like wind and waves - fic (tsn/the pacific) PART II
fandom: the social Network, the pacific
pairings: mark zuckerberg/eduardo saverin, merriell (snafu) shelton/eugene sledge
rating: pg-13 and later on R
warnings: battle sequences, swearing, sex
author's note: Okay, so here is part two. I hope you all enjoy it! Thanks again to my wonderful beta, Kristen. Without her I wouldn't have even had the confidence to post this.
Master Post
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." - Terry Pratchett
*
When they said things were going to be messy, Snafu did not think they had meant this. There are bodies everywhere, and it is hard to do anything but stand and stare at the gaping maggoty holes covering the flesh-strewn beaches. The stench is putrid and Snafu thought the smell of rotting food mixed in with the sin of New Orleans was enough, but this, the death and shit and fear, this sends bile up his throat and sweat to his brow.
He hears someone throw up behind him as they make their way through the sandy morgue. From the corner of his eye, he glances at Chris’s green face, Eduardo, his mouth covered by a white kerchief, and Mark, who has his hands in his pockets, his nose wrinkled slightly.
“Fuck.” It comes from his lips in a rush, but it sounds gruff enough to conceal the horror quivering just beneath it. His pulse races as a petrifying fear washes over him, slow and encompassing like the waves lapping up against the bloodied corpses.
This is all some sort of sick premonition, and suddenly the vomit in his stomach feels like maggots, twisting and wriggling, and it takes everything in him to not turn and run and swim all the way back to America if he has to.
Eduardo and Chris spend the first day doubled over, the contents of the morning’s greasy breakfast spewing onto the ground. He and Mark manage to keep all their food down, but the coil of nausea curls around his insides and squeezes as they line up the dead faces in a morbid procession.
The next few days are spent gathering up their own, placing them in neat, orderly rows. The Japanese are thrown into piles, their arms and legs tangled together, some without any limbs at all and the flies buzz atop the heap.
Snafu looks down and sees a boy’s face, his mouth wide and his green eyes clouded and milky. The wind ruffles his limp, wet hair and Snafu tries to imagine life in this boy’s limbs, a spark in his eye. Mostly he wonders how he died - if his life flashed before him as the pelting bullets grazed along his body until they found their mark. He wonders if he heard the shot that ended it all. He wonders if it hurt, a sharp metallic pain shooting up his spine as the elongated piece of metal tore its way through bone and tendon. Or maybe it was just a bang and then nothing.
Like hell he is going to end up this way, joining these decomposing beings on the foreign sand. His palpitating heart surges and a fierce, feral, determination replaces the fear, and he is left still and calm. This is good. This is what he wants.
The dreams are welcome now, more welcome than before, and each night Snafu finds himself twitching in anticipation before he closes his lids and tumbles in to meet his mirage. They flash and smolder and burn, and sometimes he wakes up and he just aches, his whole body on fire. Once he feels a wetness on his lashes, but it is okay, because after days of gathering cold, lifeless bodies into a meticulous line, the feeling of not feeling, the nothingness, it is overpowering, so the pain comes as a relief.
*
Eduardo and Chris lie on their cots, hoping the shade will alleviate the fieriness of the sun but it does not stop the air from rushing into their tent in hot, angry gusts. It is so goddamn hot here and Eduardo thought he had a leg up on everyone else, coming from Florida, where the summers are hot and hazy. But it makes no difference here because the humidity is so thick and overwhelming it makes each breath a wet punch in the chest.
“Remember how they said this place was like Hawaii?” Chris chuckles from the other side of the tent. He’s propped up on his sweaty elbows, his blond hair sticking to his forehead as he awaits the arrival of one of the rare, cool ocean winds.
Chris has been a welcome source of sanity, a calming remedy of the pure lack of it from Snafu, and Mark’s twitchy despondency. He’s logical, and composed, and he brings a warm complacency with every crooked grin. He is a good friend.
During the night, after they are finally done picking up body after body, he and Chris like to talk. It is usually pointless, meaningless jargon, but it delivers some sense of normality. Eduardo often talks of oranges and long bike rides, Chris, of huge towering oak trees. Sometimes Snafu joins in, murmuring about bourbon and supple, curvy women. Mark rarely speaks, contenting himself to sit on the edge of the bed, hunched over some form of technology, his agile hands moving over each nut and bolt, his eyes flitting and squinting trying to squeeze just a few more minutes of work out of the fading light.
Mark is not unlike one of the war tanks. He’s cold and distant, rooting through the beach and picking up each body with steady, mechanic efficiency. Everything is done with a stilted jerkiness, and he never stops moving, only forward and forward, working until he can’t anymore and finally falling into a restless sleep on the bed. He has a hard skin and never is rattled by Snafu’s teasing, or the commander’s constant screaming. When he does speak, it is harsh and sharp, and many of the other men stay away from him in trepidation of being intellectually humiliated. He’s not afraid to stare, holding his gaze steady, aiming his piercing blue eyes, tearing everyone down from head to toe until there is only the emaciated structure of a human being remaining.
But once Eduardo walks into the tent, and he can hear Mark muttering in his sleep, cracked and trembling, and he knows there is a human inside all that cold, deadly metal, and even though it might be small and delicate, doesn’t that make it even more worthy of protection?
“Are you my mortar squad?” A voice calls, jerking them to a stand. It is a young man, with sandy blond hair and a baby face that hides the hardness of his eyes.
“Uh-yes sir,” Chris stutters, his eyes wide.
“Are you all my mortar squad?” He says, looking around them, maybe to see if there is anyone hiding under the beds.
His shoulders sag and the weariness exuding from his body is almost crippling. There are dark, bruised circles under his eyes, and they fade in and out, as if he suddenly falls into a nightmare, but then snaps back quickly to reality, unable to face what is concealed there.
It makes Eduardo scared - no, terrified - to see this man in such a state. To see the life drained, and a numbness setting in and he looks so tired, the only thing he needs is a wound in his head and he would be almost unrecognizable from the dead scattering the shore.
There is no escaping it, death. It is going to come around one way or another, and the realization pounds into Eduardo’s heart like a poisoned bullet.
“There are two more, sir,” He utters in reply
.
The man nods, and then proceeds to drop himself down on one of the cots, groaning, “A bed - I get to sleep in a fucking bed tonight. Jesus.”
He rolls onto his back, his eyes close as he places his hands on his stomach, sighing contentedly.
“I’m Corporal RV Burgin, by the way, your squad leader. Fuck, I am tired.”
Burgin deflates against the sheets, the air leaving his chest in one long gust.
Eduardo and Chris decide to leave the man and let him get some sleep.
As they walk along the dusty, supply laden roads, they notice the ships on the shore, unloading the men and machines onto the beach. They’re back from the campaign in Guadalcanal and Gloucester, staggering up the beach, each man is exactly the same, haggard and gaunt. The men look at Eduardo and Chris’s clean faces and they scowl, their lips curling revealing yellow, gritty teeth.
“You ain’t done shit around here, have you?” One man says, leaning in close and whispering in Eduardo’s ear. “Bet you’ve been relaxing and playing games and having a nice time. You just wait, kid. You just wait.”
Snafu appears behind him suddenly, leaning on one of the trucks and smiling that unhinged, lazy grin, his arms crossed and shoulders relaxed.
“Kicked around a Jap’s head a few times,” His voice is light and airy, but his words cut through the already raw and wounded soldiers. “All fun and games.”
*
Snafu sits on the beach, looking out to the rippling water as the bloody sand sifts through his toes. He feels a presence beside him and he peers over to see Mark’s hawk-like profile illuminated by the moon, making him almost skeletal. But it is fitting because everything looks dead here. Mark sighs and plops himself down, cross-legged, on the itchy sand.
Mark appears oddly small without the constant presence of Eduardo by his side. Eduardo seemed to have taken it upon himself to take care of the boy, to make sure he had eaten and slept. He always places a hand on Mark’s shoulder whenever they uncover a particularly gruesome body, although that hand is sweaty and white, and Eduardo always appears more sickened by the sight, so Snafu wonders who exactly the steadying hand benefits.
“Smoke?” Snafu offers, holding the crinkled stick out. Mark takes a long look at the cigarette and then shakes his head.
“No, thank you.”
The politeness is stiff and forced, probably left over from a lifetime of bombarding social niceties that have been engraved in him since birth. Social niceties Snafu was never bothered to be taught. But they don’t matter, anyway. Saying “please and thank you” doesn’t gain anything when there is a rifle aimed at your head.
Mark seems to have realized this too, because after a moment he turns and says, “You look like shit,” all politeness gone.
“You’re looking mighty fine yourself.”
But the sarcasm is lost. Mark actually does look fine, his eyes are bright and his skin still retains the glow most of them have lost and it is slightly disturbing how he just isn’t affected by it all. All the blood and guts, but maybe it is different because he knows they weren’t the ones who caused it, so he doesn’t need to be haunted by the blank faces Snafu can’t shake until he closes his own eyes and let his dreams consume him.
They are all so fucking tired already, and it’s pitiful because they haven’t even fired a gun at anyone yet.
Mark just looks out over the glassy ocean, seeming calm, almost serene, and Snafu realizes this is how people must see him, and now he knows why they don’t like him - because it is confusing and slightly infuriating.
They sit in amiable silence for a while, how long Snafu doesn’t know, but he’s able to smoke three cigarettes to the bud by the time he hears a rustling in the trees.
He turns with disconcerting speed, his back hunched and his one hand placed on the sand, the other on his knee, ready to pounce. He tilts his head back and he breathes in one long rush of air, he can smell it, the oil and the sticky sweet waft of rice, and he is probably imagining it all, but it’s there, and there is a change in the atmosphere and his whole entire body senses this new presence.
“You got a gun?” He asks Mark, not taking his eyes off the dark, shadowed forest.
Mark stutters over his response, his blue eyes in turmoil as the realization creeps into them along with an unwanted fear.
“’S okay,” Snafu whispers for him, looking back to the scared little boy sitting on the sand. “I got a knife.”
A wild heat vibrates in his bones and as he pulls the rusted blade from his belt, there is a parched dryness in his mouth, he’s almost desperate and he can’t tell if he’s thirsty for water or blood.
Mark’s head is shooting around, his red mouth wide open and his whole body shakes when he scrambles up the bank to place himself next to Snafu.
“What is it, Snafu? Those aren’t Japanese, those aren’t, we were already here - we wiped them out. No. This isn’t our job.”
He says this in the same tone when he talks about his clocks and gadgets, there is finality, as if this is a scientific law, something that can’t be undone, something that just is.
“Wait! Snafu! What are you doing? We don’t need to-“
But Snafu is up on his feet before he can finish and he is quickly prowling towards the trees with an agile grace he wasn’t aware he possessed. Mark tumbles along beside him, his hands clutched to his side as he breathes through the stitch that is obviously paining him. His breath comes in short, gasps and he tries to keep quiet, but he looks like he is going to have a panic attack and Snafu doesn’t know when the innocence and fear replaced the ease and apathy. Maybe Mark isn’t afraid of death’s aftermath, but he certainly seems fearful in the face of it.
Snafu looks Mark directly in his eyes, his own irises tiny lines of crystalline grey against obsidian pupils, and when he places one finger up to his mouth, signaling for Mark to hush, he knows he mustn’t look human. Something is taking over him, it is uncouth and wild, and the adrenaline pounds through him with its fists and nails, tearing him open, trying to release whatever crawls beneath his skin.
They enter the dark forest and the blackness surrounds them. Snafu can’t see anything, but his heightened senses allow him to hear every rustle of the leaves and every crack beneath their feet as they move steadily forward.
For a moment, they stop and stand still, the silence pushing against their ears. Snafu’s body shows all the symptoms of the looming, impending menace hiding itself in shadows, his hair stands on end, his toes curl, and his eyes start to hurt as he glares into the depths of the trees, his panicked mind creating shoulders and heads out of branches and knobs.
The wait is almost agonizing.
“What about that gun, Zuckerberg?” He breathes, but it breaks something, and all of a sudden frenzied cries fill the air and there is a body on top of him, dirty hands reaching for his throat and the animal lurking in him breaks to the surface. It all becomes sharp, detailed and the world stops for a moment as he feels his hands coming up and clenching onto fabric. He smells the salt and tastes the hunger on his tongue. Nothing is audible except the harsh grunts escaping his bared teeth and he almost cries out when he spots the wide expanse of tanned neck. Then there is blood, hot and gushing, a welcome sensation as he knows it isn’t his, and the knife is right where it should be.
He throws the man off of his chest.
“Ah, fuck.” He says, surprised by its steadiness, “Just another thing for us to clean up.”
Mark stands there, his gun hanging limply at his side.
The Jap on the ground lets out a low gargling moan, causing them both to jump, and his hands grip the dried leaves as he tries to move. The blood is still pouring from his neck, pooling around his twitching head.
“Go on then.” Snafu nods towards the gun. “It’s your turn.”
Mark’s brow crumples, his eyes shadowed and he takes a step closer to the wiggling body.
“Why?” His voice is flat. “You said you didn’t want to clean it up, so let it crawl away and die, and it will have never have happened and we won’t have to clean it up.”
“You want him to die a long, agonizing death, do ya, Mark?” He stretches out each syllable until they are wide open and ready to sting.
Mark and Snafu glare at each other then Snafu’s hand reaches out and grabs the pistol and shoots two rounds into the Jap’s back.
“I was joking.” Snafu sighs. But Mark’s face is set back into its blank mask and he walks over to the Jap and kicks him over roughly, revealing the slack face.
The black eyes are so dark and so fucking familiar and he wants to gouge them out. Snafu drops the gun and he clutches the handle of his knife until his knuckles are a stark white against the red that paints his hands and he is going to do it. He is going to tear out those blank orbs and watch the blood gush from the two bloodied, cut-up holes remaining. But then the brown eyes flash in the back of his mind and so does a metallic glint from the Jap’s mouth, he wonders if he is dreaming again, and now he can’t do it, it would be criminal, the worst offence, because those deep, endless brown eyes do something to him, and the ones he sees now are so, so similar.
He can’t rip out the eyes, so he rips out the smile instead. It doesn’t cost him anything.
“Gold,” He murmurs, peering down at the shimmering teeth in his palm.
It doesn’t cost him anything - it gains him something, actually.
Mark whistles, his gun put back into its holster on his hip, his clean hands shoved deep into the pockets of his dungarees.
“That’s worth a lot. What is it, thirty dollars an ounce?”
They stay quiet for a while, the dead man in between them, and Snafu finally notices his bare feet. Looking down, he takes in his scratched, slashed soles. A sting starts to creep up his ankles and he winces with each step as they make their way out of the trees and back onto the beach. The sand sticks to the blood, wet and grainy, creating a grating pain as he limps back to his shoes and he hisses as he tries to put his socks back on without touching too much skin.
“You should dip them in the ocean.” The level voice remarks and he looks up to see Mark standing above him, his lips pulled into a tight light, his square jaw moving slightly to the side, probably grating his teeth.
Snafu nods and goes to the water cautiously. He lets one foot slip into the sparkling liquid and revels at the cleansing burn it produces.
“You think we should tell someone?” Snafu asks suddenly. “That we found a Jap wandering in the woods? There could be more you know.”
Mark thinks for a few seconds before replying, “It looked pretty starved anyways, I don’t think we need to worry about it.”
After a few minutes they make their way back to the tent where they find Eduardo and Chris snoring, just lumps covered in ratty cotton sheets. There’s another man in one of the cots, but Snafu is too tired to care and he collapses onto his mattress, weariness pulling at his lids, and he thinks, I just killed a man, but he’s so tired and he almost aches to see the warm brown eyes again, lulling him back to humanity with their penetrating stare, and this time he is going to map out every shade, every wrinkle, and every way they are not like the pair he left on the forest floor.
He is almost asleep, and he can already see the eyes looming before him, when he glimpses Mark’s form on the bed, he is shaking, and he vaguely notices his hands toying with the pistol. Then Snafu watches as his fingers graze across the weapon again and again until the eyes come and take him.
*
Eduardo wakes up in the middle of the night, his throat itchy and his lips parched. He’s desperate for water and slumps to the barrel near Snafu’s bed. The man is twisting and pivoting, his legs tangles in the sheets. His quiet muttering barely recognizable until Eduardo leans in to grab a cup.
“No, no. Don’t close.”
Eduardo stares for a moment, wondering what sort of dream would cause such an exclamation. But this is Snafu, so he doesn’t ponder for long.
“He does that a lot.” The whisper comes from the opposite side of the room, and it makes Eduardo yelp slightly before he claps a hand on his reddening face, silencing himself.
Mark is engulfed in shadow. Only the reflection of the silvery moon bouncing of his eyes is visible in the inky blackness, but Eduardo can tell he is smirking.
“Jesus, Mark.” Eduardo sighs, running a tired hand through his hair.
“Sorry.”
The apology is tight and taut in delivery, as if the words had flown up his throat and struggled to free themselves from his lips, though Eduardo already knows Mark’s apologies hold hardly any merit.
As Eduardo’s eyes adjust to the light, he can see Mark is still dressed. He’s clutching a pistol to his chest, his fingers perched lightly on the trigger and Eduardo feels dread flow through him.
“Mark?” He asks, slowly moving closer. “Have you slept?”
Mark looks up quickly.
“Snafu killed a Jap today,” He says, the metal of the barrel just touching the smooth skin of his collar bone. “With a knife, but it didn’t die at first. And then he told me to finish it off, but I couldn’t do it. So he did it for me.”
Mark looks down at the pistol, his fingers etching across the serial number.
“Did you know this gun has a caliber of .45, a barrel length of 4.25 inches? I got it from my father. He gave it to me when I enlisted. He thought I needed as much protection as I could get.”
He lips prop up in a small, bitter grin.
“My mother didn’t want me to join. Said I was too smart for the army. She wanted me to go to a special school, with special teachers, something about meeting people who share the same ‘intellectual capacities.’ But I didn’t go.”
Eduardo cocks his head, trying to digest the sudden bombarding information. He probably liked being with the normal kids, he probably liked going miles and above the others, watching their faces twist with envy.
“Did you know this gun can kill two people with one shot?” Mark whispers, his eyes wide, and something dark and angry lurks just beneath their opalescent surfaces, a pool that just goes on and on and on, right to the core where he is chilled and untouchable, and Eduardo wonders why anger is always associated with flames and burns, because ice, although numbing, is just as deadly
Mark swallows thickly and then lets out a sardonic laugh.
“We’re supposed to kill thousands of them, and I can’t even kill one.” He shakes his head tightly, his eyes closed. He twirls the pistol in his dexterous fingers, mapping out each plain and indent, and they never leave the trigger. Eduardo wants to reach out and take the gun away from him, replace it with the screw driver, replace this strange being with the one on the boat, because he looks slightly dangerous, and Eduardo is familiar enough with Mark to know he’s capable of anything.
You will soon, Eduardo thinks as the gun touches the skin on Mark’s fragile neck, almost caressing the pulse point, you will soon enough.
He needs to get this pistol out of Mark’s hands. He needs to take this anger away from him.
“I haven’t slept.” Mark says suddenly.
“What?”
“You asked me if I had slept, you asked me before I-“He huffs out an aggravated breath, “I’m answering, no, I haven’t slept.”
“Okay,” Eduardo looks down at the water he has been holding in his hands; the cup is still full and shimmering in the silver light. “Here, you can have it. Water always helps me sleep.”
Mark looks up at him, and his jaw goes oddly soft.
“You got up to get water, and you’re not even going to drink it?”
“I’m not thirsty.”
Mark folds, puts down the gun and takes the cup, drinking the water with one gulp, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.
And Eduardo isn’t thirsty. Not anymore. Because Mark’s eyes are incredibly blue, and the ocean surrounds this island on every side, and the threat of war looms over like a cloud and he’s drenched.
*
Snafu sits with Burgin in the tent, the heat has almost reached a boiling point, and removing his sweat drenched shirt has hardly helped because he still feels sticky droplets of sweat running tantalizingly down the small of his back.
He’s picking at the scabs covering his foot; they sting slightly as they are exposed to the wet air.
It had been an interesting morning, starting with one of the Captains marching into the tent, and announcing how Mark would be better suited to communications than a mortar squad. He remembers watching Eduardo shrinking under Mark’s penetrating glare.
“I just told him how you’re really good at fixing stuff. That’s all, I swear!”
Mark sulked away in the forest for the rest of the day.
“So I lost a mortar man?” Burgin says grumpily.
Snafu gives him one of his now famous, possibly feared, lingering looks. He bites his lip and smiles his most disturbingly sweet grin, one that certainly doesn’t belong on a man who frequently speaks of the most sickening things he can think of, just to watch the others cringe and squirm for his entertainment.
Burgin merely looks a little uncomfortable.
Eduardo and Chris must have spoken about him. Maybe it is time to get new friends.
“Aren’t the new boys piling in today?” He asks with parodied innocence, “We need some fresh meat.”
Burgin gives one, short, barking laugh.
“Compared to me, you are fresh meat, Snafu.”
“Hey, I been here a month cleaning up your shit.” He retorts indignantly, “Doin’ your fucking housekeeping.”
This time Burgin’s laughter seeps through the green fabric of the shelter, halting a few passing marines with its clangor.
“Bet you’ll find a good job in some hotel, Snafu, once you get back.” He chuckles, his teeth flashing against his dark skin. “Or better yet, a nanny.”
Snafu chokes on his own spit as the giggles clench his throat.
“I’d probably be fucking the Ma’. Poor kid.”
“Just tell them all that creaking and moaning are monsters in the walls.”
“Moaning? She’d be fucking screaming if I had my way.” It comes out more harshly than intended, but Burgin shakes it off and laughs.
“You got a girlfriend back home, Snafu?”
He and Burgin banter on until a soft voice asks, “Is this King Company?”
Snafu looks over, and there they are, right in front of him, big and dark, they’re almost black, surrounded by long, thick eyelashes, and he is thrown back into his subconscious, where the eyes used to float above him, a welcome, familiar presence, but now he has a face to pair them with - a long, pale face and a glimpse of deep red hair peaking out just under his helmet.
It feels intrusive and he can’t help but feel dirt caked under his own eye lids.
Snafu doesn’t like him. He doesn’t want him here. He wants him and his eyes and his helmet and clothes that look two sizes two big, leaving far too much to be imagined, to get out of his dammed space. The already stifling heat is surrounding him heavily and each breathe is a flame to his lungs.
He wasn’t expecting his body to react this way. This instantaneous attraction floors him, leaving his mouth dry and palms sweaty as he tries to keep calm, picking absentmindedly at his feet, all a show while his mind is anything but absent. He wants him to leave, and the boy moves in to take a bed, a bed which now holds sudden, unwanted, sinful delusions, so throwing a sandal on top of his chosen spot and grunting, “taken,” seems like a good idea.
The boy looks at him, his eyes fixing themselves crossly on his. His brow furrows as he purses his wide lips and crinkles his prominent nose and he needs to leave right now so Snafu can get a hold of some sanity before he ends up tearing off this stranger’s too big clothes and seeing exactly what he is hiding under there.
Burgin sighs again, silently conveying his apologies for Snafu’s standoffishness.
“I’m Burgin, that’s Snafu,” Snafu smiles to himself as the boy’s eyebrows lift.
“Eugene Sledge.” He has an accent, making every word soft and sensual.
Snafu is fucking dying, sitting on the hard wooden chair and giving the scabs on his heels far too much attention because if he looks up again, he doesn’t know what he’ll see, he only knows it will probably contribute to the growing pain between his legs.
“Here, let me show you a place where you can sleep.” Burgin says gruffly, and Snafu almost screams in elated relief.
Sledge nods, his eyes scanning Snafu curiously one last time before he follows Burgin outside the tent.
When their footsteps are muffled by the rolling and clanking of the machinery, Snafu lets out a shuddering sigh.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
He hadn’t thought about the eyes in his dreams belonging to a man. In fact he never really gave any inclination to a specific gender at all. Man or woman, it didn’t really matter. But now that he really ponders over it, he wasn’t expecting a man. He wasn’t expecting this man, or for his face and body to reduce him to a tingling pile of sexual frustration within a few short seconds.
Sure, he had fooled around before, but he was drunk, and they never went far, stopping at a few sloppy presses of beer soaked lips on a neck or rain tainted hands on a cock. It was always fast and instant needy gratification, usually spurred on by a previous woman’s rejection.
He tilts his head back and allows himself to breathe, trying to ignore the pulsating hardness of his cock, trying to make it go away because he can’t be found jerking off here. He thinks of dead faces and limbless bodies, but his mind is no placebo, and with each dead face comes his, alive and flushed, his lips parted, his neck straining up, clean and glowing.
Snafu lets out a strangled, mortified moan.