restless heart syndrome
Title: Restless Heart Syndrome
Author: heroes_and_cons
Pairing: Kradam - AU, World War II
Rating: PG-13 (mild language)
Word Count: 1,847
Summary: In the days leading up to the Battle of Normandy, Adam - an enlisted Army private - writes letters back home to Kris.
Triggers: War, indirect character death
Disclaimer: do not own kradam. Title by Green Day. I’m sorry in advance about any historical inaccuracies, I didn’t have a lot of time to look my shit up D:
May 29, 1944
Kris -
I miss you.
And now I kind of regret having written that, because it sounds so goddamn depressing. I’d scratch it out, too, but it’s true-I do miss you. I miss your stupid jokes and the dumb pranks you used to pull. I miss the barbeques you would have in the summer, the smell of hamburgers and charcoal and foamy beer. I miss the sound of your acoustic guitar, and the sound of your voice.
And now I sound like I’m in a fucking soap opera. War will do that to you, I guess. You expect it to toughen you up, and to some degree I think it has-I don’t even blink when someone fires a gun now. But it makes everything distant and obscure and cloudy, like the segment of my brain containing memories from back at home is somehow detached from the rest of me. I can’t let myself start thinking about that, or about you, because once I do, the floodgates come flying open and they’re almost impossible to shut.
It’s nighttime here. I can’t really tell you where “here” is, but it’s peaceful for now, so you can probably guess. Everyone’s starting to get really tense, nervous, like there’s something heavy weighing down the air. I can’t tell you about that, either. They read every letter I send through now, black out stuff that might give the enemy information. As if the Nazis would want to get a hand on my letters to you.
Sometimes-nights like these, when it gets real quiet and some of us actually get to sleep-I think about what I’d be doing right now, where I’d be, if I had gone with you. If I’d enrolled in college with you; if I had decided to make something of myself, go to school, and become immune to the draft. Or if I had swallowed those cotton balls for the medical exam like you’d jokingly told me to (though I could sense the seriousness in your voice).
I wonder if you’re at home right now. Or at work. Or at the bar with the guys. I wonder if you’re outside, lying in your backyard, looking up at the same stars a million miles away, and thinking of me.
May 30, 1944
Kris -
We rehearsed again today, ran drills for hours. I can’t say what for. I fucking hate that they censor all of this-you wouldn’t tell, and I feel like you can’t really understand unless I can describe it to you. But we rehearsed, and everyone is on edge. More supplies were brought in today, more troops. More of everything. Someone said that General Eisenhower made a prediction-that we’re gonna lose a fourth of our men in this operation.
I still don’t know how I feel about death and all. I probably shouldn’t be talking about it, but I think these letters are becoming therapeutic for me. Everyone else here is going fucking crazy.
Anyway. If I was shot and killed tomorrow, I think I’d be okay. Sometimes Faulkner, he pulls out his Bible and starts reading passages. I don’t know if I believe in that stuff, but it’s kind of nice to think about-something up there, some place we get to go to when we’re gone. When you walk out after a raid or a bombing, after the dust has finally settled and the shells have stopped flying, and all you see for miles are bodies littering the ground, it’s more comforting to think that at least their souls are up in the clouds.
I wish you’d write me back. Or maybe I’m just not getting my mail. I wish I could hear your voice right now.
June 1, 1944
Kris -
These letters are going to stop soon. Not quite yet, but soon. Don’t worry about me though; I’ll just be busy kicking Nazi ass.
I don’t know if you remember, but I was thinking about when we were kids last night. Sometimes we would play war, you remember? We’d run around outside, crawling on the ground and hiding behind trees; we’d use sticks and pretend they were rifles, and make gunshot noises with our lips when we shot at each other. It was fun and all, but at the end of the day we got to throw those sticks back in the yard and walk inside and have some ice-cream.
I can’t put down my gun now. Not ever. And when I fire it, the bullet hits something, and if it hits a person, they die.
I was thinking about when we were kids and started to get angry. We had been so stupid and selfish, thinking that it would be fun to really go to war and have real weapons and run around in cameo.
It’s not fucking fun. And promise me that when you have kids, you make sure they don’t do that. Make sure they understand how goddamn painful it is to be an ocean away from everyone you love, to be on the other side of the world killing everyone else.
June 3, 1944
Kris -
I just had a dream where I was lying next to you. It was somewhere warm, maybe somewhere tropical, but the sun filtered through the sheer curtains and bathed your face in light. And I was staring at you, the blankets of the bed curled up near your bare shoulders, and you looked beautiful. The light angled your jaw and cast shadows over your sleeping eyes, and your hair stood in jagged, pillow-skewed tufts.
I reached out to touch you, and then I woke up, and I realized none of it was real. None of it had ever happened, probably never will. And then I stumbled outside and vomited in a bush.
If my pen weren’t running out of ink, if my paper supply was limitless, I could just sit here and write you till the sun came up. But even that won’t happen for a while. The night has barely fallen, and you never realize how long it lasts until you’re wide awake and restless.
June 6, 1944
Kris -
I’m writing this to you on the LCVP, so I’m sorry if it's messy. I’m supposed to be on guard right now. The boat’s getting closer to the shore, and in the distance there’s already gun smoke forming, clouds from the explosives rising above the trees.
We’re packed in here. Probably ten or fifteen of us. A lot of them are praying, mumbling words of consolation to themselves. The door will open soon, and we have to run into the water, rifles out, onto the beaches. Storm them, let them know that we’re here.
I’m going to give this letter to the Med guy, it’s most likely to stay safe with him. If it gets to you, I’ll be lucky. If not, I’ll write you when I’m somewhere safe again. I don’t know when that will be.
And if the letters stop, promise me you won’t worry. If anything it means I ran out of stamps-supplies are low here. We’re gonna destroy them, the Nazis, and then I’ll be home soon, anyway.
I have to stop now. We’re getting close, the noise is deafening. The waves are rocking us, pushing us closer. I’m ready.
December 5, 1944
Dear Adam,
Your infantry division made it past the beaches. Made it all the way inland, in fact. Made it to Paris, and liberated it. And the Nazis retreated.
It’s been more than a year now, since you first left for service. I started off writing you once a month, then once every few weeks, down to almost once a day. Then one day in May an officer showed up at my door with a stack of envelopes, and told me that the military had been facing problems with spies, and that as of then my letters would not be delivered.
This one won’t get to you either. It won’t even be sent, because it has no one to be sent to.
That same retired Army officer, the one who gave me back my letters, showed up on our block again. I came home from work when his sleek black Buick pulled up alongside the curb. Two of them stepped out, in uniform, one of them holding a folded flag with something else lying on top of it. Before they had even made it to the steps, Leila had thrown open the door. And it had happened so meticulously slow: the officers had ascended the steps, heads bowed. One had extended his arms, elbows unfolding at the seams, the flag looking heavy in his hands. And your mom stumbled into the doorframe, fallen to her knees in a mess of thick sobs and broken limbs.
I was going to give Leila the letters you wrote me. But I thought about it, thought I’d be selfish and keep them for myself. I thumb through them, let my index finger trail the ink of your words, wonder what it was like over there. What you went through.
A week after your funeral we found out that Katy’s going to have a boy. She had a baby shower, too, and one of her friends gave her some baby clothes printed in cameo.
I threw them out without thinking twice.
This morning I woke up and wished I hadn’t. I wished that I could somehow lull myself in a deep, permanent sleep, one I would never wake up from. I wished that I could have been on that boat with you, storming the beaches, gone away with you that day in June.
But I realized you wouldn’t want me to. If you were here right now, you’d have already run into my room; you’d be pulling me out of bed, a saccharine smile splayed across your face, words rapidly stringing together in full-morning brightness. You’d be convincing me to skip a day of work and go do something thrilling, something dangerous; you’d be convincing me to live.
I got out of bed this morning and did just that. I skipped work, drove a few miles north and rented a motorcycle, one of those new Harley-Davidson FL models. I went to the deserted racetrack and went on a test-drive, accelerating until I could feel the skin of my cheeks being pushed backwards, until the wind had dried away the moisture in my eyes. I imagined you alongside me, laughing infectiously, daring me to chase you.
I’m ready.
- K
Author: heroes_and_cons
Pairing: Kradam - AU, World War II
Rating: PG-13 (mild language)
Word Count: 1,847
Summary: In the days leading up to the Battle of Normandy, Adam - an enlisted Army private - writes letters back home to Kris.
Triggers: War, indirect character death
Disclaimer: do not own kradam. Title by Green Day. I’m sorry in advance about any historical inaccuracies, I didn’t have a lot of time to look my shit up D:
May 29, 1944
Kris -
I miss you.
And now I kind of regret having written that, because it sounds so goddamn depressing. I’d scratch it out, too, but it’s true-I do miss you. I miss your stupid jokes and the dumb pranks you used to pull. I miss the barbeques you would have in the summer, the smell of hamburgers and charcoal and foamy beer. I miss the sound of your acoustic guitar, and the sound of your voice.
And now I sound like I’m in a fucking soap opera. War will do that to you, I guess. You expect it to toughen you up, and to some degree I think it has-I don’t even blink when someone fires a gun now. But it makes everything distant and obscure and cloudy, like the segment of my brain containing memories from back at home is somehow detached from the rest of me. I can’t let myself start thinking about that, or about you, because once I do, the floodgates come flying open and they’re almost impossible to shut.
It’s nighttime here. I can’t really tell you where “here” is, but it’s peaceful for now, so you can probably guess. Everyone’s starting to get really tense, nervous, like there’s something heavy weighing down the air. I can’t tell you about that, either. They read every letter I send through now, black out stuff that might give the enemy information. As if the Nazis would want to get a hand on my letters to you.
Sometimes-nights like these, when it gets real quiet and some of us actually get to sleep-I think about what I’d be doing right now, where I’d be, if I had gone with you. If I’d enrolled in college with you; if I had decided to make something of myself, go to school, and become immune to the draft. Or if I had swallowed those cotton balls for the medical exam like you’d jokingly told me to (though I could sense the seriousness in your voice).
I wonder if you’re at home right now. Or at work. Or at the bar with the guys. I wonder if you’re outside, lying in your backyard, looking up at the same stars a million miles away, and thinking of me.
May 30, 1944
Kris -
We rehearsed again today, ran drills for hours. I can’t say what for. I fucking hate that they censor all of this-you wouldn’t tell, and I feel like you can’t really understand unless I can describe it to you. But we rehearsed, and everyone is on edge. More supplies were brought in today, more troops. More of everything. Someone said that General Eisenhower made a prediction-that we’re gonna lose a fourth of our men in this operation.
I still don’t know how I feel about death and all. I probably shouldn’t be talking about it, but I think these letters are becoming therapeutic for me. Everyone else here is going fucking crazy.
Anyway. If I was shot and killed tomorrow, I think I’d be okay. Sometimes Faulkner, he pulls out his Bible and starts reading passages. I don’t know if I believe in that stuff, but it’s kind of nice to think about-something up there, some place we get to go to when we’re gone. When you walk out after a raid or a bombing, after the dust has finally settled and the shells have stopped flying, and all you see for miles are bodies littering the ground, it’s more comforting to think that at least their souls are up in the clouds.
I wish you’d write me back. Or maybe I’m just not getting my mail. I wish I could hear your voice right now.
June 1, 1944
Kris -
These letters are going to stop soon. Not quite yet, but soon. Don’t worry about me though; I’ll just be busy kicking Nazi ass.
I don’t know if you remember, but I was thinking about when we were kids last night. Sometimes we would play war, you remember? We’d run around outside, crawling on the ground and hiding behind trees; we’d use sticks and pretend they were rifles, and make gunshot noises with our lips when we shot at each other. It was fun and all, but at the end of the day we got to throw those sticks back in the yard and walk inside and have some ice-cream.
I can’t put down my gun now. Not ever. And when I fire it, the bullet hits something, and if it hits a person, they die.
I was thinking about when we were kids and started to get angry. We had been so stupid and selfish, thinking that it would be fun to really go to war and have real weapons and run around in cameo.
It’s not fucking fun. And promise me that when you have kids, you make sure they don’t do that. Make sure they understand how goddamn painful it is to be an ocean away from everyone you love, to be on the other side of the world killing everyone else.
June 3, 1944
Kris -
I just had a dream where I was lying next to you. It was somewhere warm, maybe somewhere tropical, but the sun filtered through the sheer curtains and bathed your face in light. And I was staring at you, the blankets of the bed curled up near your bare shoulders, and you looked beautiful. The light angled your jaw and cast shadows over your sleeping eyes, and your hair stood in jagged, pillow-skewed tufts.
I reached out to touch you, and then I woke up, and I realized none of it was real. None of it had ever happened, probably never will. And then I stumbled outside and vomited in a bush.
If my pen weren’t running out of ink, if my paper supply was limitless, I could just sit here and write you till the sun came up. But even that won’t happen for a while. The night has barely fallen, and you never realize how long it lasts until you’re wide awake and restless.
June 6, 1944
Kris -
I’m writing this to you on the LCVP, so I’m sorry if it's messy. I’m supposed to be on guard right now. The boat’s getting closer to the shore, and in the distance there’s already gun smoke forming, clouds from the explosives rising above the trees.
We’re packed in here. Probably ten or fifteen of us. A lot of them are praying, mumbling words of consolation to themselves. The door will open soon, and we have to run into the water, rifles out, onto the beaches. Storm them, let them know that we’re here.
I’m going to give this letter to the Med guy, it’s most likely to stay safe with him. If it gets to you, I’ll be lucky. If not, I’ll write you when I’m somewhere safe again. I don’t know when that will be.
And if the letters stop, promise me you won’t worry. If anything it means I ran out of stamps-supplies are low here. We’re gonna destroy them, the Nazis, and then I’ll be home soon, anyway.
I have to stop now. We’re getting close, the noise is deafening. The waves are rocking us, pushing us closer. I’m ready.
December 5, 1944
Dear Adam,
Your infantry division made it past the beaches. Made it all the way inland, in fact. Made it to Paris, and liberated it. And the Nazis retreated.
It’s been more than a year now, since you first left for service. I started off writing you once a month, then once every few weeks, down to almost once a day. Then one day in May an officer showed up at my door with a stack of envelopes, and told me that the military had been facing problems with spies, and that as of then my letters would not be delivered.
This one won’t get to you either. It won’t even be sent, because it has no one to be sent to.
That same retired Army officer, the one who gave me back my letters, showed up on our block again. I came home from work when his sleek black Buick pulled up alongside the curb. Two of them stepped out, in uniform, one of them holding a folded flag with something else lying on top of it. Before they had even made it to the steps, Leila had thrown open the door. And it had happened so meticulously slow: the officers had ascended the steps, heads bowed. One had extended his arms, elbows unfolding at the seams, the flag looking heavy in his hands. And your mom stumbled into the doorframe, fallen to her knees in a mess of thick sobs and broken limbs.
I was going to give Leila the letters you wrote me. But I thought about it, thought I’d be selfish and keep them for myself. I thumb through them, let my index finger trail the ink of your words, wonder what it was like over there. What you went through.
A week after your funeral we found out that Katy’s going to have a boy. She had a baby shower, too, and one of her friends gave her some baby clothes printed in cameo.
I threw them out without thinking twice.
This morning I woke up and wished I hadn’t. I wished that I could somehow lull myself in a deep, permanent sleep, one I would never wake up from. I wished that I could have been on that boat with you, storming the beaches, gone away with you that day in June.
But I realized you wouldn’t want me to. If you were here right now, you’d have already run into my room; you’d be pulling me out of bed, a saccharine smile splayed across your face, words rapidly stringing together in full-morning brightness. You’d be convincing me to skip a day of work and go do something thrilling, something dangerous; you’d be convincing me to live.
I got out of bed this morning and did just that. I skipped work, drove a few miles north and rented a motorcycle, one of those new Harley-Davidson FL models. I went to the deserted racetrack and went on a test-drive, accelerating until I could feel the skin of my cheeks being pushed backwards, until the wind had dried away the moisture in my eyes. I imagined you alongside me, laughing infectiously, daring me to chase you.
I’m ready.
- K