he tries writing to his mother.
Those letters only go the way Vera’s did.
(He goes to church on Sunday, because his father died and it’s a routine he knows, but as he’s making the sign of the cross, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, he’s fighting the urge to storm out, to announce the hypocrisy of the whole thing, all things considered, and he decides the only thing that’s going to make him feel any better comes in a bottle.
They lost the father, got the son - maybe it was an unfair trade - and he has nothing to say for spirits and ghosts.)
-
“You’re saying no?” They’re on the stairs, some hotel they’re putting Basilone up in - have been for a while if he bothers to note the way half the staff seems to know him enough to hold a conversation with him - and Leckie’s just grateful to be out of Pendleton.
If he’s reading this right, he’s pretty sure Basilone’s just grateful to be away from Ms. Grey. He brings enough attention on his own and he doesn’t strike Leckie as someone who’s particularly enamored with his newfound fame. No, he strikes Leckie as someone who might actually want to ship back out from the way he speaks so fondly of it, and Leckie’s pretty sure that’s the kind of person who needs to be locked away in those cells back in Banika.
“You can’t fucking tell me you’re enjoying any of this.”
“It’s where I’m needed,” Basilone replies simply, what some would call eloquently, but his jaw sets in such a way that tells him there’s more to that story, only he can’t ask for an elaboration because some young kid has paper and pen and John Basilone has a fucking holiday named after him and god knows what else.
-
Sleep comes less and less frequently as time passes. Loud noises, sudden movements, complete darkness - all are less welcome.
It’s not that he’s scared, it’s not that he wakes in a cold sweat in the middle of the night or finds himself flashing back at the most inopportune of moments. No, they’re terming that combat fatigue and throwing around some scary ass numbers - he called a fucking asylum home for over a month, whether or not it doubled as a hospital as well, and he heard things that they’d probably have preferred he didn’t - and he doesn’t quite fit into their neat little definitions.
Instead, it’s the training. The lifestyle. Adapt or suffer the consequences; whether or not you learn to revert back is your problem.
-
“So tell me,” he doesn’t claim to know how they came to stand side by side one another so frequently, “is the sex with the famous Ms. Grey as good as all the boys back home fantasize it would be.”
There are two ways this could’ve gone. Had this conversation occurred a week or two ago, it might have involved someone landing a punch. However, in light of recent developments, Basilone just walks quicker. “Gentlemen don’t kiss and tell; isn’t that one somewhere in your textbook of quotes to know and say that you keep in that head of yours?”
“Now come on, we’re all friends here.” Smoke fills the air and it’s anyone’s guess whose fault that is among the two of them. Three if you count his recently departed friend. “And certainly not gentlemen.”
Basilone laughs, a muted spread of his lips. He says nothing, gives him no more ammunition.
“I hear you have some competition anyways,” he takes a seat at the small round table in the other man’s hotel room, meeting the other man’s questioning gaze head on, “at least if Hedda Hopper is to be believed.”
“You have time to read gossip columns over at Pendleton?”
“I have time to plan a coup if I wanted to. They don’t have any fucking idea what to do with me as long as I’m still saying no but they’re pretty damn determined to stick to their guns and keep trying to turn me around.”
“Yeah.” It’s there to fill up the dead air and nothing more, as Basilone settles into the chair across from him. He’s got a pretty good hunch that the other man’s hoping against hope (he thought they lost the need for that, the reliance on that, back on Guadalcanal - maybe it’d be better if they did) that Leckie gives in and signs himself up for this tour from hell. Like maybe if he does they’ll cut Basilone loose and he can go back to fighting the good fight like he wants. He deals well with fame but he wants no part in it.
Leckie leans back in his chair. “Besides, it’s not like Clark Gable is any competition for an American War Hero.” There’s a pause. “Though I did see mention made of him just returning from Europe a month or two back. Wonder what he was doing over there.”
Basilone just brings his lighter to his lips and keeps his gaze trained on the wall above Leckie’s head.
-
If nothing else, what’s going on behind closed doors would be more than enough to keep him off of all manner of military propaganda for the duration of the rest of his life. Frowned upon isn’t a strong enough phrase for what they’re doing.
“Mr. Basilone.” There’s a set of knocks at the door. They both scramble, silent, bare skin tangled in bed sheets. Basilone jerks his head towards the adjoining bathroom and Leckie slips inside with his clothes, closing the door with a barely audible click. He dresses quickly, listening to Basilone speak to the two men outside the door talk about a photo op they’ve got set up, whether or not he’d like to discuss this downstairs.
He does.
Leckie exhales against the bathroom door as they leave.
-
“All due respect, Sir, but I’d really just rather head home.”
“You’re passing up an opportunity that many men would kill for.”
He folds his hands in his lap. “And I’m sure many men have, Sir.”
“Don’t get smart with me.” The gruff character in front of him, full uniform and the attitude to match the ribbons on it, slammed his hands down, palms down, on the desk for emphasis. Leckie got the feeling he didn’t care for him all that much. The feeling was mutual. “You ever stop to think that perhaps your family might take issue with your refusal? Seems to me that, in their place, I’d find myself mighty disappointed.”
“I’m sure they will be.”
It doesn’t much matter to him. He knows now other feeling than that from them.
What’s left of them anyways.
-
“I leave the day after tomorrow.” Basilone nods, thoughtfully, tension back in his shoulders. Sarcastically, he adds, “Don’t have to get all emotional on me.”
The other man doesn’t laugh. It’s not particularly funny.
Leckie watches him walk from one end of the room, right past him, towards the other, without a word, and he resigns himself to the other man’s anger.
Seconds later there’s a hand along the line of his jaw and lips against his own and he resigns himself to something else.
-
The day he leaves, Basilone’s too busy saying “back the attack” to let “goodbye” roll off of his lips.
It’s just as well.
(There was always an understanding here).
-
When he returns to New Jersey, his first visit is not to his mother. Given all that’s happened he should be practically bowled over by the opportunity to do so.
He’s not.
His return is quiet, met with no celebration, which is the way he wants it. There’s an entire day where no one knows he’s back and it’s just him and the solitude of the home he left behind, small and sparse but infinitely more comfortable than Pavuvu or Banika or fucking Pendleton ever was.
For eight hours he sleeps - the first eight consecutive he’s had in months - and then he heads out.
-
“Just a second.” Vera’s voice is clear, even from the other side of the door. There are sounds of a lock being undone and he shoves his hands in his pockets and waits. The door opens with a flourish a moment later, and he watches shock play on her features, his name on a sharp inhale. “Bob.”
“Vera,” he greets, in like, for lack of anything else to say. For lack of anything else that he’s willing to say.
She remains stock still in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob, the other by her side - where she left them before her eyes locked with his - and he doesn’t remember her being so pale under her makeup.
“Quite the reception,” he adds, when the silence has become nothing but uncomfortable with her staring at him like that. No longer does he struggle to find his words with her. This war has destroyed other facets of him, particularly his belief system, but there is a renewed sense of confidence to go with the disillusionment.
“You stopped writing,” she says, finally.
“Yeah.” Her eyes are shining with something other than tears and the corners of her lips are turned down. He’s gotten better at reading motives but that doesn’t necessarily extend to emotions. “I’m surprised you noticed.”
She licks her lips, bows her head forward a moment, her line of vision presumably falling to the shoes on her feet, and her hair falls into her face. He’s beginning to think shutting himself in his bedroom for another day or two might have been the better course of action.
And then:
“I noticed.”
He raises an eyebrow, anything but comical. Surprised. “Yeah?”
“I noticed,” she repeats, like she means this if nothing else. He has the sudden urge to brush that stray strand of hair out of her face, to slide his hand along her cheek. “I noticed when you stopped coming by too.”
It confuses him. “I shipped out right after - ”
“Years ago,” she amends. “I noticed then too.”
He exhales, feels too warm under the collar of his shirt.
“Do you want to come in, Bob?” She holds the door open a little wider, as if remembering her manners. As if to welcome him. He’d prefer it was the latter. “My parents are out but I’m sure they won’t mind if you’re here when they come back.”
“I’d like that.”
Vera smiles, wide, and the color comes back to her cheeks, something other than artificial. His hand closes over hers on the doorknob.
(Silently, he thinks that at least - at the end of all things - he proved Hoosier wrong. He shall not waste his days; he shall use his time).
Fandom: The Pacific.
Characters/Pairings: Leckie. Leckie/Basilone, Leckie/Vera.
Rating: R
Word Count: 4,594
Author's Note: Long overdue response to onlywordsnow's prompt. I've never done this before and it was an arduous process but I can't say it wasn't fun.
Summary: Up to Part 5, with speculation. He writes until his fingers cramp, ignores the rain, ignores the looming idea that this is all the punchline to some joke that he isn't in on.
. . .
Dear Vera,
He’s erased the first line three times, gray smudge down the paper and it blends with his fingerprints, the dirt and the gunpowder that never seems to leave his hands.
“You really think that’s going to do any fucking good? For all you know, you might be dead by the time those get to her.” Hoosier’s got a cigarette dangling between his lips and the tips of his boots kick at the ground beneath them.
“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” He rattles it off without too much thought, one of dozens of quotes floating around his head. It has been said that war is long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror, and Leckie has yet to come up with a convincing argument otherwise. Hoosier’s staring at him and Runner’s bothered to open one-eye for the occasion. “Jack London.”
“Professor Leckie makes a return,” Hoosier replies, stubs out his cigarette. No one pauses at the sounds of ruckus outside. This is Pavuvu, not Gloucester or Guadalcanal; they’re not waiting for the Japs to pop out of the damn bushes, take them all by surprise in the dark of night.
He feels no measure of safety, even from that small comfort.
This place is a nice break from the rain, even with all the waiting around.
-
Bob Leckie used to have faith in something bigger than him.
(“God is always watching,” his mother had clasped his hands in hers; he had expected them to shake, where they hadn’t, “he will keep you safe.”
“Amen to that,” he had replied, and somehow it sounds more sardonic and broken in his head than it probably did in the moment.
This war’s gotten to him in the present, damn near just as likely to throw a monkey wrench into his future as well - if he’s even got one - but it hasn’t settled for that. No, it’s got to affect his memories, his past, too.)
He’s still got that faith in bigger things than himself, he just no longer believes that thing won’t lead him astray, that it will keep him safe. God created Japs, God created this war, God set the stage and they’re just the players, acting out his will.
This is the punch line and he’s not in on the fucking joke.
-
He bumped into Vera outside of St. Mary’s, and his eyes played tricks on him, casting bright yellow and orange spots into his field of vision, white blankets of powdered snow laid out in front of him, in much the same way as the candles had thrown shadows on the walls of the church.
The place, more than anything, complicates things.
-
“John fucking Basilone’s selling war bonds back in the good old US of A,” Hoosier again, stumbling in towards his bunk, smelling of alcohol, among other things.
Leckie cracks his neck, says nothing, just focuses on the cards in his hand and the tics giving away what’s in Phillips’.
“Who’s that again?” Runner mutters. It’s sarcasm. Probably. News travels slow as molasses but it still travels.
Chuckler looks at Hoosier over his shoulder, doesn’t pay attention to the angle in which he holds his cards and if Leckie just looks a little to his right -- “Who gives a fuck?”
Hoosier hits the bunk face first before he can answer that properly but everyone seems to take the groan he gives as an answer all the same.
For a moment, he tries to conjure up a face to go with the name, the title, the heroism - what the fuck ever - and fails.
Then he folds.
-
Once, when they were young enough to play in school yards - and even later than that, folded hands and lingering glances, the words ‘improper’ and ‘inappropriate’ thrown around too carelessly - they were friends.
Thing is: before St. Mary’s on that cold December day, before red lips that curled in a half-uneasy smile and shopping trip detours and the trail left behind of his footprints in the snow leading out of the church, parallel to hers -
Before all of that, he hadn’t thought of her in months. Maybe longer.
(The problem with parallel lines is they never quite cross.)
-
He does not spend all his days thinking about Stella, after Melbourne.
(He spends some of his nights that way, though.)
-
In Peleliu, Hoosier gets hit and that’s the last Leckie or any of the others sees or hears of him.
It’s a leg wound and he gets it in his head that Hoosier got lucky because now he can get out of this godforsaken place. He gets it in his head that he’s jealous, maybe even a little happy for him.
(If it’s a lie, it’s not the first one he’s told himself out here, among the trees and the tanks, the never-ending supply of ammunition and the fast-fading supply of things like hope and humanity.)
-
There’s a Bible with his stuff, one day, the same one Sledge had paged through, the one he had told the man to keep.
It’s all he can do not to chuck it into the water, let it float out to sea with the bodies and the things that have no place here anymore.
-
It’s quick:
One minute, there is a gun, heavy and too warm to the touch. He’s fairly sure he fucked up his ankle about half a mile back and, before that, it was raining in sheets because, hell, they didn’t have enough of that in Gloucester. He feels the need to clear his throat, to cough, to inhale something other than the smell of gunpowder and smoke.
The next, everything goes black.
-
He will never hear the shot.
-
Somewhere down the line - maybe all the way back in Guadalcanal - he’d gotten it in his head that he could love Vera.
That he did love her.
Whether it was true or not, it was something to believe in, something to have faith in, and he was certainly in short supply of that.
-
How fucked are you now, how fucked are you now, how fucked are you now, you’re surely fucked now
Hoosier’s voice plays over and over and over in his head, their voices melding into a harmony.
And then.
-
“Hey, Leckie,” there’s a hand on his cheek, gentle slapping, someone trying to wake him up, “Leckie. Come the fuck on.”
It’s Chuckler hovering over him, his hand, and Leckie wants to grab his wrist, make him stop, but his arm isn’t following orders anymore than he has been as of late. His words get stuck somewhere between his tongue and his lips.
“You’re fine; it’s nothing but a scratch.” He thinks, distantly, that you couldn’t tell that from his voice. There’s panic there, he knows. He’s experienced it, his hands covered in Hoosier’s blood and he senses that he’s about to find out how this went down for the other man. “Not a damn thing but a scratch.”
Leckie has enough sense left in him to think about waiting for that white light everyone talks about straight up until his world dissolves into darkness again.
-
The next time he’s awake long enough to remember it, it’s nearly two days later in Banika, and Dr. Grant’s pulled up a chair next to his bed. His legs are crossed, hands folded over his knee, and there’s a mix of concern and steady reassurance on his face.
He imagines it’s supposed to appear fatherly but he has nothing on which to form a basis for comparison.
(“Your mother said I was fool not to buy a Ford. Hope she’s not right.”
In the background they called for Bus 45, direct service to New York City, and his stomach had lurched while he watched his father lay hands on the car like a prized possession, a sharp contrast to the firm grip in which he shook his own son’s hand with, rigid and formal and as cold as his ice blue eyes had been.)
“Couldn’t get enough of this place, could you?” Leckie lays his head back, the muscles of his neck stretching and when he sucks in a breath pain blooms in his gut. He grits his teeth, doesn’t wince, and the doc nods once before he leans forward, face turning serious.
He already knows what happens next.
-
Later, he stops the man with a hand on his wrist.
“Was anyone brought in with me?”
Chuckler’s face is burned behind his eyelids.
“Yes.”
“Were any of them - did anyone by - ” and the struggle is all for naught because Dr. Grant shakes his head and anyone with a lick of sense can draw conclusions from the wordless dismissal.
He’s the only one that lived.
It’s just as well.
-
Dear Vera,
It looks like I might be heading home sooner rather than later.
He leaves out the part about him being injured much in the same way he left out the part about watching Lebec eating his gun. These are the harsh realities and they’re all better off back home with news reels and big, bold print headlines that end in exclamation points and speak of victories.
-
He sees Gibson, once, makes it all the way down to the little prison cell masquerading as cozy hospital accommodations that they’ve got him in.
“It wasn’t quick for you,” the tips of Gibson’s fingers bleed from under the nail and his eyes are bloodshot, “and now it’s all downhill.”
-
“Fancy running into you here.” Leckie’s on the edge of sleep straight up until he hears the voice. He blinks and then Hoosier’s right in front of him.
He registers the voice, then the face, then the wheelchair. The knee of the leg he was shot in curves into a stump. Leckie swallows, forces his voice to even out as he says, “Bill.”
“In the flesh.” He wheels closer. “At least most of it.” He cracks an actual smile and Leckie doesn’t have a fucking clue what to do with that. “What are you in for?”
He lifts up his shirt, displays the scar that runs ugly and red along his abdomen, and Hoosier hardly even blinks.
“Their handiwork?”
“There’s an alternative?” He cocks an eyebrow, just this side of comical.
“Yeah. They ship your ass back to Guadalcanal and do it there.”
Leckie’s fairly sure he wants no part in ever setting foot in that hellhole again. “What are you doing here then?”
“Pit stop on the way home, my friend.” There’s a cough, behind them, a nurse makes a dash to the bedside of another man in far worse shape than the two of them. Captain Midnight is back in his bed, silent and still in the midday light that filters in. The air is stale and he was tired of this place after the first time he got here.
“Yeah,” he looks away, “me too.”
-
“Sometimes, prayer helps,” the nurse places her hand on his, the day they take him off most of his pain meds.
He has the good grace not to laugh until she’s out of earshot.
-
“You ever hear anything about Chuckler and Runner?”
Hoosier shrugs, nonchalant.
Leckie figures it’s a better answer than any of the others he’s gotten. He takes the ambiguity when he comes by it because sometimes it’s better to wonder.
(This time, he gets it in his head that they’re still in it. They’re still fine.)
-
Home is a lie.
No, they ship him off to fucking Camp Pendleton now that he’s all whole and healed and by the time he’s wondering what he’s doing on the wrong fucking coast they’re giving him some spiel about war bonds.
He’s heard all about this song and dance before and he wants no part of it. He just wants to get the fuck out of here.
They sure want him though. Wounded in combat looks real damn good on paper and he’s a pretty face that they can show off attached to that Purple Heart. Besides, he’ll sell better than guys who are missing limbs or have their faces all cut up. His dress blues cover his scars neatly.
It’s calculated, sickening, but that feeling has become so routine he barely even notices it anymore.
He says no, followed by some more spirited variations on the sentiment, and, surprise surprise, they take about as well to that as he imagined they would.
Which is how he meets up with John Basilone again.
-
The first letter he gets since Guadalcanal is three lines long, and from his aunt in Philadelphia.
Your father passed away Sunday morning.
His eyes flit to the date, finds it postmarked a little over three months ago. The significance of the date registers before the significance of the event.
He remembers months and years as locations on a map instead of numbers on a calendar, a skewed perception this ordeal’s giving him that’s bound to cause problems. Three months ago, he was heading from Banika to Pavuvu, heavy bag slung over his shoulder and the long walk to his docks with the sun burning into his back.
Three months ago his father died.
He’s got a mother, five sisters, one brother that’s still living - you’d think the first word he got about this wouldn’t be from an aunt he saw once or twice a year. You would be wrong.
-
He scraps his latest letter to Vera, burns it with a cigarette between his lips, and asks when the hell he gets out of this training base that’s of no use to him.
Been there, done that. Game over for him, at least it was supposed to be.
-
His first encounter with Basilone, on home territory, isn’t really an encounter with him at all.
It’s Virginia Grey, famed actress, all cascading blonde curls and lips match the purse match the dress. Her hand is on her hip and she leans at an angle that she must think is provocative. It might be, too, and he might just be far too wary and sick of this whole situation to notice.
“So they’re courting you,” she looks him over, appraising in such a way that’s usually reserved for men and considered too forward coming from a woman unless the title ‘movie star’ or ‘prostitute’ can be found in front of her name. “I can see why.”
“Thanks.” If it comes off as insincere she pays no mind to it, electing to keep her focus on the gold cigarette case in her hand. She offers and he shakes his head, doesn’t speak until she’s got a lighter raised. “I’m turning them down anyway.”
Her eyebrows raise, perfect arch. “Yeah?”
“Not exactly comfortable being someone’s poster boy for this war,” he replies, not bothering to tack on all the reasons why. Because he wanted nothing more to go home practically the minute the first shot had been fired, maybe before that. Because he joined up out of some misguided obligation. Because it was supposed to make his parents proud. Because it didn’t and the only thing he achieved at the end of the day was that scar on his belly. They hadn’t won a fucking thing yet and if they did it, it would be to none of his credit.
A door opens, followed by a quick “Sergeant Basilone” and Leckie shoots a glance over his shoulder, sees a barely familiar face that he wouldn’t have been able to place without the name and the uniform. That and the fact that his fucking face had been plastered on posters and billboards and, he supposes, news reels - not that he had been anywhere in the vicinity of a theater in quite some time.
“John,” Virginia beckons him, lacquered lips that spread into a wide smile, and Leckie’s watching body language of all things, the stiff, contained way in which Basilone holds himself. Marine or not, Leckie hasn’t walked that straight since basic. “This is the man they’re courting to replace you.”
His face is blank. “Yeah?”
There’s a moment where he flashes on the 7th all dressed up for Sunday school, Doc Stern bitching about letting the wound on his leg go too long, Chuckler lighting up next to him, and the good-natured barbs flying out of Basilone and his buddies mouths.
Leckie squares his shoulders. “The real Marines are here now.”
He’d call that recognition in the other man’s eyes, and if not that then his reply proves it. “And have been here for some time.”
-
Twice he tries writing to his mother.
Those letters only go the way Vera’s did.
(He goes to church on Sunday, because his father died and it’s a routine he knows, but as he’s making the sign of the cross, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, he’s fighting the urge to storm out, to announce the hypocrisy of the whole thing, all things considered, and he decides the only thing that’s going to make him feel any better comes in a bottle.
They lost the father, got the son - maybe it was an unfair trade - and he has nothing to say for spirits and ghosts.)
-
“You’re saying no?” They’re on the stairs, some hotel they’re putting Basilone up in - have been for a while if he bothers to note the way half the staff seems to know him enough to hold a conversation with him - and Leckie’s just grateful to be out of Pendleton.
If he’s reading this right, he’s pretty sure Basilone’s just grateful to be away from Ms. Grey. He brings enough attention on his own and he doesn’t strike Leckie as someone who’s particularly enamored with his newfound fame. No, he strikes Leckie as someone who might actually want to ship back out from the way he speaks so fondly of it, and Leckie’s pretty sure that’s the kind of person who needs to be locked away in those cells back in Banika.
“You can’t fucking tell me you’re enjoying any of this.”
“It’s where I’m needed,” Basilone replies simply, what some would call eloquently, but his jaw sets in such a way that tells him there’s more to that story, only he can’t ask for an elaboration because some young kid has paper and pen and John Basilone has a fucking holiday named after him and god knows what else.
-
Sleep comes less and less frequently as time passes. Loud noises, sudden movements, complete darkness - all are less welcome.
It’s not that he’s scared, it’s not that he wakes in a cold sweat in the middle of the night or finds himself flashing back at the most inopportune of moments. No, they’re terming that combat fatigue and throwing around some scary ass numbers - he called a fucking asylum home for over a month, whether or not it doubled as a hospital as well, and he heard things that they’d probably have preferred he didn’t - and he doesn’t quite fit into their neat little definitions.
Instead, it’s the training. The lifestyle. Adapt or suffer the consequences; whether or not you learn to revert back is your problem.
-
“So tell me,” he doesn’t claim to know how they came to stand side by side one another so frequently, “is the sex with the famous Ms. Grey as good as all the boys back home fantasize it would be.”
There are two ways this could’ve gone. Had this conversation occurred a week or two ago, it might have involved someone landing a punch. However, in light of recent developments, Basilone just walks quicker. “Gentlemen don’t kiss and tell; isn’t that one somewhere in your textbook of quotes to know and say that you keep in that head of yours?”
“Now come on, we’re all friends here.” Smoke fills the air and it’s anyone’s guess whose fault that is among the two of them. Three if you count his recently departed friend. “And certainly not gentlemen.”
Basilone laughs, a muted spread of his lips. He says nothing, gives him no more ammunition.
“I hear you have some competition anyways,” he takes a seat at the small round table in the other man’s hotel room, meeting the other man’s questioning gaze head on, “at least if Hedda Hopper is to be believed.”
“You have time to read gossip columns over at Pendleton?”
“I have time to plan a coup if I wanted to. They don’t have any fucking idea what to do with me as long as I’m still saying no but they’re pretty damn determined to stick to their guns and keep trying to turn me around.”
“Yeah.” It’s there to fill up the dead air and nothing more, as Basilone settles into the chair across from him. He’s got a pretty good hunch that the other man’s hoping against hope (he thought they lost the need for that, the reliance on that, back on Guadalcanal - maybe it’d be better if they did) that Leckie gives in and signs himself up for this tour from hell. Like maybe if he does they’ll cut Basilone loose and he can go back to fighting the good fight like he wants. He deals well with fame but he wants no part in it.
Leckie leans back in his chair. “Besides, it’s not like Clark Gable is any competition for an American War Hero.” There’s a pause. “Though I did see mention made of him just returning from Europe a month or two back. Wonder what he was doing over there.”
Basilone just brings his lighter to his lips and keeps his gaze trained on the wall above Leckie’s head.
-
If nothing else, what’s going on behind closed doors would be more than enough to keep him off of all manner of military propaganda for the duration of the rest of his life. Frowned upon isn’t a strong enough phrase for what they’re doing.
“Mr. Basilone.” There’s a set of knocks at the door. They both scramble, silent, bare skin tangled in bed sheets. Basilone jerks his head towards the adjoining bathroom and Leckie slips inside with his clothes, closing the door with a barely audible click. He dresses quickly, listening to Basilone speak to the two men outside the door talk about a photo op they’ve got set up, whether or not he’d like to discuss this downstairs.
He does.
Leckie exhales against the bathroom door as they leave.
-
“All due respect, Sir, but I’d really just rather head home.”
“You’re passing up an opportunity that many men would kill for.”
He folds his hands in his lap. “And I’m sure many men have, Sir.”
“Don’t get smart with me.” The gruff character in front of him, full uniform and the attitude to match the ribbons on it, slammed his hands down, palms down, on the desk for emphasis. Leckie got the feeling he didn’t care for him all that much. The feeling was mutual. “You ever stop to think that perhaps your family might take issue with your refusal? Seems to me that, in their place, I’d find myself mighty disappointed.”
“I’m sure they will be.”
It doesn’t much matter to him. He knows now other feeling than that from them.
What’s left of them anyways.
-
“I leave the day after tomorrow.” Basilone nods, thoughtfully, tension back in his shoulders. Sarcastically, he adds, “Don’t have to get all emotional on me.”
The other man doesn’t laugh. It’s not particularly funny.
Leckie watches him walk from one end of the room, right past him, towards the other, without a word, and he resigns himself to the other man’s anger.
Seconds later there’s a hand along the line of his jaw and lips against his own and he resigns himself to something else.
-
The day he leaves, Basilone’s too busy saying “back the attack” to let “goodbye” roll off of his lips.
It’s just as well.
(There was always an understanding here).
-
When he returns to New Jersey, his first visit is not to his mother. Given all that’s happened he should be practically bowled over by the opportunity to do so.
He’s not.
His return is quiet, met with no celebration, which is the way he wants it. There’s an entire day where no one knows he’s back and it’s just him and the solitude of the home he left behind, small and sparse but infinitely more comfortable than Pavuvu or Banika or fucking Pendleton ever was.
For eight hours he sleeps - the first eight consecutive he’s had in months - and then he heads out.
-
“Just a second.” Vera’s voice is clear, even from the other side of the door. There are sounds of a lock being undone and he shoves his hands in his pockets and waits. The door opens with a flourish a moment later, and he watches shock play on her features, his name on a sharp inhale. “Bob.”
“Vera,” he greets, in like, for lack of anything else to say. For lack of anything else that he’s willing to say.
She remains stock still in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob, the other by her side - where she left them before her eyes locked with his - and he doesn’t remember her being so pale under her makeup.
“Quite the reception,” he adds, when the silence has become nothing but uncomfortable with her staring at him like that. No longer does he struggle to find his words with her. This war has destroyed other facets of him, particularly his belief system, but there is a renewed sense of confidence to go with the disillusionment.
“You stopped writing,” she says, finally.
“Yeah.” Her eyes are shining with something other than tears and the corners of her lips are turned down. He’s gotten better at reading motives but that doesn’t necessarily extend to emotions. “I’m surprised you noticed.”
She licks her lips, bows her head forward a moment, her line of vision presumably falling to the shoes on her feet, and her hair falls into her face. He’s beginning to think shutting himself in his bedroom for another day or two might have been the better course of action.
And then:
“I noticed.”
He raises an eyebrow, anything but comical. Surprised. “Yeah?”
“I noticed,” she repeats, like she means this if nothing else. He has the sudden urge to brush that stray strand of hair out of her face, to slide his hand along her cheek. “I noticed when you stopped coming by too.”
It confuses him. “I shipped out right after - ”
“Years ago,” she amends. “I noticed then too.”
He exhales, feels too warm under the collar of his shirt.
“Do you want to come in, Bob?” She holds the door open a little wider, as if remembering her manners. As if to welcome him. He’d prefer it was the latter. “My parents are out but I’m sure they won’t mind if you’re here when they come back.”
“I’d like that.”
Vera smiles, wide, and the color comes back to her cheeks, something other than artificial. His hand closes over hers on the doorknob.
(Silently, he thinks that at least - at the end of all things - he proved Hoosier wrong. He shall not waste his days; he shall use his time).