Hunter swallowed. He looked at the list.
The hangar was empty. The night crew was on break. The only witness was a sleeping loadmaster fifty yards away, earbuds in, dead to the world. Active Duty - Hunter And Bailey -Gay- - Checked
Landing gear hydraulic pressure – CHECKED. Tire tread depth – CHECKED. Emergency flare inventory – CHECKED. Secondary comms test – CHECKED. Hunter swallowed
“I’ll sleep when we’re wheels-up,” Hunter replied. The night crew was on break
Hunter stared at it. His throat tightened. This was the part the manuals didn’t cover. The part that didn’t go into the official log. The part where two enlisted men, both gay, both active duty, both terrified of a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ world that had technically ended but never really left, had to decide if the thing between them was just deployment pressure or something that survived a C-130 flight into a combat zone.
Hunter sat up slowly. He took the pen from his chest pocket—the one with the chewed cap—and very deliberately, with Bailey watching his every move, he drew a single, firm checkmark through the last line.