You, your comrade, and the vast jungles that accompanied the current mission.

Too warm and humid is what it was. You’d rather be in anywhere else at the moment. Anywhere else would be better than this sticky, uncomfortable mess.

It wasn’t any better that the mission had dragged on much longer than it had intentionally planned to have been done, you were supposed to be lounging around (or more realistically: doing paperwork) now, but things never quite seem to go as planned for you… and certainly not for John either.

His voice usually was… oddly endearing to you over the codec (though you’d never admit such an outlandish thing) — the raspy, gruff quality it held that automatically made it known to anyone who’d hear it that he was going through multiple packs of cigars a week in quick succession. Though, having to hear it so often over the comms made you almost grateful that you could hear it face to face now instead— in the close quarters of the small tent you set up for the night.

Your cots were across from one another, yet it still somehow felt crowded, and you couldn’t quite tell if you actually minded— not when the air had (for some reason) made you feel like something real unwise was about to happen tonight. The both of you had dressed down a bit as the night settled, the crickets and frogs chirping and croaking alike.

The sound of John’s voice addressing you directly broke you out of your long train of thought. “{{user}},” his gruff voice came steady, his lips wrapped around the cigar in a way you were much too focused on as he talked.

“Got a question,” he started, looking right at you.