A/N: I saw the movie Platoon a while ago and loved it, it depressed me I couldn't find any Platoon fanfiction on except one.
So me and xDarkChocolate, made one-shot, about Elias and Chris. Happens when Elias watching the stars. Enjoy,
.-.-.Stars.-.-.
"Look at the stars," Elias said, when Chris sat down next to him by the tree. The only sound came from the usual wind in the trees and the night-animals. If it hadn't been for their troubled minds, it could almost be a normal night.
"They're beautiful." Chris replied, looking up at the sky too.
"There is no right and wrong in them." Elias continued, looking at Chris for a split-second, then looking back at the stars.
"That's a nice way of putting it." Non of them spoke for some moments, it seemed a long time, when in fact it had just been moments since Chris had sat down next to Elias, until Chris broke the silent. "What do you think about the war?"
Elias hadn't paid much attention for his reply was vague. "Na, well…"
"Think we'll win?" Chris asked, more specific. Elias sighed, then looked at Chris, smiling oddly.
"Na, I figured we're kicking people's asses for so long, it's time we got ours kicked." Chris was slightly taken aback, he had expected something a little more optimistic, but couldn't help smile back.
"Maybe not." Chris replied, "We'll have to wait and see."
"Yeah, or die and leave the rest to others."
"That's why we better not die." Chris said, "than again, maybe this all isn't as bad as it seems. If it hadn't been for war…" He had difficultly finding the right words.
"We would've never been sitting here looking at the stars." Elias finished.
"Yeah." Chris replied, "this is… good."
"Good's good enough." Elias said, he was about to get up when Chris grabbed his arm and stopped him. He looked around. "What?"
"I – don't go." Chris said, Elias sat back down again, looking at Chris as if expecting him to explain his actions. "I don't want this moment to… pass." He said. Elias nodded approvingly, but didn't seem sure what to do. "This war, this… everything, there aren't a lot of moments I actually feel like before this all started, unworried."
"You keep speaking like a poet, Tylor." Elias said, with his halfway grin, looking down on him. "If you don't stop that soon, some of the man might think you're gay."
Somehow Chris felt his cheeks flush, quickly, not to seem like a young schoolboy, he lighted on a new cig. The sergeant sat next down to him again and noticed he also was out of nicotine.
"Sure you got some more where that came from, right?" Elias said, still smiling.
"Sure, sure." Chris stumbled out and felt in his pockets. He felt three fresh rolled cigs and handed one over to Elias. He felt around for his light but could not find his Zippo. He must have dropped it when he lighted his own cig.
Elias noticed the missing piece of art to give him a new shot of comfort. "No light? No worries."
He grabbed Chris his chin and pulled him closer. Chris tensed and the trace of weed and sleepless nights was suddenly gone. Somehow his reaction seemed to amuse Elias, he smiled and pushed his cig between his lips. He pressed Chris burning cig against his own and inhaled.
"Cig kiss, never heard of that poetry-boy?" He grinned and blew out some smoke.
Chris didn't have a reply to that and decided to ignore it. He felt lightheaded and wasn't entirely sure whether that was the fault of the cig.
In the passed few weeks in the platoon he hadn't felt so close to anyone. It was an odd sensation, here in the middle of the night, in the middle of war. He didn't dare to look at Elias, afraid Elias would notice.
You could almost say he avoided the Sergeant from that night on. Of course there wasn't much time to avoid someone, they were getting deeper and deeper into the jungle and monsoon season had started. So if they weren't walking, or trying to catch some sleep they would be tying to keep dry from the horrible rain.
It was night, the sky was dark, no star to see. It made Chris feel bad, something big was coming, as if the starless sky was a sign, a warning. He was unfolding his sleeping bag and lay down on it. It was dark, but not cold. It never seemed to get cold out here, but the mosquitoes would torture you so with their sound and itches it was better to drown in your own sweet then to lie right in the big bright open.
But tonight there weren't any mosquitoes, tonight they slept between rocks and not anywhere near a swamp. It was safe to lay bare like Chris was doing.
"Mind if you trade me another cig, poetry-boy." An amused voice asked. Shocked Chris sat up straight a bit startled to see Elias stand net to him, looking down at him.
"N – no, not at all." He muttered a bit uneasy. Quickly he took out his tobacco and rolled a cig. He hoped Elias wouldn't notice his tensed way of rolling the cig. When he handed over the cig he knew Elias had noticed, he could see it in the amused way Elias looked at him.
"Don't worry, I'll light it myself this time." He said, taking a lighter out of his pocket. He inhaled the smoke and sat down next to Chris. "So, what's up?"
"What do you mean?" Chris asked, trying to sound indifferent.
"You know what I mean, star-shine." Chris didn't reply, he couldn't find the right words, that happened a lot lately, he noticed. Elias grinned, his eyes locked on Chris'. "One of us could be dead tomorrow, this might be your last change." Chris didn't want to face it, but knew Elias was right. "Tell me what's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong." Chris replied. "I just realized something."
"Realized something you had to ignore me for?"
"Not ignore… more like… avoid." Chris replied vaguely, "I never…"
"It's okay, just tell me what's going on." Elias cut of his muttering.
Chris knew he couldn't wait any longer, as Elias had said, this might be the last change he had. He didn't want to think about tomorrow, but he couldn't deny the fact time was running out. He gathered his courage and looked Elias in the eyes.
"I don't know about a lot, but I do know, when I see you and talk to you, it feels as if time's turned back, as if war isn't happening."
"You're talking like a poet again, star-shine." Chris looked away, feeling his cheeks redden. Elias laughed softly. "You're quit a strange stray." He grabbed Chris' chin, gently forcing him to look him in the eyes. "You shouldn't worry so much what people like me think about you. Shakespeare."
"Sorry?" Chris asked.
"You're always trying to do everything exactly right when I'm close. You always try to make everything you say sound out of a poem, well guess what Chris, life ain't a poem." Elias replied.
"Well, it's… I don't mean to…" Chris tripped over his words again as he had no idea how to respond.
"Even when you don't know exactly what to say, I like you." Elias said. Chris blushed again, which made Elias smile.
"R – really?" He asked. Elias bent forward, pulling Chris closer. Before Chris registered what was happening Elias had pressed their lips together, Chris closed his eyes, he noticed the smell and taste of the cig, but that wasn't important. He couldn't believe what was happening, but before he knew it the moment was gone. Elias had pulled back and was looking at him.
Non of them spoke for a long time, Chris wasn't sure what to say and neither was Elias at the looks of it.
"You should get some sleep." Elias said, Chris was disappointed and that clearly showed for Elias laughed again.
"I should." Chris whispered still a bit lightheaded, not sure if it was only from the moment or from the grass as well.
"You know when I first signed in to do the job I thought like you, Tylor." Elias started to blur out, clearly he wasn't the only one that felt a little lightheaded. "I was so naïve, thinking I could changes the world. But I can't, no-one can. You can try, but you're the one that changes, not the world. And don't try to understand, you go nuts, blow your head off at one point." He smiled. "That's what my dad did after the WOII, he just went insane."
Chris wasn't that good with saying the right words at the right time, as you might have noticed. "I – I'm sorry about your father."
"Na, wasn't that much of a dad anyway." Elias smiled, but not the cocky usual smile of his. "Wasn't that much around. But you learn what you see, right? So here I'm sitt'n my ass up in 'Nam, watching the black sky not sure if I'll live to tell the tale"
Chris let all the information sink into his mind, it was a bit hard, having a bit of a blur and still feeling the smoke of weed in your system. "And what tale would that be?"
"Hmm." Elias sat back and looked up to the black night. "'Bout a ordinary guy that wasn't sure what life expected of him."
"That's the story you'll tell to your grandkids?" Chris mocked and gave him an odd look.
"You got anything better?"
"Dropped out of high school to make sure I would not end up as my parents. Straight minded, ordinary people. I wanted to see the big picture, you know what I mean? The grand design. Make a change, change myself. For the better or the worse. Just couldn't take the nagging anymore."
"So you ain't any good, Shakespeare?"
"Good's not good enough. I wanted to be better." Chris said. "Give everything I had."
"Not much of a story either, sorry to say so, Chris."
"Both of ours aren't here to write, or become storytellers."
"Touché."
They both went silent again and looked up to the black night. The soldiers around them where fast asleep, except for the few unfortunate guys that were on watch and had to sit through the next two hours, scanning the dark for the dinks. Two hours of nothing, sitting between the bushed holding one grenade just in case.
It seemed two hours instead of two minutes when Elias started to speak again. "I think I'll miss this place."
"You will?" Chris said a bit disturbed.
"Yeah, I've been here so long I think I'll miss being here. I'll miss the freedom this war is bringing me, sounds retarded. But I can do what I want, I'm faster alone. And this, this is no place like home where you live in a house, go to work and be stuck all the time. I don't want to get stuck in the middle of life. I wanna live life to the fullest."
Chris laughed. "Look who's talking like a poet now, Casanova."
Elias burst out in laughter. "Got me there." He smiled. "And I'll miss my man, and I'll miss you star-shin."
The words made him uncomfortable and he moved a bit away from the clearly high-like-the-sky sergeant. "You sound like you've seen death."
"Haven't I?" Snored Elias. "Seen the fucker more then once, you get to know him after a while."
Chris suspected there was a bigger meaning to the words.
"Know him? Like… knowing when he'll come by again?"
"Something like that, yeah." Elias replied.
"But you don't think you'll…" Chris couldn't finish the sentence, he didn't want to think about it, let along face it could happen.
"Maybe." Elias answered, "Na, you can never be really sure, can you?"
"N – no, I guess not." Chris said. "But I try not to think about it that much."
"What we all try to do."
The conversation fell silent again, as they both looked up at the sky. The moon was vaguely visible between patches of clouds.
"She's just there, as if nothing is happening down here." Chris said.
"Nothing is happening down here! People are small… what does it matter, in the end?"
"To us it matters." Chris replied. "Exactly why did you k – kiss me?" He asked, finally having managed to ask the question.
"Ah, I was wondering when you would ask that." Elias replied, amused. "Took you long enough." He sighted. "I've been here for, what? Three years now. Three long years. I'm high now and it took me three years to get the nerve to kiss someone again. Guess it's death pushing me over the edge, 'cause it keeps lingering behind every corner."
No longer Elias looked like the strong spirited fighter Chris once called him. More like a man that was out of morals to live after. And who could blame him after three years of this heated hell? He was here for about one hundred days and he already started to worry about his ideas.
"Does it get less, the feeling of murder?"
"It never does. It never will go away. It keeps being here." He pointed at his head. "Forever."
"Why don't you go?"
"What, like home? There isn't a place to call home. It's to late for me to get back there. Life has passed me there, it kept the same and I changed. So I passed life. Never end up like me Tylor, never pass your change to get home sweet home."
After that Elias stood up, and felt in his pocket. "For the cigs, mate." He tossed a metal Zippo at his feet.
As he picked up the lighter he watched Elias walk off. With his shoulders straight, his face up at the sky and smiling in a way not much people could smile.
"Thanks." He whispered and put it in his pocket.
None of them knew this was the last conversation, well maybe Elias had known, because in the way he'd expressed himself to Tylor, told him a few things you only tell if you had not much time left.
When Tylor came home he never thought about Elias that much. He was back home, so why would he? That's what he kept in mind. He'd come home, he survived. He followed Elias' advice and went home when he had the change.
But every now and then, when he felt the strange urge to smoke he stared at the lighter, with a few scratches on it. In a way a part of him still lay in 'Nam, somewhere in the bushes not that far from a broken church. In a way a part of him had died that day so long ago, with Elias.
When he smoked some weed, not that occasional he went back to the place with Elias, talking about anything and nothing at all. Somehow there was a strange kind of peace in that war, Elias had given that to him.
He'd never totally understood that kiss, but he would never forget, as the many other things that made him the man he was today. But still there was a small piece that kept asking about it, wondering what had happened if the both had survived the war.
God only knows, as the moon and the stars.
End.