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eugeneshelton · 9 days ago

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C’est Vrais: Sledgefu

[ABOUT] Merriell "Snafu" Shelton x Eugene "Sledgehammer" Sledge. This is for @bofbfanatics Writing Comp. ❤️

[PROMPT] What Was Never Said: ”How was I supposed to know I’d never see you again.”

"Mo laime toi."

"What?"

The shadow of his gun followed Snafu's back as he walked away to the tent. Sledge sat and looked in silence at his retreat. He sat alone.

Alone and heartbroken, miles away from Alabama, far too forward in time to to recall the youthful face of his beautiful Sidney. His Sidney, who had gone and left him, with not a page of Kipling's book turned open, given away, just like how he had given Sledge his answer.

Alone and heartbroken. He sat in the sand looking out into nothing. Looked out into the ocean as if he could call Sidney back to him off of that damned boat.

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"What did that mean?"

Snafu continued to smoke in the heat of the sun.

"What you said out there...What did that mean? Molam-something."

It didn't mean much, most likely. Probably a perturbed retort for all the whining he did from all the war and dying and misery and heat and the ache he felt for his perfect Sidney and how Snafu needed to tolerate Eugene Bondurant Sledge who was more boy than man. Nothing. Like the fallen ash from his cigarette.

Nothing, really.

"Don' worry 'bout it too much, Sha" was the reply after chewing past the filter, and Snafu once again walked away. Eugene sat in silence in front of the waves.

He wished Snafu picked out another seashell for him to keep in his pocket, but he didn't. He just spent time wondering what the hell Sha meant.

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Ever since his best friend left, things were off. His wonderful, beautiful, smart Sidney. Maybe he really was too good for Eugene. Figures. He was always so pure, so beyond anybody Eugene knew. Even when covered in dirt and filth and too much blood, Sidney Phillips would always be dear to his heart.

Dear to him.

"Dat der ration, ya best eat it all now. We be told we movin' up past dem dunes. No turnin' back for break afta while, ya hear?"

His beautiful Sidney.

"Eat."

Dashed to pieces after seeing Snafu's mug.

"I-I'm not hungry."

He regretted his words. One look. Just one. It was a familiar look, one he saw when Snafu lived up to his reputation as 'situation normal: all fucked up.' Because his eyes went beyond fucked up into the waves of the pacific, and he had no room for a fancy doctor's child to play make-believe out here in the dirt. Out here where children like him didn't belong, fighting in an obvious poor man's war like wanted to be martyred as a saint.

"Eat, Sledgehamma."

So Eugene ate.

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"I just...I just—fuck! Leave me the fuck alone, Snafu!"

He doesn't. Eugene doesn't understand it. Snafu was a phantom. His own phantom. Leckie sardonically remarked that he was a ghost from the bayou haunting Eugene, and Eugene only. There was no other explanation for why Snafu traced the edges of his shadows and appeared when Eugene needed him the most.

When Eugene didn't want him there.

Was this suffocation? What was it? This. Making sure he ate. Slept. To prevent Mr. Rich Boy from drowning in contraband and lose himself to past regrets and too many cigarettes. He knew the game. He could be as filthy and miserable as all the other dogs out here, but everyone knew a silver spoon-fed milksop when they saw one. A rebel like Snafu wasn't one to kiss the ass of such a fool, much less anyone, so why?

Why did he look at him that way? Looking at him as if he could memorize the skin of his teeth and the angle of his bones, how weariness settled into his gut, his inner child clashing with the painful entry to adulthood. Like he knew Eugene as much as he knew Sledgehamma. How he could tell him of his vices, his displeasure, his desires, how he was as over the war as every other son of a bitch manning the trenches, with one look. Silence.

How he didn't utter one word of why he left Eugene on that train and disappeared out of his life.

When Eugene needed him the most.

When Eugene wanted him there.

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When Eugene was a child, he was fascinated with an ice sculpture of an angel at his church's Christmas celebration; so he stole it, tasting his first acknowledgment of sin even if his immature mind couldn't comprehend the churning in his stomach. And then it melted in his chubby, little hands, mixing with his tears; he remembered looking at his wet shoelaces where the water slipped through his fingers. Gone.

Like Sidney. Gone.

Snafu.

It was always too late. He was always too late. Too late in realizing that Sidney wasn't his ice sculpture, after all, his angel. He melted through his fingers, but when Eugene stood in front of Sidney, the water was more of his youth, his daring, the will to be more than some small town boy in Alabama that didn't dare go beyond his state. The water was what Eugene wanted to be, but couldn't, since his frailty.

The water contained no sadness. The water was not his Sidney. There were no tears that mixed with it at Sidney's wedding. Nothing to drip onto his shoelaces at the birth of their child, at how Sidney moved on from the war like it never happened. No regrets.

All Sledgehamma could think of was feathers made of ice melting, one by one, in the heat of the bayou. His angel. His phantom. Melting, faster than the shiny prize he stole as a child, faster, faster, faster. Too fast, too gone. Water pouring, not bothering to drip, at stale cigarettes wedged between a mouth that uttered words as sharp as a knife. Deep-set eyes that needed no translation. A ghost who haunted Eugene even in his bourgeois home that was more suffocating now than comforting. Mixing with his tears onto the laces of Eugene's fancy loafers that made him feel like a silly child, not ever a man.

Gone. Melted away, all evidence consumed by the heat of the hot Alabama sun.

If only the sun could do the same to the tears that remained on his face.

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Time healed all wounds.

Those were the words that continued to echo in his head from the first confession back home; the words of his priest. Time healed all wounds.

But time didn't make water turn into the very ice that made up his angel. Time didn't heal his wounds; it only made him fester with regret so dark that even Sidney couldn't be a flickering light. Time made him bitter and angry and constantly checking the shadows behind him, as if Snafu would emerge out of nowhere and tell him to eat breakfast. Go to school. Do anything other than stare out at the lake on a sunny Saturday and live his life.

Sledgehamma, ya gon' lose a screw now if ya keep mopin' like dis.

Eat.

He was losing it, though. Alone, even if Sidney talked to him. But to Eugene, it was more like he was talking at him: a relic, like the poetry by Kipling he retired to his attic.

He never retired the seashells Snafu picked out for him, however. They sat, haunting him, on his desk. Periwinkle blue, pink, white and black specks, all too smooth from the myriad of times Eugene traced over their ridges in his daily ritual. They didn't melt into water. But to Sledgehamma, the water wet his hands past regret and the realization that it was all too late.

He lost the chance, if he even dared. He could daydream all he wanted, play make believe in his head. In his perfect world, he'd have trembled, but he'd whisper the words Snafu told him back without hesitation. And Snafu would give him pretty seashells after they swam in the ocean. Sun high in the sky. Those dark eyes would smile at him like no one else stood at the dunes, just Eugene and Merriell. No regret, no past failures. The islands he hated so much: He'd never leave them if Snafu wanted to be twenty-two forever.

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Time reopened that wound for him.

More like he reopened that would for himself. A madman. He just couldn't ever let it go. How typical of him, always chasing shadows; but now, he was chasing his shadow.

He said his, as if Snafu ever belonged to him. But he did. Too late for him to ever know, but Snafu did. Because Eugene now swore that he did, a man who was too smart for Mr. Rich Boy and knew when to call it quits, unlike Eugene. But Eugene could never call it quits.

Funny how that worked when he was always too late about things. Not funny for his friends and family; how they looked at him with such nauseating disgust and pity, each ruminating their own reasons for why he was apparently losing his sanity.

Son...are you all right?

Hey...Look. You know you can talk to me about anything, right? Yeah, I got Mary, and all, but I'm always going to be your best friend, no matter what. Right, Eugene? Eugene. Eugene. Right?

Well, he didn't need their pity. Their hushed whispers when he came around, treating him like he was on the brink of a breakdown, were unnecessary. He already broke down long ago, and continued to break down at night; and thus, each cumulative wave of regret somehow was the impetus for him to do what he wouldn't dare.

He opened the manila envelope. The Bondurant name could've done the dirty work in finding out the details, but he didn't want his family on high alert. The private investigator he hired was a former GI now PI; and judging by the contents and delivery, he'd done a damned good job and was well worth the money.

Well worth being a fucking voyeur. Every single detail of Merriell Shelton printed in neat Times New Roman for his eyes to devour. And he did, pouring over each mark of ink with an appetite that could hopefully drown out his regret. But it didn't. It only made him hungrier, angrier, making the self-loathing taste bitter in his mouth.

It gave him the goddamned brevity to finally grab his car keys and dash out the door.

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Louisiana wasn't foreign to him. After all, it was right next to his state, and he had family in New Orleans, in those grandiose, tidy chateaus of blue bloods who had their own floats during Mardi Gras. What he wasn't used to were, to put it bluntly, the homes of the less affluent, of gravel roads that lead to abodes his mother wouldn't dare step into.

What the grunts loathed about him was true, after all; he was a silver spoon-fed milksop.

The closer he got, the more agitated he became. Panicked. Was he crazy? He'd taken off for Baton Rouge with only a scrawled note in his father's office detailing where he was going, when he'd be back approximately. Just him, his luxe car that stood out way too much amongst the beat-up vehicles that passed his way, and the seashells.

He couldn't bear to leave them behind, no matter the answer. The seashells. So smooth from his fingers that they felt like glass now. His rosary.

He drove faster in hopes of beating the sun that chased away all shadows. He needed his shadow, his phantom. Who was haunting who, now? What Snafu was in the pacific was what Eugene needed to be, if only to soothe the choked sobs that spoke of how he'd forever remain a coward.

He nearly choked on his own tongue when he finally saw him for the first time.

Snafu.

Even from the back, he knew it was him that was bent over that pick-up truck, fixing the engine. Him in front of a tiny home that was more of a lean-to than anything. Post-war had filled out the musculature of his body, the breadth of his shoulders, to that of a grown man. Even with oil and grit staining his body, Snafu was hauntingly beautiful.

Even from the back, Snafu knew it was him. He didn't have to turn around to pierce Eugene's heart with the timbre of his voice.

"Go home, Eugene."

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So he was a coward. A crazy coward.

He was a fucking coward.

A coward with his bleeding heart drowning out his sensibilities. From the first moment he saw Snafu, nothing mattered to him anymore except the seashells and Snafu and Snafu and Snafu and Snafu—

Merriell.

"Go home, Eugene."

No.

"Go. Home."

No, please. Not like this. Notlikethisnotlikethisnotlikethis. Those dark eyes looked past him, not at him. His beautiful Merriell.

He didn't even call him Sledgehamma, anymore. His own name felt foreign to him when they came out of Snafu's mouth, like a stranger. He was a stranger. A stranger looking like a fool in his fancy clothes with his stupid, fancy car, in loafers with its laces wet from ice that melted out of his fingers. A stranger. His own shadow had no desire to trail after him.

He could afford to lose Sidney. He could afford to lose the icy angel and his youth and his sanity on that fucking island and years wasted in his own regret and liquor and Jeanne and all the damned Kipling books and everything that he had left, save for his seashells. But Snafu? But Merriell? No. He couldn't afford to lose him. Never. Not again. Not on that damned train again.

It was an underhanded move, but true nonetheless. He had nothing to lose. He never had anything to begin with. So he pulled the trigger, boring into eyes that didn't want to look at him.

"Mo laime toi."

Snafu snapped his head up. "What?"

Eugene didn't whisper it this time. He yelled it.

"Mo laime toi!"

Disgusting glee filled his gut at seeing Snafu react, to see a chink in his armor. He rushed right up to his mug that was now scrunched in fury, hunger, remembrance of the shitty dunes and blood and Eugene forever staring at Sidney and bullets that ate into his skin. He rushed to grab dirty arms, to sling them stiff around him like a failing puppeteer on his last desperate act.

"Mo laime toi. Mo laime toi. Mo laime toi. Mo laime toi. Mo laime toi. Mo laime toi. Mo laime toi.—"

"Stop dat righ' now! Wha' da hell ya tink ya doin'—"

"Mo laime toi. Mo laime toi. Mo laime toi. Mo laime toi—" He continued to choke out the words he wished Snafu would whisper into his ears on the train. He continued to thrash, to gape like a fish out of water even when Snafu pulled him up to his face by his fancy silk collar that was now dyed with grease. He continued. Because he couldn't afford anything else.

Because he was greedy, and he'd never give up his seashells and he'd never give up on his regret and he'd never give up on Snafu and he'd never give up on—

"Stop!"

"Mo laime toi. Mo laime toi. Mo laime toi! Snafu, please!"

Please. Why won't you call me Sha?

"Please, Snafu!"

He was a fucking coward.

"Please."

Please sit by me give me pretty seashells tell me to eat because I won't ever on my own don't leave me on that train why didn't you tell me to wake up don't leave me don't leave me don't leave me why won't you look at me please look at me don't leave me on that train don't tell me that it's too late—

"Please." And he sagged into trembling arms that betrayed its solid hold on him. He whispered.

”How was I supposed to know I’d never see you again."

Please.

Don't tell him he was always too late.

Please.

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"Ya gon 'head and run to me now dat Sid don' wan' you no mo'! Das wat dis is!"

"No, it's not like that!"

He was utterly sick in the head for the glee in getting a rise out of Snafu; anything but the initial apathy from the latter that spurned him away to go back to Alabama. In Eugene's sick little mind, it meant that he cared, that he gave a damn about how he melted into water when he got off of that train. Why else would he pace like a mad tiger in its enclosure, resolute in snapping Eugene's neck in two with his accusations.

"I'm no damn couillon like I was back den! Back den, I did tink in my head ya gon' forge' bou' Phillips if I tried hard enough. I did tink dat!" He paced and paced and paced and paced around the living room carpet, in the home he unwillingly invited Eugene into when the neighbors began to poke their heads out at the commotion. A home that was now a prison. "Ya come back damn nea' foreva and tink I'm still da same capon?!"

"No, Snafu, please!"

"Don' ya dare say 'mo laime toi, mo laime toi, mo laime toi' like ya mean it aftuh readin' sum dictionary. It dun' mean shit comin' out ya mouth das been mackin' wit dat bastahd—"

He'd chewed his cigarette to sludge in his frustration, spitting it out onto the ashtray with contempt. It made Eugene coil in contempt himself as he finally came nose-to-nose with the other man. It made him remind himself to stay strong and not give in to his cowardice, to feel the seashells in his pocket, to never accept melted ice no matter how late he was.

To stare Merriell straight in the eye and spill years of regret that ate him alive.

"I fucking meant what I said! All of it! I fucking meant every goddamn mo laime toi—I didn't even know how to pronounce any of those words when I looked them up!" He threw his hands up as he fought back the bitter sting of frustration. "And you of all people know who I am! Me! A fucking coward! Me!"

"Ya not a cowahd—"

"I'm a goddamned coward, Snafu, but I'm not a goddamned liar!"

Only Merriell Allesandro Shelton melted through his fingers to never be dried by the sun.

"I've never been with Sidney. Or anyone else," he shakily breathed out, fighting the urge to flee, to run, to scream, to take Snafu by the shoulders and shake him until he saw sense.

I only want to be with you.

Silence rang louder than his last exclamation. The last sentiment, he dared not to voice out loud. Not when he had no more regret left, yet all the regret Snafu had made him have one last one of everything being truly lost on that train. Maybe it was even before then, at one of the many times Eugene turned his back on Snafu to trail after Sidney.

Silence at his words. Silence at choppy breaths that he wasn't sure of who they belonged to. Silence at his silence. No one spoke. No one looked. The road home to Mobile seemed longer than he ever imagine it could be, and Eugene wished the seashells in his pocket weren't so worn by his continuous, pathetic desperation.

Silence. Regret. He truly was an utter fool.

That was, until Merriell spoke.

Ever so softly. So soft, that if he hadn't gathered Eugene in his arms, hadn't given him hope, Eugene would've missed the words that froze water back into ice.

"Didn' I tell ya don' ruin dem pretty eyes fo' no one. No' fo' a bastahd like Sid. No' even fo' a bastahd like me." A rough hand brushed away the single tear that threatened to fall.

"Sledgehamma."

At the name he needed to hear the most, he sobbed as warm lips covered his own, quaking as the other man's arms slid around his body. Or maybe it was Snafu who was quaking. Or maybe it was them both, so in tune, so in sync, quaking like they were on that island, two knobby-kneed boys at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

"Mo laime toi, Sha."

Now forever finally at the right place, at the right time.

"Mo laime toi."

#sledgefu #READ THIS RIGHT NOW OR ELSE

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