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1.
It's small things, at first; gentle brushes of fingers against shoulders and knees, intimacy forced by the confined spaces of foxholes; a murmur of warmth that spreads outwards from his chest, steady like a fresh wound. It's an open look and the slight incline of Eddie's head across the muddy distance between where Andrew is standing and where the other man is crouched, speaking to the men, voice carrying light and easy through the rain.
Andrew blames the whole thing on Gloucester rain. Never-ending, it streams from the sky and seeps into his shoes, through his socks and onto his skin, finding its way deep down into his bones. The skin on his fingertips is wrinkled, scrunched up like prunes – between patrols he wiggles them, tries to get some feeling back. When he sleeps the rain filters into his dreams, tiny rivers sloshing against his ankles, drowning every landscape; it floods the hallways of his old school, surrounds the wooden porch of his parent's home; it washes away everything until he feels like Noah, struggling to keep himself afloat.
His tent is a tiny paradise, a reprieve from warm water falling into his eyes and the sick squelch of his boots against the ground. There's paperwork to do, even here, in the middle of this impossible place; the Marine Corps taught him to accept that death was a natural part of war; loss would be acceptable, it was unavoidable. He was an officer, and whether he liked it or not, the men around him would die. That doesn't make signing his name to it any easier.
“Worried they might fall off, Captain?” From the doorway Eddie's voice is so soft Andrew can barely hear him through the downpour. He drags his gaze away from his fingers and looks up at the lieutenant who, dripping wet, grins right back. Like his dreams, Andrew's whole body feels hollowed out, as if everything that was heavy and sure inside him has been washed away with the rain; he grips the cot beneath him with one hand and returns Eddie's smile, a small and unconvincing upward curve of his lips. Drops of water fall from Eddie's helmet creating a sporadic veil over his face that does little to distract from the violet shadows beneath his eyes, the sallow tone of his cheeks.
He sits beside Andrew on the cot, moves closer until they're knee to knee. “Beautiful weather we're having,” Andrew says, and while other men would have scowled, Eddie chuckles lightly under his breath, whispers, “Never thought I'd miss the sting of sunburn.” Andrew ducks his head to huff out a laugh, wet slide of Eddie's poncho against his arm. Kneecaps nudge and Andrew looks down, takes in the wet patches all over Eddie's pants, the dirt under his fingernails, dark lines which he scrapes at with his thumbnail. Toe-tapping out a rhythm against the ground, his shoes are mangled, rotting right off his feet.
When the men come to him, Andrew gives them empathy and tries to offer hope; he has nothing of material value to provide, no food and no new shoes, nothing that would really make this any easier. It destroys him, little by little, and he understands why even the hardest men break in this godforsaken place. The humidity is oppressive, suffocating, his lungs feel weighed down by it and every breath is like a battle. Eyelids heavy with exhaustion he wants to say something encouraging but sighs, instead, world shuddering as Eddie removes his helmet and places it on the floor nearby.
A moment later, Eddie's body goes slack against him, bony elbow digging into his arm. Against his better judgement, Andrew relaxes into it, into the comfort of closeness. In the silence that follows he tries to think of a good reason not to fall asleep; it's so easy to tilt his head just-so, take advantage of the few inches of height Eddie has on him, close his eyes and rest his head against the soft slope of his arm.
“You gotta sleep, sir,” Eddie whispers, delicate, like it's a secret. Andrew nods weakly, doesn't try to fight the way his muscles turn to jelly, the easy way that Eddie pushes him down, head sinking into the pillow. He speaks slowly, reassuringly, just a few hours, words swallowed up by the constant drum of raindrops exploding against the roof.
Through half-closed eyes he watches Eddie move until he's standing just inside the doorway, staring up toward the canopy. His face is an eerie shade of green when the sun breaks through cracks in the cloud cover, causing him to blend in with the landscape and become one with his regulation poncho. Andrew knows that beneath all the camouflage there is a filthy white shirt, collar yellowed with sweat and mottled with dark constellations of muck; a man with a shell of waxy skin, ribs casting shadows across his chest when the sun shines sickly pale through the trees; a line of ragged hand-made holes along the length of his belt, a constant reminder of how they are all wasting away, left to rot, drifting through the thick of the Cape like ghosts.
2.
The days pass with agonising slowness. There is never complete silence, always the low groan of trees swaying under the weight of their own leaves, bamboo snapping in the wind. Andrew finds himself lost in a wordless abyss, left alone with his paperwork, ink running when his men bring him updates, their helmets dripping all over his desk. He joins the wet dots that spread out across his floor, maps a path from his boots to the door.
Eddie visits, shadows beneath his eyes growing, deepening from violet to black. With him he brings coffee that tastes like it was brewed in the butt of a gun and an effortless quiet, a wave of calm for which Andrew is grateful. They sit at opposite ends of the tent and, beneath the scratch of his pen, Andrew listens to the fragile sound of Eddie's breath – in. out; in and out – waits for a gust of wind to blow him away, to carry the hunched figure of him back out to sea. And each time Eddie looks away, Andrew traces the vein which spans the length of his throat; a string of blue beneath his flesh. Their lives are fragile, he knows, and he wants to reach out, press his fingers to Eddie's pulse just to make sure he's still alive. This is what he trained for, but it's nothing like what he'd imagined- it's nothing like Guadalcanal. Some of the men call it hell, but Andrew thinks of it more as purgatory – endless grey and a chill that settles under his skin despite the tropical heat, eats away at him as he waits and waits and waits.
3.
Their second month on Gloucester bleeds into the third and Andrew's world narrows down to the splatter of the deluge against the rotting jungle floor; the promise of a sleep interrupted by the echo of gunfire and planes circling overhead; the confined space of his command tent and the empty place where Eddie should be but, when he looks up, usually is not.
Orders fall from Andrew's lips, easy like the rain, and Eddie nods, disappears for hours at a time and comes back to him covered from head to toe in mud and leaves and blood. It makes the soles of Andrew's feet itch, flutters inside him like butterflies anxious to get out, to join his men on the front line. And it's probably written all over his face by the way Eddie shakes his head, tells him he needs to stay put. Sometimes, Andrew wishes he could close himself up completely, find a way to conceal all the things that Eddie seems to pick up on so readily. With no other man can he simply change the shape of his face, speak with his eyes and be understood. Eddie knows him, as much as a man can be known out here. Andrew finds an uneasy comfort in that.
Late nights and early mornings lead into tedious days, sticky mud drying against Andrew's legs from splash-back that creeps up under his trousers, finds his skin bare where his socks have become tattered, feet sliding around in the damp remains of his boots. He runs his index finger along the arc of his calf and it feels strange, the sensation of skin against skin; he can't remember the last time anyone really touched him. He finds himself thinking of Eddie, which should shock him but instead settles light and warm inside his chest like the empty shell of a bullet.
It hardly feels like a revelation at all.
And when dusk falls Eddie arrives as if on cue, shucking his poncho and easing down beside Andrew on the cot without a sound. He says, “Alright, Captain?” words clipped and drowned out by the constant, maddening noise of the trees outside. Andrew nods automatically, clasps and unclasps his hands, hates the way his muscles tense when Eddie's arm brushes against his own.
Eddie leans forward on his elbows and rubs at the back of his neck. The smell of earth is thick; it clings to his clothing, combines with the scent of stale sweat and the stench of rot wafting in through the door. Gloucester is as far away from paradise as it's possible to be and Andrew reels, finds it impossible to to justify the way he reaches out so casually, slides his hand over the curve of Eddie's back, as if this is the kind of place where he can touch the other man without fear. Through the worn cotton of his shirt he can feel the ridge of Eddie's spine, hard knots of bone beneath his skin. Eddie leans back into the pressure of Andrew's palm, sighs quietly toward the floor and, when he looks up, his eyes are soft, smile half-hearted but honest in the way that Eddie's smiles always are.
The quickening of Andrew's heart doesn't surprise him, nor does the light press of of Eddie's hand against his thigh. He reaches forward without thinking, smooths his thumb over a smudge of dirt that runs along the curve of Eddie's jaw. “You're outta your mind,” Eddie whispers, but he hardly sounds scandalised, closing his eyes and leaning into the touch.
It rushes over Andrew all at once, a wave of emotion that has no place on the battlefield, the kind of feeling he could never quite seem to grasp when he was at home. It makes him think of struggling awkwardly with bra-straps and attaching brightly coloured flowers to his lapels; of pretty girls who fell over their own feet to kiss him. And yeah, he'd kissed them back, but he never felt half as overwhelmed as this.
He doesn't need to say anything, he knows that even in the dark Eddie can read his face as clear as day. And despite the voice in his head which tells him it's wrong, he can't help thinking how easy it would be to kiss the colour back into Eddie's cheeks, press his lips to the the tired bruises beneath his eyes and lie; tell him everything is going to be okay. Bamboo snaps to attention outside and Andrew drops his hand, drags himself back to the reality of Gloucester, of the war - of a world where Eddie pulls away completely and leaves him sitting alone in his tent, listening to the heartbeat of the jungle as it pounds – drip, drip, drip - against the roof.
In the darkness, it's easy to forget there is anything else.
4.
On the transport back to their ship, Eddie slumps sideways against him, chin angled down toward his chest. The smell of the sea blankets them, wind whipping up over the side of the boat. There are gulls overhead, wings of birds now rather than planes, and Andrew never thought he would be so happy to hear their screeching song.
He has spent three months living his life teetering on the line between exhaustion and death; but there is no enemy here and his skin thrums remembering the sensation of a rainfall that has been conspicuous in its absence all day.
Eddie says Captain under his breath like a warning, words barely a whisper from the pale, dust-stained slant of his lips. And from this close he is all pale eyelashes and freckles against a blur of dirty cheeks, hazy colours that blind Andrew with brightness against a grey sky which spans the horizon in every direction. None of the other men stir, and Andrew leans back against the hard metal hull; inhales, exhales, reminds himself that he is still alive, still breathing. Eddie sighs, a hum that gets caught up with the sound of the engine then disappears, lost to the constant vibration.
Andrew's head is full of buzzing, ears ringing like the moments after a marching band has passed. He falls asleep, he wakes up; he loses track of time until he finds himself alone in the dank belly of a metal monster cruising through the pacific ocean toward Pavuvu. When he finally makes his way onto the main deck he has to squint to see through the brilliance of the late afternoon sunshine. He rubs at his forearms where hot rays burn his skin and it's strange not to feel the pitter patter of rain, to feel instead like the light is warming him from the inside out.
The easy cadence of Eddie's voice finds Andrew leaning over the railing at the prow of the ship, staring out toward a green blob perched on the thin line of the horizon. The twang of guitar strings follows and Andrew can feel a grin pulling at the corners of his lips, impressed as always at Eddie's ability to make even the saddest song ring out like a carefree ditty. When he turns he can make out Eddie's gangly frame seated in amongst a crowd of men that Andrew doesn't recognise, any sign of Gloucester washed completely from his face. He watches Eddie's lips move, words pouring out in that familiar, unhurried drawl; only slightly off-key.
His thoughts drift back to Gloucester, to days when Eddie would hum through the thick of it, filling up the overwhelming silence which always fell when the rain eased up. Usually too soft for Andrew to really get a sense of the tune but then, some nights, he would catch a familiar refrain and he would imagine kissing the melody right out of Eddie's mouth, tasting the notes on his tongue. Too exhausted to imagine anything further than that, too emptied out and distracted by war to consider what it might mean to want anything more than the comfort provided by the closeness of another warm body.
Now though, he has all the time in the world to consider it. To over think it.
He slips below deck and finds his way to the mess, overfills a cup with coffee and gulps down mouthful after mouthful until he gets the shakes. Later, he doesn't seek Eddie out, he doesn't allow himself to be tempted by the possibility of finding him alone somewhere inside the bulky, rusted innards of the ship. Instead, he retreats to the safety of his bunk, furls in on himself as tight as possible, slots trembling hands beneath his underarms and listens to the gentle, rhythmic slap of waves against the hull.
By dawn, they will be anchored off the coast of Pavuvu, thoughts of what they've seen lost in the scramble for a decent place to sleep, for the luxury of a strong and mind-numbing drink. Lost until night falls and the echoes of mens' nightmares flood the camp.
Andrew sighs into the softness of his pillow and allows his wound-up muscles to relax.
For a little while, at least.
5.
When the time comes, Andrew regrets sending Eddie to Banika. Without the lieutenant to distract him, the days drag out more slowly than they ever did on Gloucester. Now when he dreams of rain he's praying for it, boxed in by the humidity of Pavuvu, the relentless heat of the Pacific sun against his neck. Around him colour returns to cheeks and a steady stream of hot chow transforms skeletons back into men. He takes his time filling out forms for those arriving and those who are gone; signs his name on dotted lines that seem to stretch out for miles.
He spends more time than he should in the ocean, letting salt water lap at what's left of his wounds, feet sinking into the sand and scratching at the calloused remains of blisters. Every part of his body feels starched from the sea air, hair like straw when it tickles the tips of his ears. And it doesn't matter how many times he goes swimming, dust and sand sweep up from the beach and stick to his skin, coating his forearms in a thin layer of grit. He brushes at it idly and pushes thoughts of Eddie around inside his head, worries at them until he feels like he might be going crazy.
When Eddie returns two weeks later a flush of heat has replaced the previously unhealthy pallor of his cheeks and the sunken shadows beneath his eyes have disappeared. He stands over Andrew's cot, stares down at him with hands on his hips and a grin on his face, says, “slacking off, sir?”
The magazine open on Andrew's lap is possibly older than he is, all dog-eared pages and tattered edges; he's read every single word of it, cover to cover, at least five times since Eddie left. It crinkles as he shifts, almost slides off his lap, and he can't help grinning, “Welcome back.”
It's cooler inside the tent, barely. He can smell his own sweat, the sweet undertones of humidity-damp canvas. The air shifts when Eddie folds down beside him on the cot, shuffles until they're shoulder to shoulder and Andrew tries to ignore the way Eddie's hand comes to rest in the space between their legs, little finger pressed hard against Andrew's thigh. And when he speaks, the musical inflection of his voice saturates Andrew's entire body with a warmth that prickles across his back and makes his palms clam up. From where he's sitting he can see right out through the door, his view only slightly obstructed by his desk; beyond the opening there are coconut palms, clouds – and not a single marine in sight. He thinks it feels familiar, but it's nothing like Gloucester at all, sweat pooling at the base of his spine instead of rain, the snap of crabs scuttling outside his tent instead of bamboo.
There are a thousand things that Andrew could say, none of which would help make sense of what is happening between them. His muscles thrum beneath his skin, buzzing with nervous energy, with a want that he doesn't know how to explain. Jittery he taps a rhythm out on his knee with his fingers, tries to focus on the tiny brown dots littering the trees outside. Eddie's hand eases over his own, stills him with fingers that move to wrap around his wrist then slide up over his forearm to where his sleeves are rolled to the elbow, grazing his skin with granules of sand.
“What're you doing?” he asks, trying to keep his voice soft, steady.
Eddie's reply is the press of his mouth is against Andrew's neck, a gentle brush of lips to skin. Andrew shivers, warm tropical air suddenly rushing cold against his neck when Eddie pulls back, “I don't know.”
It's not safe being this close to each other, near enough that he can suddenly smell the sweat on Eddie's skin, feel the heat radiating from every exposed inch of him. Andrew has never wanted anything so badly in his life as he wants to touch Eddie, to be able to reach out and take hold of his face and kiss the air right out of his lungs. Maybe it's Eddie's absence that has done it, given Andrew too much time alone to think, to work himself up into such a state of wanting that he just can't seem to find a parallel for it.
Red sunlight penetrates through the shield of his eyelids, makes it impossible to escape into darkness. The clink of dog tags has Andrew opening his eyes and glancing down. He watches as Eddie's long fingers skim over the raised imprint of his name and rank, tip of his thumb worrying the word Captain.
Eddie exhales and it tickles the tiny hairs on Andrew's neck until he shivers, until he feels like he's going to explode out of his own skin with the strangest, most claustrophobic frustration he has ever experienced. Years of learned patience and restraint pin him down, make him focus on the weight of his body as he tries to remember how to breathe, how to ignore the way he can feel his heartbeat in that tiny, unlikely spot where Eddies pinky presses against his thigh.
Heavy footfalls outside are Eddie's signal to get up, to retreat toward the desk and feign interest. And it's ridiculous but Andrew is relieved, if only because he doesn't know if he would have had the strength to move away, to disconnect himself from the tug of Eddie's gravity.
Haney's midway through a sentence before Andrew realises he's speaking, too busy watching Eddie quietly remove himself from the tent, all polite niceties and military sureness. He looks up at Haney's sunburnt cheeks and Eddie slips out of sight.
6.
At dusk the beach becomes a tiny galaxy of smoke lamps which compete with the stars blooming low on the horizon. Legs crossed, Eddie sits perched on a small hump of sand, plucking slowly at the strings of his guitar, drawing the tune from her like a professional, low voice rasping out a song that the men around him sing along with in turns, puffing on their cigarettes and joking through the last of the suns red-golden light.
Andrew watches from a distance, hardly prepared to spook his men just for the sake of wanting to hear Eddie sing. It's tempting, however – god, it's always so tempting to be near him. He swears he feels the sand beneath his feet tremble, body swaying forward ever-so-slightly. It's gravity again, pulling him in.
Even with Eddie's commission the situation is delicate, they walk a thin line between what is appropriate and what has the potential to land them in strife. Andrew is endlessly grateful that his thoughts are his own; lately, they drift and spin into elaborate versions of what ifs – of worlds where this war of theirs is over and it's time to go back home. He'd like to take Eddie with him, back to Maine. Sometimes he imagines what it would be like to go and see where Eddie grew up.
When Eddie spies him loitering at the edge of the beach Andrew turns, escapes in a way he'd like to think is borne out of self-preservation rather than cowardice. He'd rather not know if Eddie feels the same, not as darkness creeps over the island and plunges them into the quietness of night.
The relief of certainty can be dangerous; Andrew's not sure he has the strength to know the truth, to see the glimmer of hope in Eddie's eyes mirroring his own. Not when so much of the hope he'd arrived here with has already filtered away like sand through his fingers, leaving him with itchy palms and a constant dread sitting heavy in his stomach, weighing him down when the sun rises.
7.
Andrew returns to his tent after lunch to find Eddie sprawled out on his cot, one arm flung over his face, t-shirt riding high enough that his whole stomach is bare, rising and falling in time with his breath. The bottom of Andrew's stomach falls away, lurches uncomfortably and he almost turns around and exits. Out of everything he's seen, the sight of Eddie vulnerable – exposed - is what terrifies him the most, makes his heart beat out of time. Andrew can't even begin to deny that the thought of putting his hands on that naked skin excites him, fingers twitching when he imagines feeling the heat of it against his palms.
His hands shake as he fastens the door behind him, blocking out the afternoon sun as best he can.
Cautiously he turns and moves forward, kneels, arm pressed hard against the metal edge of the cot as he whispers Eddie's name, then, “Hey, you awake?”
And it's foolish - entirely more so than charging headlong into an army full of angry, suicidal Japs, he thinks – but he leans down anyway, puts his lips to Eddie's skin, just above the thick line of his belt. Eddie stirs, inhales sharply when Andrew rests his hand over the hard line of his shin. Eddie swallows audibly, voice unsteady and thick with sleep when he says, “Captain.” Maybe it's a warning, a gentle reminder of how their positions dictate their conduct - of why they're here - but Andrew can't seem to clear his head. He feels drunk, dizzy, like they've been spinning in circles, running loops around each other. The centre of his universe has become this small tent on this tiny island in the middle of the South Pacific and he feels as if the whole world is tilting violently sideways; any moment they're going to slide right off the map and into the ocean, into empty space. He doesn't ask why Eddie is on his bed, the reddened skin of his forehead is enough to know he's here to escape the sunshine, to hide his sunstroke from the other men.
“This is...” Eddie begins, breath hitching, derailed by the pressure of Andrew's lips moving, dropping kisses on sensitive skin.
“...risky,” Andrew finishes, mouthing the words against warm flesh, flicking his tongue out and tasting the salt of Eddie's sweat. He runs his palm over the bump of Eddie's knee, over the plane of his thigh, hand trembling, faltering when he reaches the heat of Eddie's groin, the definite curve of it. Eddie arches slightly, exhales shakily and braces himself, gripping the metal poles on each side of the cot.
Andrew tugs at Eddie's waistband and the faded, dirty khaki gives easily, reveals the slight rise of a pale hipbone; he presses his lips to the skin and sucks gently. Eddie's breathless sounds bounce around the tiny space, one hand releasing its vice grip on the bed and tangling in the stiff, salty mess of Andrew's hair.
“Andy”, he says, and the word is like a battering ram, knocking the breath right out of Andrew's lungs. He lolls his head to the side, cheek to stomach so he can see Eddie's face. Eddie looks back at him with heavy-lidded eyes that crinkle slightly at the corners, hinting at the ghost of a smile. Compromising doesn't even begin to cover the position they're in, but Andrew feels powerless to stop, glancing sidelong at the door, tent flaps still tightly secured. He tries not to think about what is on the other side, concentrates on the way Eddie's skin gives so easily beneath him, pillow-soft.
When he closes his eyes he can almost substitute the breeze through coconut palms with the rain of Gloucester – he doesn't understand why he longs for it, for the constant wind and the unceasing rain that kept him awake for days on end. There is safety in the memory of Gloucester, he supposes, of a world where they were walled up together, far away from command and regulations and the watchful eyes of their men. Closer to death, yes, but that had been unsettlingly easy to ignore, his attention split between Japanese outposts and the slight quirk of Eddie's grin as it cut through the downpour and lit up the entire world.
Andrew doesn't know how to justify falling in love in the middle of a war and wishes he could have stopped it before it happened, before he realised that he would take a bullet for Eddie and not just because his marine training told him he should. Eddie, whose fingers trail feather-light over the side of his face and tentatively stroke the line of his throat, coaxing a sigh from Andrew's lips.
Laughter carries across the camp and automatically they both withdraw, shuffle backward to a respectable distance. Andrew's not sure how long they can keep this up, how many days will pass before his self-control crumbles and he all but drags Eddie into the jungle, damn the marines and damn their foolish war.
And just like he has come to expect, Eddie removes himself from the scene, as if fleeing the implication of crime. There is the rustle of boots against sand, the harsh scrape of the tent flaps being unfastened and Andrew is alone, the taste of Eddie's skin lingering on his tongue.
8.
When the orders come he doesn't have time to pull Eddie aside, barely has time to take a breath before he's telling his men to pack up, telling them they have to move out in a few hours. It doesn't hit him until they're on the ocean: he'd honestly thought the war might end while they were on Pavuvu.
Fastening the buckles of his holster, he reacquaints himself with the familiar scratch of his regulation uniform. Eddie arrives but doesn't speak, just hands him articles of clothing as he needs them. When Andrew looks up he catches the fear in Eddie's gaze, all of the questioning and the doubt that Andrew knows will have vanished by the time they disembark, replaced by the determined conviction of an officer. It breaks his heart to see the hope chased from Eddie's eyes but he stays silent and tries to focus, bends down and reties the laces of his boots.
Andrew prepares himself for the reality of another battle, steels away from the other officers in the nervous calm of the early morning and wedges himself into the darkest corner of the ship he can find, breathes through the fear, deep and dizzying, until he's so light-headed he can barely stand up let alone think of Eddie's blood on his hands. The realisation aches right down to his bones, settles inside his marrow next to the Gloucester rain: Andrew is more scared of Eddie's death than he's ever been of losing his own life
He shudders along with the engine when they come to a standstill and for the first time in weeks he prays, whispering aloud in the hopes that God can hear him over the voices of the other men. Words get lodged at the back of his throat, wet and useless, and his mother always told him never to ask God for anything but guidance, but Andrew begs for time to stop, to take him back to Guadalcanal and the first time--
he shuts his eyes and tries to focus, tries to remember every detail. Most of it is gone, now, replaced with a messy blur of shapes caught in a haze of green. He can still recall the exact shade of the sky the day they landed; the very first time they came under enemy fire. The first thing Eddie said to him is lost, threads of speech fragmented by the adrenalin. But he knows he hardly took a second glance, barely thought of him until much later; heard him sing after dark and it carried through the trees, sounding nothing like angels at all.
9.
Peleliu is dry and dusty, wind blowing grit up into Andrew's eyes; he squints through the clouds that swirl up and around them, trains his eyes on their objective. By the time they reach the airfield his throat feels coated in sandpaper, making it difficult to swallow, to speak in anything more than a whisper.
The towering concrete of the strip provides a welcome dose of shade, eases the patch of burning flesh that the sun can reach beneath his helmet and, when night falls, the windowless walls provide a frame for the stars, twinkling above them more brightly than he can ever remember.
Eddie finds him, later, long after the men have been organised with food and water to settle their stomachs, bunched up tight with knots of latent fear. He crouches, whispers, “Thank you,” lifting his new helmet with a grin. Andrew nods and shuffles over so Eddie can share the fractured column he's been using as a prop.
Eddie slides down onto the floor and sighs heavily with relief. Andrew understands; he can feel his own muscles aching in sympathy. He doesn't mention that they lost sight of each other on the battlefield, won't admit that he felt his heart leap into his throat or that he almost turned back. He refuses to find the words to explain the way his veins flowed suddenly cold, like his blood had turned to ice. Even in the weak moonlight he can tell that the fear has begun to seep from Eddie's eyes, brow no longer furrowed with worry like it had been on the ship. He searches the calm façade of Eddie's face and is grateful that it hasn't yet been replaced by the kind of empty stare men always get when they grudgingly accept the next breath taken might be their last.
A rough hand slides against his own, dirty fingers pressed together in the darkest space between their bodies. Andrew should know better, what with all of those years spent leaning how to think first and act later, but Eddie is solid and warm against him, a fact that shouldn't be comforting on an island so hot that steam rises from the ground. He squeezes, wrings the dampness out of Eddie's palm and Eddie's smile falters, so minutely that any other man might fail to notice.
Andrew is overwhelmed by the desire to lean forward, to press his mouth against the slight downturn of Eddie's lips and force the shadows of concern from his face. The murmur of other men's whispers float through the air and Andrew isn't blind to how impossible this is, how utterly unreasonable the simple act of a kiss has become. Eddie's grip tightens briefly, and then it's gone, the flat calm of him eclipsed by the hurried approach of footsteps and the breathless laughter of men, quietly thankful to have survived another day in paradise.
10.
The wound in Eddie's chest bleeds out.
It covers the dirty green of his jacket and Andrew presses his palms over the stain, tries to force the life back into Eddie's body. “Don't you dare,” he growls, searching wildly around them for another medic. The salt pooled under his hands creeps into cuts, into the dry and cracked skin of his knuckles, stings so badly that his eyes water. And Eddie--
Eddie wraps his fingers around the bare skin of Andrew's forearm, slippery with blood, and grits his teeth in response. He's vaguely aware of his team, their tiny bodies littered around him, watching helpless as the light drains from Eddie's eyes. “No,” Andrew says, as firm as he can, and hopes that God can hear his defiance over the death-rattle of automatic rounds, can understand what he's trying to take back.
It happens quickly, a medic arrives and re-salts the wound, orders Eddie's body to be moved. Andrew can only sit back and watch as they carry him off toward the airfield, rooted to the spot by his responsibilities. And it's Sledge's thin fingers wrapped around his wrist, voice gentle as he says “He'll be okay”. Only Andrew finds that almost impossible to believe, the stretcher slipping out of view.
The wind carries the scent of blood around and around until it's all that Andrew can smell, the coppery taste of it thick against his tongue. His skin feels brittle, barely holding him together. And he could hold his breath, could count to infinity and it would still hurt: the gaping cavity in his chest that he can feel beginning to expand, swiftly swallowing up his heart. Haney's tears do nothing to quell the feeling of hopelessness that settles over the field.
When he looks to the horizon its like a blanket of darkness being pulled over the sky, all punched through with bullet holes; he thinks of Pavuvu, a hundred million miles from the rough and bloody hills of Pelilu. The cacophony settles down as night falls, drags the Umurbrogol into unsteady silence. Andrew leans back against the sharp edge of an outcropping and in the twilight he could almost mistake the sporadic hiss of gunfire for a shower of rain. He attempts to remember it again, gathering up the frayed edges of the memories he thinks he's lost, but it's useless; everything is run through with the worried whispers of the men around him, their soft sideways enquiries into the strength of his resolve. And perhaps Andrew wears the mask of man resigned to die; it's hard to think of living in the moments after the reason to do so has left.
Gunfire again, ricocheting off the nearby rocks and Andrew shuts his eyes, takes stock of his wits and waits for the dawn to come.
11.
Andrew wakes up on the ground, Burgin's panic-stricken face looming over him. “I'm not dead,” he says, matter-of-factly, and suddenly Burgin's laughing, a ragged nervous sound that hitches as he falls back against the nearby ridge.
“Christ, Skip – I thought you were.”
Andrew squints, feels the warm and sticky trail of blood oozing from his temple. His head pounds; it feels like the worst hangover he's ever had and, when he tries to sit up, the world spins until he's throwing up all of his meager breakfast rations in one go. “I'll be fine,” he croaks, pre-emptively, but Burgin's already hauling him up and dragging him back down to the where the rest of the company is waiting, stopping twice so Andrew can brace himself against the escarpment and heave uselessly all over the rocks.
Nestled in between the ragged peaks of the Umurbrogol pocket, the medic frowns at him but looks relieved, dabbing at the wound with a cloth, “Another few millimetres and you'd be dead.” Andrew thinks that's fairly obvious and winces at the sting of disinfectant. The back of his head is throbbing. He asks for news about Eddie, but all he receives his an apologetic shrug. The ships in the surrounding ocean taunt him, glimpses of them caught during patrols; Eddie could be on one, he knows, and the uncertainty of his survival is devastating.
The nausea continues well into the afternoon, has him tumbling sideways like a leaf each time he attempts to do anything other than sit perfectly still and stare at the earth beneath his feet.
“You were shot in the head,” the medic says, flatly, after Andrew falls inelegantly against him sometime later. He scrunches one eye shut, says, “The back of my head sort've hurts,” then tries to focus before he's bending double and dry retching through the medic's deafening hollar for a stretcher.
12.
There's a moment, a strangely lucid flicker of reality, where Andrew opens his eyes and First Lieutenant Stanley is standing over him, hand resting hard on his shoulder and saying, “I'll take good care of them, Captain.” Andrew considers this for a while, but by the time he has the presence of mind to reply, Stanley is turning away and striding in the opposite direction. Andrew doesn't remember being lifted onto a stretcher, in fact, he's having trouble remembering how to say his own name, watching the landscape fly past in a swirl of grey and green as it occurs to him that he hasn't had a chance to tell his men goodbye.
13.
No one aboard the ship has ever heard of a Lt. Edward Jones.
Bright lights are flashed in Andrew's eyes every now and then and he's disorientated by the way the white walls tilt sickenly from side to side each time he tries to move. There's a pretty nurse seated by his side for a long while, talking to him and patting his arm reassuringly. She keeps telling him he has to stay awake, but god, it feels like he hasn't slept in years. His eyes slip shut, just for a moment, and her voice gets loud; Andrew wants to tell her she'll wake up all her patients if she isn't careful, but the words don't seem to come out right. He asks about the battle raging on Peleliu, but she just shakes her head and questions him about his hometown.
Later, with the nausea finally subsided and the doctor's permission to sleep, he can't seem to find a way to quiet his thoughts, eyes wide and refusing to cooperate with his silent pleas for rest. No one is forthcoming with information about the Umurbrogol and any wounded brought on board are too far gone to question. The drone of aircraft above is followed by the long, drawn out whistle of shells being dropped from a great height; the sickening sound of shattering trees and crumbling rock causes Andrew's stomach to clench, makes his feet itch for action.
The engines fire up during the night, rumbling deep in the belly of the ship and vibrating up through his bed. He's not sure what time it is when the hull shivers and groans, lurches awkwardly forward and begins its journey away from Palau, but the still of night is fractured by the sound of it. The small ward floods quickly with the unhappy song of tired, broken soldiers and their nightmares. He listens to the soft sounds of the man next to him sobbing wetly, pleadingly into his pillow for God to take him home and Andrew can feel the distance growing as medical equipment rattles against stainless steel trays. He thinks of K Company, the exhaustion and fear etched onto their faces. There's not a damn thing he can do about it anymore and the realisation slices through his heart, sharp as a razorblade.
14.
The naval hospital on Manus Island is full of limbless, spiritless men. The wound on Andrew's forehead throbs, the bruise surrounding it a shade of mottled-blue he can't quite stand the sight of; it looks awful and the nurses seem intent on telling him as much at every opportunity. Andrew cringes when they tell him he can't go back; apparently, there is still a significant risk. He doesn't say he's more likely to be shot in the heart than knock his head again, feeling foolish beside a line-up of men who had to loose appendages before they were allowed a reprieve from the war. The soldier in the bed next to his laughs, says, “Sweet Jesus, you're the luckiest son'ova bitch I ever saw,” the blankets tucked in tight across the rounded nub just below his knee.
Andrew smiles, weakly; his definition of luck is being re-written every day.
15.
The gentle strum of guitar strings wakes Andrew from sleep. For a moment, he thinks it's all part of his dream – he was picturing home, the long stretch of a football field beneath his feet, birds in the trees – just a lingering fragment of thought, but then it comes again, the definite sound of a G chord.
He's struggling out of the tangled disarray of his sheets before he can even consider what it might do to his head – he sways, briefly, then steadies himself against the bedside table, feet firmly on the ground for the first time in days.
On the back steps of the building a hunched figure topped with a curled mess of dirty auburn is wrapped around the familiar curves of a guitar. The world slows, for a heartbeat, before his voice betrays him, tumbling from his lips all rough-edged and needy, “Eddie.”
Eddie turns, smile wide and toothy, “I was wonderin' when you'd wake up.”
Gravity pulls against every single cell in Andrew's body; it yanks him forward, downward, as close to Eddie's sun-kissed and breathing frame as he can be without it looking suspicious. He wonders how long Eddie's known, how many days he has waited for Andrew to come outside. “You're here,” he says, and Eddie laughs, pats him gently on the leg and moves to lean his guitar against the step.
Andrew's aware that he's staring open mouthed like a stunned guppy, but he hadn't expected this. In fact, he's unsure what he expected – probably a note from command several months down the track to notify him of Eddie's death, if he's honest.
Eddie's still grinning, tilting his head, saying, “They did say you'd hit your head.” Like Andrew's sudden collapse into shocked silence is a result of brain injury rather than the realisation that the man he loves is still alive. He reaches out, acutely aware of their surroundings, and lays his hand on Eddie's cheek, just for a second, before dropping to his shoulder. “It's good to see you, Lieutenant.”
His heart beats so loudly that he can hardly hear anything else, almost misses it when Eddie ducks his head, cheeks colouring as he leans into the touch and whispers,“It's good to see you, too.”