Letters to Snafu
Title: Letters to Snafu
Pairing: Snafu/Sledge
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: This is based off the actors’ characters in The Pacific, not the legitimate men that fought in WWII. This is a work of fiction, from my own mind and thoughts.
Warnings: The Japanese Woman from Ep.9
A/N: Sorry for any grammatical errors, or anything that seems strange. You can always point them out to me whenever.
Summary: Sledge keeps sending Snafu letters, telling him about his life back at home. Letter upon letters, with out a single response from Louisiana.
Letters to Snafu
Dear Snafu,
Well, I've settled back into Mobile. Sort of. It's hard to try and return to civillian life, when all I can do is remember what happened not so long ago on that island. My mother wants me to go out and socialize, get a job too. I don't think I'm ready for that yet... I don't know if I'll ever be able to interact with people like before. She just tries to help, but I don't think she really understands.
I've put my marine dress blues away, I don't think I'll ever wear them again.
Hope you're doing well,
Sledgehammer
0 more letters are sent.
Three months later.
No response.
Dear Snafu,
It's been a couple of months, since I sent out my last letter. You okay?
Well, my father tried to take me out hunting the other day... it didn't go so well. I just felt so horrible, this guilty feeling taking over me. I don't think I'll ever be able to fire another gun at another creature again.
I haven't had many nightmares, atleast, not many that I've woken in a sweat from. But I've seen the way my mother and father look at me some mornings. Like they had heard things.
It makes me feel awkward, you know?
Awake still in Mobile,
Sledgehammer
2 more letters are sent.
His mother starts to give him strange looks when he says he's going to send mail.
Two months later.
No response.
Dear Snafu,
I haven't been doing much these days, still. All I can either do is bring myself to do it just stray around town, or sit under a tree and stare. Lord knows where my eyes stray to, but when I'm under that tree, I feel... safe. Well, safer. It's comforting, I guess, when you get used to sleeping sitting against a wall, or the side of a fox hole. I may not be able to use my gun for hunting anymore, but I feel safer when I hold it. Sometimes. Do you too?
I tried applying at Alabama Tech this morning. This woman, a blond girl that looked like she had nothing better to do, was trying to make a mockery of me.
Well, nonetheless to say, I might've made you proud after that.
Write back soon,
Sledge
2 more letters are sent.
He keeps writing them, his hands having more written letters than they have anything else.
One month later.
No response.
Snafu,
I know you're getting my letters. I ask if they deliver, and they say yes, everytime.
Just, please, write back.
Sledge
3 more letters are sent.
He wakes up screaming more often now.
One month later.
No response.
Dear Shelton,
Had a dream, no, a horrible nightmare. The worst since being on that island. The first thing I did was grab a pen and start to write to you. I'm still shaking.
Do you remember when we shelled that house in Okinawa? And after, we went inside a similar looking one, and you tried to convince me they weren't the same two? Do you remember that woman... that was beside the mother? She was wounded in the stomach from shrapnel, bleeding, too weak to move. And I stayed beside her, and held her till she died.
Her face keeps reappearing in my dreams but this one was especially bad.
She calls out to me, in that goddamn language. But I don't want to kill her in my dreams any more then I did then, holding her. She still has her wound, and her hand is clutching at it.
I want to help her Snafu. But goddamnit.
I can't.
And when I look down to my body, I see that I have the same wound. The same tattoos. The same fucking rotting blood. I don't feel the physical pain, but it almost mentally hurts me, in a sense.
And then I hear your voice, like an echo in my ears, like you're whispering next to my ear, but you're so far away.
"I'm dyin' Sledge."
I heard it. Over and fucking over. Then I started to cough up the blood, my body naked, the blood warm and running down my body. It felt horrible.
I tried to call out for you.
But my voice was choking on the blood, and you never come. The woman's dissapeared, but I'm still dying, and I still hear your voice.
Please Snafu.
I need you. I need you here, to help remind me I'm not dead, to remind me I wasn't the only one in hell.
Please Snafu.
I'm begging you, atleast write me back.
Snafu... I really need you.
Gene
0 more letters are sent.
Two months later.
Pale white hands shake, picking up a small envelope. They clutch at it, the finger tips turning ghostly white from the pressure. He can tell who wrote it without there even being any name printed, that's why his breath hitched, but it doesn't make sense.
His voice is barely a whispered hush, and his mother looks around he bend of the hallway, worried. There it was, plain as day, scrawled in small, neat but loopy cursive, but he was still confused.
It even smelled like him.
"Mobile, Alabama?"
Dear Sledgehammer,
Sorry, I'm no good with writin' things, or with words at all.
But we'll be able to talk, face to face.
I don't wanna intrude on your family or anythin', but I suggest you get a room ready. And real quick too, since I'm almost there now.
He stands there, his eyes examining the small paper, taking in every scratch, mark, and stain. He feels lightheaded, and over all silly and disbelief.
A bell sounds, and he drops the letter, his meager legs sprinting down the hall and towards the door. He stares at it, eyebrows furrowed.
Another bell sounds, and it jolts him out of his trance.
His hands are shaking, and he grips the door handle. He slowly turns it open, peering around the corner, afraid.
He sees a man who doesn't look any better than he does, and the heavy sent of familiar cigarettes fills his nose as he opens the door wider. He looks rugged, his eyes red with deep purple bags under them, from what seemed lack of sleep.
As the man's eyes caught Sledge's, they lit up, the hazel blues and greens almost seeming to have become brighter and clearer. He gave a small grin, and his hand clutching at was looked like a pile of envelopes, strung together with a makeshift string, the other awkward and limp by his side.
"Hey there, Sledghamma'."