(no subject)
Watch your wallet and pocket your watches: this is New Orleans.
Tinny tingling voice all jazzed through the intercom's telling him he's home, and Snafu knows enough to pull his bag off the rack, even if he doesn't feel anything yet. It's kind of unreal, like the voice, like the way the light in the car is soft gold and the world outside the big windows is the blue of a city lit for the night.
When he sets the bag on his foot and looks down again, Sledge is still there, still asleep with his head next to that window. That unreal blue place is like a painting hung up next to him, a picture of a place but not really a place, and Snafu can't quite look at it yet. He can only stare at Sledge asleep in the yellow light, glowing and peaceful. His teeth aren't clenched and his eyes aren't moving like the tickle of quick brown spiders over earth, the way men sleep in combat--he's so still he might be a picture too.
He should wake him up. He knows he should wake him up, maybe say goodbye. Maybe say nothing, just stare at each other one last time, and Sledge'd shake his hand all proper and watch him go. Stillness doesn't mean it'd take more than a hand on that shoulder to do it, to make the eyes flutter open and the mouth go slack, maybe disappointed that it's over because aw, fuck, it's over. It's over and he can't hardly breathe, realizing that.
Snafu doesn't wake him. He picks that pack up off his foot like hauling anchor and turns away, only to pause after a step and not look back. It's a long pause, significant and the kind that'll stay with him, inside him, asking him why he didn't turn back, but it's also a moment of not breathing, of seeing Burgy hug his little brother and catching Sledge's eye like what the hell is this because there's nobody here to pick him up, just a blue city to get lost in. He doesn't want Sledge to see him disappear into that any more than he wants to interrupt the perfect stillness of his face.
Haul anchor, keep moving; Snafu lets the breath out, lets a little one back in and carries on down the car, to the door and the hot humid air that smells like a thousand live bodies instead of a thousand dead blowing in. Leans out the door and shoulders his pack to put himself together before he can set foot on it, then it's hands to himself and hopping off with his stomach as pinched as it ever got stepping off an amtrac.
When his feet hit sand, his stomach pinches even tighter.
The pack pulls itself from his narrow shoulder by its own weight, catching against his arm in a slow fall to the ground. There's no soft blue picture-city swallowing him up, and he has surely fucking cracked, surely gone Asiatic six months too late when he blinks his pale eyes and sees another beach stretched out in front of him. That he's looking out past dead twisted trees and pale sparkling sand to the water startles him even worse, somehow, 'cause you don't fucking look back at the water once you're on a beach, doing that gets you dead--
making him quick to twist on his heels and crouch, find himself on a well-cleared path between trees so familiar he's breaking out in a sweat. And he's thinking, someone's gonna put a hand on his shoulder and get smacked in the face pulling him out of this dream, he must be holding up the goddamn train crouching next to it and seeing shit that can't be real.
Only it feels pretty real. Feels more real than his city did through the train windows, and if he's gonna go hallucinating about beaches and trees, he doesn't think he'd picture himself in his dress uniform.
Then again, he's never really gone this crazy before--how the fuck does he know what to wear in case he cracks and thinks the French Quarter is fuckin' Pavavu?
At least it's Pavavu, he tells his thudding heart and clammy neck. He hasn't seen any bodies and can't hear anybody shooting at him--which doesn't mean nobody's going to, but he had a good long time to learn to appreciate when they haven't started yet. It's the smell that gets him to stand up again, not bothering to dust himself off or shoulder his pack, just shaky hands barely gripping the straps. There's the fresh smell of salt and sun, and the thicker, greener smell of the jungle--but not the rotten smell of bodies or coconuts or poisoned watering holes. And the path gets less and less familiar the more he stares at it--something wholly imagined if it is a hallucination, because the paths and roads he knew were a lot muddier and uglier than this. Stumbling to one side, Snafu leans up and rests against the nearest tree, fumbling through his pockets for a crumpled pack of Camels and a lighter kept polished by many calloused hands.
The breeze coming off the water steals the flame from him when he manages to guide it toward his cigarette, a familiar deep hum flaring in his breastbone. If he can't calm it, he'll start shaking inside, and if he starts shaking inside, that's when anything can happen. He doesn't want to go there when he doesn't even know if he's standing next to a tree or next to some person at the station, losing his goddamned mind. Taking the cap from his head and tucking it under one arm, he leans his head against the rough bark of the tree and breathes deep around the cigarette between his lips, hunching his shoulders against the breeze as he moves to light it again. The tree feels solid enough--if he isn't really here, maybe he's tucked up in a corner somewhere, head against a building having a smoke. That'd look normal enough, he guesses.
And if he's really here, wherever the fuck this is, at least he's got this tree to lean against and this cigarette to suck on while he sorts himself out.
He can almost hear Sledge bitching at him for being such a goddamn optimist.
[Snafu is getting this public debut today and a top level at the July 4th party on Sunday, ETA: okay with six threads I am asking that anyone else who wants to thread with him please wait for the party on Sunday. Please check out his wiki if you aren't familiar with the canon, it has notes on his accent etc. Also note that he is wearing the service uniform of the United States Marine Corps, circa 1946. First tag gets to explain, others can find him on the path between the beach and the compound, but if you forget and tag in on the beach, I'll just go with it.]
Tinny tingling voice all jazzed through the intercom's telling him he's home, and Snafu knows enough to pull his bag off the rack, even if he doesn't feel anything yet. It's kind of unreal, like the voice, like the way the light in the car is soft gold and the world outside the big windows is the blue of a city lit for the night.
When he sets the bag on his foot and looks down again, Sledge is still there, still asleep with his head next to that window. That unreal blue place is like a painting hung up next to him, a picture of a place but not really a place, and Snafu can't quite look at it yet. He can only stare at Sledge asleep in the yellow light, glowing and peaceful. His teeth aren't clenched and his eyes aren't moving like the tickle of quick brown spiders over earth, the way men sleep in combat--he's so still he might be a picture too.
He should wake him up. He knows he should wake him up, maybe say goodbye. Maybe say nothing, just stare at each other one last time, and Sledge'd shake his hand all proper and watch him go. Stillness doesn't mean it'd take more than a hand on that shoulder to do it, to make the eyes flutter open and the mouth go slack, maybe disappointed that it's over because aw, fuck, it's over. It's over and he can't hardly breathe, realizing that.
Snafu doesn't wake him. He picks that pack up off his foot like hauling anchor and turns away, only to pause after a step and not look back. It's a long pause, significant and the kind that'll stay with him, inside him, asking him why he didn't turn back, but it's also a moment of not breathing, of seeing Burgy hug his little brother and catching Sledge's eye like what the hell is this because there's nobody here to pick him up, just a blue city to get lost in. He doesn't want Sledge to see him disappear into that any more than he wants to interrupt the perfect stillness of his face.
Haul anchor, keep moving; Snafu lets the breath out, lets a little one back in and carries on down the car, to the door and the hot humid air that smells like a thousand live bodies instead of a thousand dead blowing in. Leans out the door and shoulders his pack to put himself together before he can set foot on it, then it's hands to himself and hopping off with his stomach as pinched as it ever got stepping off an amtrac.
When his feet hit sand, his stomach pinches even tighter.
The pack pulls itself from his narrow shoulder by its own weight, catching against his arm in a slow fall to the ground. There's no soft blue picture-city swallowing him up, and he has surely fucking cracked, surely gone Asiatic six months too late when he blinks his pale eyes and sees another beach stretched out in front of him. That he's looking out past dead twisted trees and pale sparkling sand to the water startles him even worse, somehow, 'cause you don't fucking look back at the water once you're on a beach, doing that gets you dead--
making him quick to twist on his heels and crouch, find himself on a well-cleared path between trees so familiar he's breaking out in a sweat. And he's thinking, someone's gonna put a hand on his shoulder and get smacked in the face pulling him out of this dream, he must be holding up the goddamn train crouching next to it and seeing shit that can't be real.
Only it feels pretty real. Feels more real than his city did through the train windows, and if he's gonna go hallucinating about beaches and trees, he doesn't think he'd picture himself in his dress uniform.
Then again, he's never really gone this crazy before--how the fuck does he know what to wear in case he cracks and thinks the French Quarter is fuckin' Pavavu?
At least it's Pavavu, he tells his thudding heart and clammy neck. He hasn't seen any bodies and can't hear anybody shooting at him--which doesn't mean nobody's going to, but he had a good long time to learn to appreciate when they haven't started yet. It's the smell that gets him to stand up again, not bothering to dust himself off or shoulder his pack, just shaky hands barely gripping the straps. There's the fresh smell of salt and sun, and the thicker, greener smell of the jungle--but not the rotten smell of bodies or coconuts or poisoned watering holes. And the path gets less and less familiar the more he stares at it--something wholly imagined if it is a hallucination, because the paths and roads he knew were a lot muddier and uglier than this. Stumbling to one side, Snafu leans up and rests against the nearest tree, fumbling through his pockets for a crumpled pack of Camels and a lighter kept polished by many calloused hands.
The breeze coming off the water steals the flame from him when he manages to guide it toward his cigarette, a familiar deep hum flaring in his breastbone. If he can't calm it, he'll start shaking inside, and if he starts shaking inside, that's when anything can happen. He doesn't want to go there when he doesn't even know if he's standing next to a tree or next to some person at the station, losing his goddamned mind. Taking the cap from his head and tucking it under one arm, he leans his head against the rough bark of the tree and breathes deep around the cigarette between his lips, hunching his shoulders against the breeze as he moves to light it again. The tree feels solid enough--if he isn't really here, maybe he's tucked up in a corner somewhere, head against a building having a smoke. That'd look normal enough, he guesses.
And if he's really here, wherever the fuck this is, at least he's got this tree to lean against and this cigarette to suck on while he sorts himself out.
He can almost hear Sledge bitching at him for being such a goddamn optimist.
[Snafu is getting this public debut today and a top level at the July 4th party on Sunday, ETA: okay with six threads I am asking that anyone else who wants to thread with him please wait for the party on Sunday. Please check out his wiki if you aren't familiar with the canon, it has notes on his accent etc. Also note that he is wearing the service uniform of the United States Marine Corps, circa 1946. First tag gets to explain, others can find him on the path between the beach and the compound, but if you forget and tag in on the beach, I'll just go with it.]