Fic: All the things we care about (2/4) [Sledge/Snafu, The Pacific]
Title: All the things we care about, part two | How whisperings engrave the skin
Pairing: Sledge/Snafu
Rating: R (to be sure for later chapters)
Disclaimer: The contents of this story are entirely fictional and they don’t concern the real men from World War II, but the actors. I don’t own anything.
Warnings: Minor spoilers for The Pacific.
A/N: Thanks and credit goes to flwrpwr_vampyre for beta'ing!
Summary: Eugene loved it. He loved having a handle on the man, having total control without being affected by it himself. Moreover, in his eyes it was merely an experiment, a simple form of pestering, nothing more. So he didn’t seek any real meaning behind it. But most of all he didn’t think about the consequences. He probably should have.
Part 1
How whisperings engrave the skin
Sledge POV
While they all regained their strength on Pavuvu, their greatest enemy was their own thoughts. Even though they didn’t have to face any Japs, it only took closing one's eyes to see all the past horrors. It wasn’t any different for Eugene and he found himself searching for things to do, for people to chat with, just to keep himself from thinking. Any distraction was balm to his soul. He craved for it as he craved for nothing else, until he discovered that it also helped to just concentrate his thoughts on one thing. On one person.
---
‘I’m dyin’, Sledge.’
At those words, he did look at Snafu’s eyes. Not to try to find a yellow shade to them, but just to find… something. That was the first time he let himself think about the night on the ship - the only night he had slept soundly since leaving home. He tried to remember the look in the other man’s eyes the next morning, searching for it in his everything-but-yellow gaze. But all he came across was honest concern.
By the time the day came to an end, Snafu was still going on about his “heebie-jeebies”. He was reading a book, seated on the floor with his back against the cot that Eugene was laying on, trying to catch some sleep. Or at least, he would have been reading if it wasn’t for his constant whining.
‘Oh for God’s sake, Snafu, shut it!’ Eugene snapped after a while. ‘You’re too much of a fucking bacteria yourself to ever catch a disease.’
Snafu sat still for a moment, before he forcefully flung the book away. ‘This reading material of yours ain’t worth shit, boy,’ he said acidly.
‘Yeah, well, that’s probably your analphabetism talking.’
Dropping his head backwards onto the cot, Snafu shot him a menacing look, then closed his eyes. ‘You go to hell, Sledge.’
Eugene smiled at that. Before long, the smile faded from his face. Snafu seemed completely relaxed without losing that dangerous streak he had. His hair was muddled and there were dark shades under his closed eyes. He looked tired, Eugene thought. And he looked…
It was more of an impulse than anything else when he reached out his hand and traced the line of Snafu’s jaw with the tip of his fingers, pausing on the spot beneath the shell of his ear. From there he followed the tendon down to the crook of his neck. Snafu’s eyes snapped open and Eugene could feel the other man’s pulse speed up under his fingertips.
‘What?’ Snafu asked, avoiding his stare. Eugene had to give him credit for the steadiness of his voice because it was in complete contrast with the distressed expression on his face. It took a while until he realized he hadn't answered the question.
‘Go to your own bed,’ he said evenly, pushing Snafu’s head away with his knee. And instead of staying where he was and ignoring him, Snafu rose to his feet immediately and walked over to his cot. As he sat down, he gave Eugene a quick glance, but when he saw that Eugene's eyes were fixed on him, he looked away. His hand went up for a moment, as if to scratch his hair but then hovered there like he forgot how. After that he lay down, turned his back to Eugene and didn’t move again.
Eugene kept looking at him for a while, slightly bewildered. Ah, he thought, I see…
---
From there it started. It became an addiction. It wasn’t the touches so much as the curious reactions they got from Snafu, as if with each contact they made there was an electric charge. The way the other man responded to his occasional touches, which were still rather innocent and chaste, consumed his thoughts like only the war had been able to do. When they walked next to each other, he couldn’t stop himself from randomly brushing against Snafu’s hand with his own or from touching his shoulder and sometimes even the small of his back. Snafu’s movements would become insecure and when he spoke he sounded on edge.
Eugene loved it. He loved having a handle on the man, having total control without being affected by it himself. Moreover, in his eyes it was merely an experiment, a simple form of pestering, nothing more. So he didn’t seek any real meaning behind it. But most of all he didn’t think about the consequences.
He probably should have.
---
‘Goddamnit!’ Eugene dropped his toothbrush as pain shot through his foot. He pulled his left foot up, balancing on the right one, and eyed the piece of glass that was stuck in his sole. Spitting the last of the toothpaste out on the ground, he limped back inside the tent.
‘Shelton, give me a hand with this.’ He sank down on one of the wooden crates - their improvised furniture - and pulled his foot up again. ‘I stepped on glass.’
Snafu stood over him to give it a look. ‘Whatcha need me for? Want me to pull it out with my teeth, Sledgehammer?’
‘It’s in too deep. Get a knife or something.’
‘You playin’ surgeon now?’ Snafu asked, taking his knife out anyway. His mouth curled into a grin. ‘That’s why they sent medics along, ya know.’
‘Doc’s got worse battle wounds to take care of,’ Eugene said sarcastically. He started to get annoyed. ‘Just give it a try already.’
‘It’s your foot,’ Snafu said, shrugging with his scrawny shoulders and sitting down on a second crate. He placed Eugene’s foot on his knee and brought the knife towards the piece of glass.
‘Ow!’ Eugene pulled his leg back. ‘You trying to make it worse?’
‘I barely touched it, boy.’ Snafu sneered. He seemed to be enjoying this far too much when he grabbed his leg, placed it back on his knee and tried again.
‘Oh, God!’ Eugene bit his lip and threw his head back. ‘Stop it, stop it! I said stop it!’
‘You asked me to get it out. So now suck it up.’
Another wriggle of the knife and Eugene let out a pained noise, instinctively reaching for his foot but instead brushing by Snafu’s leg. The hand around his heel tensed up. He instantly forgot the blazing pain in his foot and turned his attention to Snafu, who didn’t look away from his knife for a second. His lips twitched in the most daring of ways and Eugene couldn’t pull his gaze away anymore, even if he'd wanted to. The man was only half dressed, wearing just his pants and dog tags, and Eugene found himself staring at the skinny torso and sharp shoulders.
Snafu’s jaw was clenched and with the knife in his hand, he looked even more alarming than normal. Eugene knew he was in a dangerous position, but he took his chances anyway. In an instant his hand had found the other man’s chest and he softly ran his thumb up and down his clavicle. Snafu’s eyes met his then, shimmering with something he couldn’t define. Still, he didn’t stop. His hand strayed upward, almost touching the other’s face, but then grasping a curly lock of hair. For a split second, his ring finger touched skin.
Something shifted in Snafu’s eyes and the tension became too much. He got to his feet in one fast movement, pulling Eugene up by his wrist. In the other hand he still held the knife. Eugene caught the heated look in his eyes and almost shuddered. Maybe he should have played safe, maybe he should have -
His breath caught when Snafu pointed the knife at his throat. One solid moment he was absolutely sure of the fact that he was going to be killed. Then the knife cut through his shirt, from the neckline all the way down. The edge grazed his ribs and he winced. At that sound Snafu dropped the knife to the ground and grabbed his other wrist too. He held both of them in such a tight grip that it hurt and he leaned in towards Eugene.
That’s when the whirlwind of emotions on Snafu’s face became readable. There was quite a bit of anger and desperation, but more than anything there was an overwhelming amount of longing. It was written all over his features and it came with an edge of hurt. Eugene was overtaken by the intensity of it and forgot to breathe for a moment. Snafu didn’t give him time to recover from the shock as he came in even closer and his lips drifted past his throat. They didn't touch him, but were so close he could still feel them tremble.
All of a sudden, Snafu murmured one word. The wretched and vulnerable tone in which it was spoken drew the last of Eugene’s breath away and left him numb for a second. Snafu lingered at his throat, still careful not to come too close, as if he was afraid to. But Eugene, not even caring about what his own feelings might be, wanted to answer the other’s longing. He didn’t mind letting Snafu have whatever it was that he wanted. So he took a step forward, trying to close the little distance there was left. But having forgotten the glass in his foot, he involuntarily shifted and made a startled noise when the pain shot through his entire leg.
That was all it needed to break them apart. Snafu let go of his wrists and jerked away. He turned around so fast that Eugene couldn’t even catch a glimpse of his face and in the blink of an eye he had left the tent.
He didn’t come back that day or during the night that followed. Eugene lay awake ‘til the break of dawn and when Snafu eventually showed up some hours later, they didn’t speak a word about what’d happened. They wouldn't until days and days later, in the midst of all the death that Okinawa would bring.
---
‘You,’ Snafu had whispered, and the sound of it still felt burned into the skin where it had been spoken to. It burned more than the cut on his ribcage or the sole of his foot, and maybe even more than the pain of bullets breaking skin and tearing flesh.
He knew his game of touches was over. He knew that Snafu was again the one in control. What he absolutely didn’t know was where to go from here, where to go with this screwed up relationship between them - if it could even be called a relationship. The biggest problem was he didn’t know where he wanted it to go.
He looked down at the blood that drew a straight line over his ribs. You, was all he heard, and with every beat of his heart it had a different meaning.
Part 3
Part4