Psalm 127 - Sledge!centric (Oneshot)
Title: Psalm 127
Author: skylilies
Pairing: Sledge!centric, Sid/Mary
Fandom: The Pacific
Word Count: 830
Genre: angst
Rating: pg-13 (flashbacks to Okinawa)
Disclaimer: Don't own the characters, just my interpretations of them. Based on fictionalized representations, no disrespect is intended.
Teaser: Mary and Sid are looking at a baby. Their baby. “Sweet baby Jesus,” Eugene breathes.
Notes: this. was really hard to write. and hurts. if you haven't watched ep. 9, it has spoilers. oh right, and i wasn't able to find any info on sid's kids other than the fact that he had three, so -- if the gender is wrong, it's HBO!version's characters (: the future can deviate.
He feels like hyperventilating all the way up the steps, rushing past the nurses in their crisp white outfits and the doctor out on a break who recognizes him and drawls, ‘Good day, Eugene?’ with a cigar in his mouth. "The very best, sir!" he replies, and doesn’t slow down until he reaches the room at the end of the hall.
Sid and Mary have their heads bent down, facing away from him and directly at the little bundle in Mary’s arms. Mary, Eugene thinks, the prettiest girl in school, and Sid, who used to be the best actor in the business -- shouting for added pandemonium while they held up traffic or feigning innocence like the most angelic of teenage boys to his father after the grocer called him. Mary and Sid are looking at a baby. Their baby.
“Sweet baby Jesus,” Eugene breathes.
Sid looks up at him, his face lit up in a beam and he scrambles to his feet, and says, “Gene-- look.”
The baby is a little wrinkled mess but all Eugene can think is how beautiful she is, and he’s furiously wiping at the tears at the corners of his eyes before he even realizes it. Sid’s eyes are shining, and Mary whispers something to the baby and then looks up at Eugene and says, “Come meet your goddaughter, Gene.”
When he hefts the baby into his arms he’s surprised at how light she is. Her body adapts to the new hands with a wriggle and a sigh, her eyes squeezed shut against the light as Eugene marvels over the amazing things that life can do, how the birds get up and sing every single morning or how Sid and Mary have created a living, breathing being.
“It’s amazing, right?” Sid says, and his voice is shaky. In Eugene’s arm the baby starts to struggle, and then she opens her mouth and lets out a vicious, insistent cry. “Oh, oh,” Mary calls out, and Sid lifts the baby from Eugene’s hands and places her in Mary’s soothing embrace. Eugene’s thoughts have frozen over at the sound and his arms fall limp at his sides.
Mary is making soothing noises that blend into whimpers in his head, his hands tightening again at the sudden feel of steel in his palm, the room blooming into a haze of smoke and ruined wood, and Snafu’s face with eyes wide and maybe terrified, the baby crying on the floor next to the broken bodies. He glances up and Mary is nursing her child, and then a burst of red blooms across her breast and they’re on the floor, and he’s so exhausted he wants to sit down and cry and how the hell can there be a baby here how the hell could he ever pick up a child with hands as bloody as these?
There is a touch at his shoulder and Sid is saying: ‘Eugene are you okay’ but he hears “The hell is the matter with you two?” and he crouches, mechanical, to the floor where an Okinawan woman is dying. Over the rush of blood in his ears he can hear Sid’s voice lilt and fall, and then he’s being guided out of the room to the street where the fresh air and Alabama weather brings his eyes back into focus. He rubs his fingers carefully against his white shirt but they don’t leave a stain, and then he notices Sid regarding him with quiet eyes.
“The first thing I thought?” he says, “When Mary told me she was pregnant? Was how could I ever hold a baby with hands like these. How could I raise a daughter with the things I’ve-- seen. The things done to children like her and women like she’ll become. Jesus.” He brushes his hands against his pants and bites his lip, looks away. “But you just have to reconcile it in your own head, somehow. Ain't nobody ever gonna hurt my family, Gene, I’ll never let'em. Never.”
Eugene nods. he left his pipe at home in his haste to get here, and his fingernails are scratching at the back of his arm for lack of anything better to do. Sid steps in close to him, his shoulder leaning against Eugene’s for a second and says, “I don’t know if it’s ever going to get better, Eugene. But we gotta believe it will.”
He pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and pushes them into Eugene’s hands. “I have to go back,” he says, and there’s an absence of air in the moment while he lingers at the edge of Eugene’s sight, until his shoulders slump in resignation and he steps out of view. Eugene doesn’t have a lighter, so he passes the pack from hand to hand and watches the birds against the sky, and tries to remember what it felt like before.
The angry red marks he scratched into his arm burn, and he forgets.
Author: skylilies
Pairing: Sledge!centric, Sid/Mary
Fandom: The Pacific
Word Count: 830
Genre: angst
Rating: pg-13 (flashbacks to Okinawa)
Disclaimer: Don't own the characters, just my interpretations of them. Based on fictionalized representations, no disrespect is intended.
Teaser: Mary and Sid are looking at a baby. Their baby. “Sweet baby Jesus,” Eugene breathes.
Notes: this. was really hard to write. and hurts. if you haven't watched ep. 9, it has spoilers. oh right, and i wasn't able to find any info on sid's kids other than the fact that he had three, so -- if the gender is wrong, it's HBO!version's characters (: the future can deviate.
He feels like hyperventilating all the way up the steps, rushing past the nurses in their crisp white outfits and the doctor out on a break who recognizes him and drawls, ‘Good day, Eugene?’ with a cigar in his mouth. "The very best, sir!" he replies, and doesn’t slow down until he reaches the room at the end of the hall.
Sid and Mary have their heads bent down, facing away from him and directly at the little bundle in Mary’s arms. Mary, Eugene thinks, the prettiest girl in school, and Sid, who used to be the best actor in the business -- shouting for added pandemonium while they held up traffic or feigning innocence like the most angelic of teenage boys to his father after the grocer called him. Mary and Sid are looking at a baby. Their baby.
“Sweet baby Jesus,” Eugene breathes.
Sid looks up at him, his face lit up in a beam and he scrambles to his feet, and says, “Gene-- look.”
The baby is a little wrinkled mess but all Eugene can think is how beautiful she is, and he’s furiously wiping at the tears at the corners of his eyes before he even realizes it. Sid’s eyes are shining, and Mary whispers something to the baby and then looks up at Eugene and says, “Come meet your goddaughter, Gene.”
When he hefts the baby into his arms he’s surprised at how light she is. Her body adapts to the new hands with a wriggle and a sigh, her eyes squeezed shut against the light as Eugene marvels over the amazing things that life can do, how the birds get up and sing every single morning or how Sid and Mary have created a living, breathing being.
“It’s amazing, right?” Sid says, and his voice is shaky. In Eugene’s arm the baby starts to struggle, and then she opens her mouth and lets out a vicious, insistent cry. “Oh, oh,” Mary calls out, and Sid lifts the baby from Eugene’s hands and places her in Mary’s soothing embrace. Eugene’s thoughts have frozen over at the sound and his arms fall limp at his sides.
Mary is making soothing noises that blend into whimpers in his head, his hands tightening again at the sudden feel of steel in his palm, the room blooming into a haze of smoke and ruined wood, and Snafu’s face with eyes wide and maybe terrified, the baby crying on the floor next to the broken bodies. He glances up and Mary is nursing her child, and then a burst of red blooms across her breast and they’re on the floor, and he’s so exhausted he wants to sit down and cry and how the hell can there be a baby here how the hell could he ever pick up a child with hands as bloody as these?
There is a touch at his shoulder and Sid is saying: ‘Eugene are you okay’ but he hears “The hell is the matter with you two?” and he crouches, mechanical, to the floor where an Okinawan woman is dying. Over the rush of blood in his ears he can hear Sid’s voice lilt and fall, and then he’s being guided out of the room to the street where the fresh air and Alabama weather brings his eyes back into focus. He rubs his fingers carefully against his white shirt but they don’t leave a stain, and then he notices Sid regarding him with quiet eyes.
“The first thing I thought?” he says, “When Mary told me she was pregnant? Was how could I ever hold a baby with hands like these. How could I raise a daughter with the things I’ve-- seen. The things done to children like her and women like she’ll become. Jesus.” He brushes his hands against his pants and bites his lip, looks away. “But you just have to reconcile it in your own head, somehow. Ain't nobody ever gonna hurt my family, Gene, I’ll never let'em. Never.”
Eugene nods. he left his pipe at home in his haste to get here, and his fingernails are scratching at the back of his arm for lack of anything better to do. Sid steps in close to him, his shoulder leaning against Eugene’s for a second and says, “I don’t know if it’s ever going to get better, Eugene. But we gotta believe it will.”
He pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and pushes them into Eugene’s hands. “I have to go back,” he says, and there’s an absence of air in the moment while he lingers at the edge of Eugene’s sight, until his shoulders slump in resignation and he steps out of view. Eugene doesn’t have a lighter, so he passes the pack from hand to hand and watches the birds against the sky, and tries to remember what it felt like before.
The angry red marks he scratched into his arm burn, and he forgets.