[fic] the pacific - not quite home
Title: Not Quite Home
Fandom: The Pacific
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,737
Characters/Pairing: Sledge/Snafu
Summary: He thinks he knows exactly why Sledge is here, exactly what he wants.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters--they are based off of the actors' portrayals of characters in HBO's The Pacific, not the real people themselves.
Author's Note: Written for the pacifickink prompt sledge/snafu, hurt/comfort. the post traumatic stress and nightmares have gotten worse for Eugene. father is especially concerned. Sledge leaves Mobile one night and shows up on Snafu's doorstep after falling apart. Snafu helps put him back together.
On the other hand, I'm not sure how well this fills it. 8|
It’s around four thirty when Snafu decides to throw in the towel. There’s only so much shit he can shoot with the boys in the lumberyard before he gets bored and he’s not really fond of sniffing sawdust anyways. So he tells McCullough that he’s gonna head out which only earns him a jerk of the head and a grunt. Snafu washes his face in the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror over the sink for a moment before he wipes the water off with an unpleasantly damp washcloth and he’s off.
The bus home is rickety and the seats smell a little like urine. A man with a scraggly beard sits across from him and stares at him as he crosses his arms over his chest and closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep so he doesn’t have to make any eye contact with anyone. He’s learned the hard way that people love talking about shit that they know absolutely nothing about-like the state of the economy or Jesus fucking Christ, boys that they know who fought in the war. They speak about it in hushed tones, oh yes, little Timmy has been suffering terrible, oh his poor ma and Jesus Christ-Snafu wants to snap back-you have no fucking clue, you have no idea at all.
Except he never says anything, just sits with his eyes closed and pretends to be asleep while the women gossip around him about Joseph’s upcoming wedding, Madame D’Etienne’s fortune shop closing, the goddamned fried catfish that they’re going to make for dinner that night. If he sinks far enough into it, he can pretend that he’s not a living breathing human any more, he’s just a piece of a worn fabric stretched thin over a metal seat in a bus that jostles its riders as it wanders along the street.
The bus driver calls Martinique Avenue and Snafu’s eyes open. He gets off the bus, shoves a cigarette in between his lips and lights it. The bus drives on without him and he’s dragged back into this bodily existence, a great mess of scar tissue and blood thrumming under warm skin. He squints down the bright street and exhales a breath of smoke before he starts walking back to his apartment.
His dark arms are pale with dusted sawdust and he hasn’t done his laundry in fucking forever so the shirt was already dirty before he put it on this morning. He has splinters under his fingernails and they kind of hurt but nothing compared to-
-being shot at on Okinawa, dehydration and fear-
-so he doesn’t really notice them, no.
What he does notice is the man sitting on the front steps of his apartment complex. Snafu stops and cocks his head slightly, cigarette in his mouth as he looks at the man, a little bewildered. Red-brown curling into intent dark eyes, profile of the long nose and hmmmm he’s a little too nicely dressed, looks completely out of place with his tailored shirt and polished shoes among cracked concrete and weeds that are just too fucking tenacious. He’s looking in the other direction so Snafu has the advantage of surprise.
He leans up against the low broken wall that flanks his apartment complex. Thinks about walking away. Thinks about getting a motel room for the night and in the morning he’ll be back for new clothes and there won’t be an old friend sitting on the broken steps of his shitty apartment building.
And then Sledge decides to look his way-goddammit-and he catches sight of Snafu and Snafu has to curse inwardly. Seems like his decision is made for him and he draws the cigarette from his lips and steps forward, hoping that he doesn’t look as irritated as he feels.
“Snafu,” Sledge says and Snafu stops. He pauses-takes a moment to really take in the other man and when he does, all of his irritation is forgotten. Sledge looks like he hasn’t slept since the war-maybe he hasn’t eaten since either. There is a hollow expression in his face and it fucking scares Snafu. It scares Snafu because he’s seen Sledge when he’s been so fucking angry that he can’t speak, he’s seen Sledge shake with sobs in the middle of the night when he doesn’t think there’s anybody watching, he’s seen Sledge with the hard set look of determination just before he pulls the trigger again and again and again. But he’s never seen this look, this blank despair and it strikes a chord deep within him,
Snafu regards him and his fucking perfectly pressed shirt that’s a little rumpled at the sleeves where Sledge has pushed them up and he regards the suitcase at his feet. It’s by some miracle of nature that he doesn’t just fucking break into hysterical laughter. He thinks he knows exactly why Sledge is here, exactly what he wants and Jesus fucking Christ, isn’t that just presumptuous of him to show up with no warning and a suitcase as if he’s expecting Snafu to drop his daily routine and immediately cater to his every fucking whim. Sledge looks back at him and all of a sudden he can see the look of uncertainty in those damn dark eyes (the ones that keep fucking haunting him) and he has to sigh and drop the butt of the finished cigarette onto the ground and jerk his head at the door, “Well. Come on.”
It’s a terrible idea from the start, he knows.
~
If Sledge hates where he lives, if Sledge thinks disdainfully about the dishes that are never done, the holes that reveal the stuffing of his couch, the rust on the exposed pipes in the bathroom-if he thinks anything at all about the way that Snafu leaves half empty cups of coffee everywhere and forgets to pick them up until all the water has evaporated away into the early summer heat leaving behind a disgusting slurry of brown shit-
He doesn’t show it.
Snafu thinks he knows what Sledge wants, but it’s confusing because Sledge doesn’t do anything about it. He spends his days god-knows-where wandering around the streets of New Orleans (or at least that’s what Snafu figures because he’s never around during the day) but by the time that Snafu gets home, he always has some form of dinner on the table, usually food bought at a restaurant that’s much more expensive than the mismatched plates it sits on. After dinner, Snafu lights up a cigarette and Sledge fills his pipe and they smoke silently into the evening.
In the familiar glow of Sledge’s pipe, Snafu can almost imagine the faraway crackle of gunfire in the clouds, the artificial lightning flaring up along the horizon, the short time of relapse between each episode of dragging his weary feet deeper and deeper into enemy territory under a hot sun. Snafu doesn’t want to think about any of these things, doesn’t want to linger too long on the ghost sensation of dried blood under his fingernails or the sweat and dirt perpetually damp at the back of his neck.
When he finally asks Sledge what the hell he’s doing in New Orleans, Sledge has already slept on his ratty couch for four days. It’s almost nighttime and the dim naked bulb hanging from his ceiling casts a half light onto his meager possessions, throws a hazy glow out the open window into the alleyway below. Sledge lets the smoke drift out of his mouth, not looking at Snafu at all.
“Sure ain’t for the hotel accommodations,” Snafu says and he means it to be a joke but the words drag a little too sharply.
Sledge looks at him then, across the uneven table where Snafu has placed his elbows and has been shuffling a deck of cards between his fingers for the last half hour. He looks at Snafu in the dirty light, at the bruiselike shadows under his eyes, the fine layer of sawdust in his hair, the way that his forearms flex when he cuts the deck over and over again. Sledge sets his pipe down. He moves forward until he’s pressed up against the table, leaning forward so that he’s barely inches from Snafu’s face.
Snafu doesn’t even blink but his hands still, looking back at Sledge with no expression at all. He doesn’t move back, doesn’t turn away, just holds his eyes steady on Sledge’s face and maybe he’s just daring Sledge to do this-maybe he’s wanted this too since Sledge showed up on his doorstep-maybe he’s been thinking about this too since he walked off that train.
Snafu finally blinks-eyelashes brushing across Sledge’s cheek and the touch startles Sledge into action or something because the next thing he knows, Sledge is kissing him. He’s tracing his tongue across Snafu’s lower lip and begging permission and Jesus Christ Snafu’s never been able to deny this man anything so he opens up and lets Sledge in, lets him push a hand through the hairs at the back of his head and kiss him like he’s fucking drowning in it.
And when Sledge shifts back because the table is digging into his stomach, Snafu puts his cigarette back between his lips and keeps an even gaze on Sledge. Sledge runs a hand through his own hair, a little shakily and maybe Snafu even feels a little bad for him-for both of them.
“This ain’t China anymore,” Snafu says, speaking like he’s testing the weight of his own words. They hang heavily in the humid Louisiana heat.
“I know,” Sledge says back, sinking into his own chair again.
Snafu taps ashes from his cigarette into a cracked mug on the table.
“I can’t fix you,” Snafu adds, much belatedly, and his voice is low.
“I know,” Sledge says and he closes his eyes. His teeth hold his pipe in place.
There is nothing more to say. The silence draws heavy around them and Snafu lets himself be wrapped in it.
~
At the lumberyard, Laurent and Smith pull on the upturned collar of the nicer shirts he’s started to wear to work and make lewd jokes about the woman that Snafu is sleeping with.
“C’était un bon coup?” Laurent asks with his eyes glittering, “Quand elle met ses lèvres-“
“Shut the fuck up Laurent,” Smith replies, though it’s in good humor, “Speak English, you French fuck.“
“Va te faire-“
“Yeah you too,” Smith agrees readily, shoving at the other man before speaking eagerly to Snafu, “C’mon Shelton, you’ve been late twice this week already and your broad has really marked you up, pretty fuckin’ good. You gonna spill the details or what?”
Snafu breathes in smoke, doesn’t answer in the warm morning air in the lumberyard.
“You been seeing a fifty cent trick, Shelton?” Smith demands over the sound of the tablesaw warming up, “Watch out for them goddamn crabs, Shelton-that’s my advice to you.”
Sometimes the men here forget that Snafu has been through a fucking war. They’ve never seen him in uniform, he doesn’t flaunt the fact that he’s been in combat for years and has seen things that they can’t even dream of. They’re only reminded when once in a while when they’re grabbing dinner and a beer together after work has ended, once in a while when Snafu casually mentions the fact that he’s been part of the marines with something like a suggestive smile to land a phone number from the waitress and a quick fuck in the bathroom. Snafu doesn’t care enough to call them back afterwards-doesn’t have a girl back home.
Sometimes they forget and sometimes they remember.
Snafu drops the butt of his cigarette on the ground. Doesn’t even look at them as he lifts a hand to touch one of the bruises on his neck, almost absently. It’s so far out of character that Laurent and Smith exchange concerned looks.
“Fuck off,” Snafu answers and he starts off towards the four-by-four’s stacked up against the north fence.
~
Snafu tells Sledge stories when they sit together after dinner, after the plates have been dumped in the sink. He tells Sledge stories about his mama who wanted to have an abortion but how the love of Jesus Christ saved him, how she had been stopped outside the doctor’s office with a rapidly swelling belly and tears tracking down her face and a woman had asked child, are you okay? He tells Sledge stories of an imagined father who doesn’t knock up a woman and leave for the north-the words come out in sharp staccato anger-he tells him about a nurse who can barely afford to keep herself alive much less a child and he tells Sledge a story of sacrifice.
He tells him about living on bread and dirty water in a studio apartment so old that the stairs were missing steps and the sewage ran above ground, right under their window. He tells him about how his mother forced him to go to school until he dropped out and got caught up in the violence of the neighborhood, about buying his first knife and the shadows of teenagers stealing across long alleyways, about the way that his mother had cried and tried to beat sense into him, like beating a mountain with tiny fists. He tells him about the day that he woke up and realized that he was killing his mother slowly. He tells him about the day that he enlisted.
He tells Sledge all of his, his voice moving along in his soft drawl like wind sighing through the city rooftops. He tells him everything until he has no stories left to tell and he feels hollowed out inside, like pouring a cup of water into another cup and expecting there to be anything left in the first. Maybe, he thinks, maybe if he looks at Sledge, he will see a hint of Merriell Shelton staring back at him from those dark eyes.
Sledge is silent for a long time afterwards, just looking out the window with his pipe between his lips and Snafu is suddenly too tired to care. It feels like the war-weariness is finally catching up to him, dragging deep in his bones.
When they are sweat-sticky and worn out later, when they are together in the darkness of the tiny bedroom, Sledge presses his face into the side of Snafu’s neck and curls his arm around Snafu’s waist. Snafu can feel a dampness where Sledge’s cheek presses into his skin and no matter how hard Sledge tries to hide it, Snafu can feel his shoulders shake.
Snafu doesn’t know what he’s crying for. But as he passes a comforting hand between Sledge’s shoulderblades he thinks this is what war does, this is how it breaks young men over and over and then he stops thinking at all.
~
Sledge spends his time reading a lot of books. Snafu learns that he goes down to the used bookstore on the corner every day and comes back with a book and then returns the book back for a new one when he’s finished. Snafu snorts when he figures it out and wonders aloud why the fuck Sledge couldn’t have just done that in Mobile-and then Sledge would tilt his jaw up for a kiss so Snafu would stop running off at the mouth.
On Saturdays, they catch the bus and Snafu begrudgingly indulges Sledge in a tour of New Orleans. Somewhere along the way, they are lured by a fortune telling shop and Sledge lifts an eyebrow at him and smiles a little as he reaches for the door. Something jingles as it opens and Snafu paces a little like a caged thing in front of the door as the cloying scent of incense wafts out-he uneasy and feels like a goddamned girl and shakes his head as he draws out a cigarette and an excuse, “Perfume gives me a headache.”
Sledge pauses, like he isn’t sure if he wants to go in after all but Snafu waves his hand and scowls and leans up against the side of the building where Madame Devinny promises to give accurate predictions for only one dollar and fifty cents in yellowing lettering.
It’s not that Snafu is a particularly superstitious man but he’s always had a wariness for fortune tellers-born from the whispers of women on the bus, the hushed tones of his mother’s friends-did you hear about what happened to Matilda? Did you know that Madame Okabe said it would happen?
What would Madame Devinny find fit to pronounce to Sledge? Snafu doesn’t want to know.
When Sledge exits, he brings with him a whiff of too-sweet perfume, a mix of floral scents that makes Snafu want to curl his lips back and grimace. Sledge doesn’t seem to have noticed, he just starts down the sidewalk a few paces before looking back at Snafu and tilting his head inquisitively, are you coming? Snafu wrinkles his nose, drops the cigarette and falls into step alongside Sledge.
“You believe in destiny?” Sledge asks-Jesus Christ Sledge, couldn’t have picked a goddamn weightier question-and Snafu glances sideways trying to read Madame Devinny’s predictions off of his face. Witch like that probably told him that he’d live a long and fulfilling life, that he’d have a hundred children all of whom would bear his intently dark eyes and his namesake, everything that a man wanted to hear. But had to be careful with a woman like that, someone who could turn the spirits around on you with a wave of her hand, call on your ancestors to look down on you with shame-
“Sure,” Snafu answers. He doesn’t, not really, but he believes in it enough to know that this-this dichotomy of a relationship will only slow-combust in the end, that they’re sitting on borrowed time and foolishness. He believes in destiny enough to know that Sledge will only leave in the end because they all leave in the end and Snafu is a little tired of picking himself back up but he’ll do it again and again.
Maybe it’s what the Madame told Sledge, that his stay in New Orleans will be a short one. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. He’s suddenly tired, he wants to close his eyes but can’t sleep, wants to rest his body but can’t stop.
Sledge looks at him like he doesn’t quite know what to make of his answer, like he thinks Snafu is lying but maybe he’s tired too because he doesn’t say anything else.
~
When Sledge tries to tell him stories about his own childhood, the words come out a little awkward, stuck between the choking weight of an upper class upbringing and Snafu’s humorless smile. Sledge tries-but Snafu doesn’t want to listen, doesn’t want to get to know the man better at all because someday-
Sledge will come to his senses.
Sledge will go back to Mobile.
Sledge won’t look back.
And Snafu doesn’t want to be caught in the girlish sentimentality of knowing an ex-lover too well-Jesus Christ can he even call Sledge that? It sounds nauseatingly pathetic, like a phrase that might be found in those fucking trashy books that the middle aged women on the bus read, the shit that they fawn over and sigh about, wasting their fucking lives away.
Snafu doesn’t listen because he doesn’t care or he cares too much and there is no difference between the two.
~
It’s early morning when Snafu wakes up. There is no warm weight pressed up against him-the sheets are cool and the clothes scattered around his room have been removed and Snafu thinks he’s gone and he isn’t sure if he wants to laugh or if he wants to cry.
He doesn’t do either, just silently rolls out of bed and walks into the bathroom to splash water on his face. He walks into the kitchen and stops short because Sledge is sitting fully dressed at the dining room table and the rush of reliefhappinessangerfearfrustration is palpable.
“Thought you were gone,” Snafu says and his voice is deceptively nonchalant.
Sledge’s eyes flash. “I wasn’t going to do to you what you did to me.”
Snafu doesn’t have anything to say to that so he patiently regards Sledge in silence, maybe a little uncertainly.
“I’ve been thinking,” Sledge says and Snafu doesn’t like that start at all. He trails into the kitchen and starts looking for a clean cup, back turned to Sledge as the other man speaks again, “I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
Snafu picks up cup after cup, not really looking into any of them because he just needs something to do with his hands, so that he seems too busy to really be paying attention to what Sledge is saying.
“Snafu,” Sledge says next to his ear and he’s grabbing Snafu’s elbow, trying to keep him still, “Just-goddamn-just stand still for a moment, will you?”
Snafu swallows and they all leave in the end.
“Come with me,” Sledge says.
It’s surprising enough that Snafu turns his head sharply to look at Sledge, a disbelieving expression crossing his face. Sledge looks at him steadily.
“Fuck no,” Snafu replies, pulling his elbow out of Sledge’s hand. It doesn’t change Sledge’s determined expression-maybe he was expecting it all along.
“Come with me,” Sledge repeats, “I want you to meet my parents.”
“Sledge,” Snafu snarls, angrily shoving cups into the sink, “I am not some fuckin’ girl you can bring home-“
Sledge grabs him, hand at the back of his neck. His kiss is determined, and designed to shut Snafu up, biting gently at his lower lip like a fucking signature, like he’s laying claim here. Snafu kisses him back because he doesn’t know what else to do with all of this fear dragging up from the inside.
Sledge pulls away and he looks at Snafu and it’s like he’s made his mind up and he won’t accept no, like he’s ready to fight for it and-
Oh.
“Come with me,” Sledge repeats.
And Snafu’s never been able to deny the man anything.
So he opens up.
And lets Sledge in.
Fandom: The Pacific
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,737
Characters/Pairing: Sledge/Snafu
Summary: He thinks he knows exactly why Sledge is here, exactly what he wants.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters--they are based off of the actors' portrayals of characters in HBO's The Pacific, not the real people themselves.
Author's Note: Written for the pacifickink prompt sledge/snafu, hurt/comfort. the post traumatic stress and nightmares have gotten worse for Eugene. father is especially concerned. Sledge leaves Mobile one night and shows up on Snafu's doorstep after falling apart. Snafu helps put him back together.
On the other hand, I'm not sure how well this fills it. 8|
It’s around four thirty when Snafu decides to throw in the towel. There’s only so much shit he can shoot with the boys in the lumberyard before he gets bored and he’s not really fond of sniffing sawdust anyways. So he tells McCullough that he’s gonna head out which only earns him a jerk of the head and a grunt. Snafu washes his face in the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror over the sink for a moment before he wipes the water off with an unpleasantly damp washcloth and he’s off.
The bus home is rickety and the seats smell a little like urine. A man with a scraggly beard sits across from him and stares at him as he crosses his arms over his chest and closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep so he doesn’t have to make any eye contact with anyone. He’s learned the hard way that people love talking about shit that they know absolutely nothing about-like the state of the economy or Jesus fucking Christ, boys that they know who fought in the war. They speak about it in hushed tones, oh yes, little Timmy has been suffering terrible, oh his poor ma and Jesus Christ-Snafu wants to snap back-you have no fucking clue, you have no idea at all.
Except he never says anything, just sits with his eyes closed and pretends to be asleep while the women gossip around him about Joseph’s upcoming wedding, Madame D’Etienne’s fortune shop closing, the goddamned fried catfish that they’re going to make for dinner that night. If he sinks far enough into it, he can pretend that he’s not a living breathing human any more, he’s just a piece of a worn fabric stretched thin over a metal seat in a bus that jostles its riders as it wanders along the street.
The bus driver calls Martinique Avenue and Snafu’s eyes open. He gets off the bus, shoves a cigarette in between his lips and lights it. The bus drives on without him and he’s dragged back into this bodily existence, a great mess of scar tissue and blood thrumming under warm skin. He squints down the bright street and exhales a breath of smoke before he starts walking back to his apartment.
His dark arms are pale with dusted sawdust and he hasn’t done his laundry in fucking forever so the shirt was already dirty before he put it on this morning. He has splinters under his fingernails and they kind of hurt but nothing compared to-
-being shot at on Okinawa, dehydration and fear-
-so he doesn’t really notice them, no.
What he does notice is the man sitting on the front steps of his apartment complex. Snafu stops and cocks his head slightly, cigarette in his mouth as he looks at the man, a little bewildered. Red-brown curling into intent dark eyes, profile of the long nose and hmmmm he’s a little too nicely dressed, looks completely out of place with his tailored shirt and polished shoes among cracked concrete and weeds that are just too fucking tenacious. He’s looking in the other direction so Snafu has the advantage of surprise.
He leans up against the low broken wall that flanks his apartment complex. Thinks about walking away. Thinks about getting a motel room for the night and in the morning he’ll be back for new clothes and there won’t be an old friend sitting on the broken steps of his shitty apartment building.
And then Sledge decides to look his way-goddammit-and he catches sight of Snafu and Snafu has to curse inwardly. Seems like his decision is made for him and he draws the cigarette from his lips and steps forward, hoping that he doesn’t look as irritated as he feels.
“Snafu,” Sledge says and Snafu stops. He pauses-takes a moment to really take in the other man and when he does, all of his irritation is forgotten. Sledge looks like he hasn’t slept since the war-maybe he hasn’t eaten since either. There is a hollow expression in his face and it fucking scares Snafu. It scares Snafu because he’s seen Sledge when he’s been so fucking angry that he can’t speak, he’s seen Sledge shake with sobs in the middle of the night when he doesn’t think there’s anybody watching, he’s seen Sledge with the hard set look of determination just before he pulls the trigger again and again and again. But he’s never seen this look, this blank despair and it strikes a chord deep within him,
Snafu regards him and his fucking perfectly pressed shirt that’s a little rumpled at the sleeves where Sledge has pushed them up and he regards the suitcase at his feet. It’s by some miracle of nature that he doesn’t just fucking break into hysterical laughter. He thinks he knows exactly why Sledge is here, exactly what he wants and Jesus fucking Christ, isn’t that just presumptuous of him to show up with no warning and a suitcase as if he’s expecting Snafu to drop his daily routine and immediately cater to his every fucking whim. Sledge looks back at him and all of a sudden he can see the look of uncertainty in those damn dark eyes (the ones that keep fucking haunting him) and he has to sigh and drop the butt of the finished cigarette onto the ground and jerk his head at the door, “Well. Come on.”
It’s a terrible idea from the start, he knows.
~
If Sledge hates where he lives, if Sledge thinks disdainfully about the dishes that are never done, the holes that reveal the stuffing of his couch, the rust on the exposed pipes in the bathroom-if he thinks anything at all about the way that Snafu leaves half empty cups of coffee everywhere and forgets to pick them up until all the water has evaporated away into the early summer heat leaving behind a disgusting slurry of brown shit-
He doesn’t show it.
Snafu thinks he knows what Sledge wants, but it’s confusing because Sledge doesn’t do anything about it. He spends his days god-knows-where wandering around the streets of New Orleans (or at least that’s what Snafu figures because he’s never around during the day) but by the time that Snafu gets home, he always has some form of dinner on the table, usually food bought at a restaurant that’s much more expensive than the mismatched plates it sits on. After dinner, Snafu lights up a cigarette and Sledge fills his pipe and they smoke silently into the evening.
In the familiar glow of Sledge’s pipe, Snafu can almost imagine the faraway crackle of gunfire in the clouds, the artificial lightning flaring up along the horizon, the short time of relapse between each episode of dragging his weary feet deeper and deeper into enemy territory under a hot sun. Snafu doesn’t want to think about any of these things, doesn’t want to linger too long on the ghost sensation of dried blood under his fingernails or the sweat and dirt perpetually damp at the back of his neck.
When he finally asks Sledge what the hell he’s doing in New Orleans, Sledge has already slept on his ratty couch for four days. It’s almost nighttime and the dim naked bulb hanging from his ceiling casts a half light onto his meager possessions, throws a hazy glow out the open window into the alleyway below. Sledge lets the smoke drift out of his mouth, not looking at Snafu at all.
“Sure ain’t for the hotel accommodations,” Snafu says and he means it to be a joke but the words drag a little too sharply.
Sledge looks at him then, across the uneven table where Snafu has placed his elbows and has been shuffling a deck of cards between his fingers for the last half hour. He looks at Snafu in the dirty light, at the bruiselike shadows under his eyes, the fine layer of sawdust in his hair, the way that his forearms flex when he cuts the deck over and over again. Sledge sets his pipe down. He moves forward until he’s pressed up against the table, leaning forward so that he’s barely inches from Snafu’s face.
Snafu doesn’t even blink but his hands still, looking back at Sledge with no expression at all. He doesn’t move back, doesn’t turn away, just holds his eyes steady on Sledge’s face and maybe he’s just daring Sledge to do this-maybe he’s wanted this too since Sledge showed up on his doorstep-maybe he’s been thinking about this too since he walked off that train.
Snafu finally blinks-eyelashes brushing across Sledge’s cheek and the touch startles Sledge into action or something because the next thing he knows, Sledge is kissing him. He’s tracing his tongue across Snafu’s lower lip and begging permission and Jesus Christ Snafu’s never been able to deny this man anything so he opens up and lets Sledge in, lets him push a hand through the hairs at the back of his head and kiss him like he’s fucking drowning in it.
And when Sledge shifts back because the table is digging into his stomach, Snafu puts his cigarette back between his lips and keeps an even gaze on Sledge. Sledge runs a hand through his own hair, a little shakily and maybe Snafu even feels a little bad for him-for both of them.
“This ain’t China anymore,” Snafu says, speaking like he’s testing the weight of his own words. They hang heavily in the humid Louisiana heat.
“I know,” Sledge says back, sinking into his own chair again.
Snafu taps ashes from his cigarette into a cracked mug on the table.
“I can’t fix you,” Snafu adds, much belatedly, and his voice is low.
“I know,” Sledge says and he closes his eyes. His teeth hold his pipe in place.
There is nothing more to say. The silence draws heavy around them and Snafu lets himself be wrapped in it.
~
At the lumberyard, Laurent and Smith pull on the upturned collar of the nicer shirts he’s started to wear to work and make lewd jokes about the woman that Snafu is sleeping with.
“C’était un bon coup?” Laurent asks with his eyes glittering, “Quand elle met ses lèvres-“
“Shut the fuck up Laurent,” Smith replies, though it’s in good humor, “Speak English, you French fuck.“
“Va te faire-“
“Yeah you too,” Smith agrees readily, shoving at the other man before speaking eagerly to Snafu, “C’mon Shelton, you’ve been late twice this week already and your broad has really marked you up, pretty fuckin’ good. You gonna spill the details or what?”
Snafu breathes in smoke, doesn’t answer in the warm morning air in the lumberyard.
“You been seeing a fifty cent trick, Shelton?” Smith demands over the sound of the tablesaw warming up, “Watch out for them goddamn crabs, Shelton-that’s my advice to you.”
Sometimes the men here forget that Snafu has been through a fucking war. They’ve never seen him in uniform, he doesn’t flaunt the fact that he’s been in combat for years and has seen things that they can’t even dream of. They’re only reminded when once in a while when they’re grabbing dinner and a beer together after work has ended, once in a while when Snafu casually mentions the fact that he’s been part of the marines with something like a suggestive smile to land a phone number from the waitress and a quick fuck in the bathroom. Snafu doesn’t care enough to call them back afterwards-doesn’t have a girl back home.
Sometimes they forget and sometimes they remember.
Snafu drops the butt of his cigarette on the ground. Doesn’t even look at them as he lifts a hand to touch one of the bruises on his neck, almost absently. It’s so far out of character that Laurent and Smith exchange concerned looks.
“Fuck off,” Snafu answers and he starts off towards the four-by-four’s stacked up against the north fence.
~
Snafu tells Sledge stories when they sit together after dinner, after the plates have been dumped in the sink. He tells Sledge stories about his mama who wanted to have an abortion but how the love of Jesus Christ saved him, how she had been stopped outside the doctor’s office with a rapidly swelling belly and tears tracking down her face and a woman had asked child, are you okay? He tells Sledge stories of an imagined father who doesn’t knock up a woman and leave for the north-the words come out in sharp staccato anger-he tells him about a nurse who can barely afford to keep herself alive much less a child and he tells Sledge a story of sacrifice.
He tells him about living on bread and dirty water in a studio apartment so old that the stairs were missing steps and the sewage ran above ground, right under their window. He tells him about how his mother forced him to go to school until he dropped out and got caught up in the violence of the neighborhood, about buying his first knife and the shadows of teenagers stealing across long alleyways, about the way that his mother had cried and tried to beat sense into him, like beating a mountain with tiny fists. He tells him about the day that he woke up and realized that he was killing his mother slowly. He tells him about the day that he enlisted.
He tells Sledge all of his, his voice moving along in his soft drawl like wind sighing through the city rooftops. He tells him everything until he has no stories left to tell and he feels hollowed out inside, like pouring a cup of water into another cup and expecting there to be anything left in the first. Maybe, he thinks, maybe if he looks at Sledge, he will see a hint of Merriell Shelton staring back at him from those dark eyes.
Sledge is silent for a long time afterwards, just looking out the window with his pipe between his lips and Snafu is suddenly too tired to care. It feels like the war-weariness is finally catching up to him, dragging deep in his bones.
When they are sweat-sticky and worn out later, when they are together in the darkness of the tiny bedroom, Sledge presses his face into the side of Snafu’s neck and curls his arm around Snafu’s waist. Snafu can feel a dampness where Sledge’s cheek presses into his skin and no matter how hard Sledge tries to hide it, Snafu can feel his shoulders shake.
Snafu doesn’t know what he’s crying for. But as he passes a comforting hand between Sledge’s shoulderblades he thinks this is what war does, this is how it breaks young men over and over and then he stops thinking at all.
~
Sledge spends his time reading a lot of books. Snafu learns that he goes down to the used bookstore on the corner every day and comes back with a book and then returns the book back for a new one when he’s finished. Snafu snorts when he figures it out and wonders aloud why the fuck Sledge couldn’t have just done that in Mobile-and then Sledge would tilt his jaw up for a kiss so Snafu would stop running off at the mouth.
On Saturdays, they catch the bus and Snafu begrudgingly indulges Sledge in a tour of New Orleans. Somewhere along the way, they are lured by a fortune telling shop and Sledge lifts an eyebrow at him and smiles a little as he reaches for the door. Something jingles as it opens and Snafu paces a little like a caged thing in front of the door as the cloying scent of incense wafts out-he uneasy and feels like a goddamned girl and shakes his head as he draws out a cigarette and an excuse, “Perfume gives me a headache.”
Sledge pauses, like he isn’t sure if he wants to go in after all but Snafu waves his hand and scowls and leans up against the side of the building where Madame Devinny promises to give accurate predictions for only one dollar and fifty cents in yellowing lettering.
It’s not that Snafu is a particularly superstitious man but he’s always had a wariness for fortune tellers-born from the whispers of women on the bus, the hushed tones of his mother’s friends-did you hear about what happened to Matilda? Did you know that Madame Okabe said it would happen?
What would Madame Devinny find fit to pronounce to Sledge? Snafu doesn’t want to know.
When Sledge exits, he brings with him a whiff of too-sweet perfume, a mix of floral scents that makes Snafu want to curl his lips back and grimace. Sledge doesn’t seem to have noticed, he just starts down the sidewalk a few paces before looking back at Snafu and tilting his head inquisitively, are you coming? Snafu wrinkles his nose, drops the cigarette and falls into step alongside Sledge.
“You believe in destiny?” Sledge asks-Jesus Christ Sledge, couldn’t have picked a goddamn weightier question-and Snafu glances sideways trying to read Madame Devinny’s predictions off of his face. Witch like that probably told him that he’d live a long and fulfilling life, that he’d have a hundred children all of whom would bear his intently dark eyes and his namesake, everything that a man wanted to hear. But had to be careful with a woman like that, someone who could turn the spirits around on you with a wave of her hand, call on your ancestors to look down on you with shame-
“Sure,” Snafu answers. He doesn’t, not really, but he believes in it enough to know that this-this dichotomy of a relationship will only slow-combust in the end, that they’re sitting on borrowed time and foolishness. He believes in destiny enough to know that Sledge will only leave in the end because they all leave in the end and Snafu is a little tired of picking himself back up but he’ll do it again and again.
Maybe it’s what the Madame told Sledge, that his stay in New Orleans will be a short one. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. He’s suddenly tired, he wants to close his eyes but can’t sleep, wants to rest his body but can’t stop.
Sledge looks at him like he doesn’t quite know what to make of his answer, like he thinks Snafu is lying but maybe he’s tired too because he doesn’t say anything else.
~
When Sledge tries to tell him stories about his own childhood, the words come out a little awkward, stuck between the choking weight of an upper class upbringing and Snafu’s humorless smile. Sledge tries-but Snafu doesn’t want to listen, doesn’t want to get to know the man better at all because someday-
Sledge will come to his senses.
Sledge will go back to Mobile.
Sledge won’t look back.
And Snafu doesn’t want to be caught in the girlish sentimentality of knowing an ex-lover too well-Jesus Christ can he even call Sledge that? It sounds nauseatingly pathetic, like a phrase that might be found in those fucking trashy books that the middle aged women on the bus read, the shit that they fawn over and sigh about, wasting their fucking lives away.
Snafu doesn’t listen because he doesn’t care or he cares too much and there is no difference between the two.
~
It’s early morning when Snafu wakes up. There is no warm weight pressed up against him-the sheets are cool and the clothes scattered around his room have been removed and Snafu thinks he’s gone and he isn’t sure if he wants to laugh or if he wants to cry.
He doesn’t do either, just silently rolls out of bed and walks into the bathroom to splash water on his face. He walks into the kitchen and stops short because Sledge is sitting fully dressed at the dining room table and the rush of reliefhappinessangerfearfrustration is palpable.
“Thought you were gone,” Snafu says and his voice is deceptively nonchalant.
Sledge’s eyes flash. “I wasn’t going to do to you what you did to me.”
Snafu doesn’t have anything to say to that so he patiently regards Sledge in silence, maybe a little uncertainly.
“I’ve been thinking,” Sledge says and Snafu doesn’t like that start at all. He trails into the kitchen and starts looking for a clean cup, back turned to Sledge as the other man speaks again, “I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
Snafu picks up cup after cup, not really looking into any of them because he just needs something to do with his hands, so that he seems too busy to really be paying attention to what Sledge is saying.
“Snafu,” Sledge says next to his ear and he’s grabbing Snafu’s elbow, trying to keep him still, “Just-goddamn-just stand still for a moment, will you?”
Snafu swallows and they all leave in the end.
“Come with me,” Sledge says.
It’s surprising enough that Snafu turns his head sharply to look at Sledge, a disbelieving expression crossing his face. Sledge looks at him steadily.
“Fuck no,” Snafu replies, pulling his elbow out of Sledge’s hand. It doesn’t change Sledge’s determined expression-maybe he was expecting it all along.
“Come with me,” Sledge repeats, “I want you to meet my parents.”
“Sledge,” Snafu snarls, angrily shoving cups into the sink, “I am not some fuckin’ girl you can bring home-“
Sledge grabs him, hand at the back of his neck. His kiss is determined, and designed to shut Snafu up, biting gently at his lower lip like a fucking signature, like he’s laying claim here. Snafu kisses him back because he doesn’t know what else to do with all of this fear dragging up from the inside.
Sledge pulls away and he looks at Snafu and it’s like he’s made his mind up and he won’t accept no, like he’s ready to fight for it and-
Oh.
“Come with me,” Sledge repeats.
And Snafu’s never been able to deny the man anything.
So he opens up.
And lets Sledge in.