Chapter Text
If you ask the rest of them, they probably think otherwise. Leyton, Jay, Burgie, even most of the boots, they’d all say it had probably been happening for months by the time it finally did. In reality, it didn’t start until after Jay and Leyton were gone. After Shelton began to snap. Not that it took Eugene by surprise. By the time they got to Okinawa, nothing Shelton did took Eugene by surprise.
The rest of the company is silent as they scream at each other. They always argue, but never fight. Not really. Not loud. Not mean. It was an unspoken rule since the airfield that anyone who had anything negative to say about Eugene would have Shelton to answer to. No one else had ever heard him say anything like “Fuck you, Eugene.”
Moments later, after a haze of sudden rage, gunfire, and blood, Eugene is pulled down into the mud before he can snatch Peck away from the rocks. He looks up and sees Shelton glaring hard at him, eyes blazing and a hand on his chest.
“Stay down,” Shelton orders over all the noise, a split second before Hamm drops dead beside them.
Shelton is quiet for a long time after that. When they cramp close together in their foxhole, Eugene tells him to get some sleep.
“I’ll take first watch,” Eugene assures him, too drained to put up with an argument. He doesn’t trust Shelton to take watch now, anyway. Shelton nods without a word and shuffles down to the bottom of the hole.
There’s silence that stretches on for what feels like forever. Everything between sleep and gunfire feels like forever out here. Usually, he falls asleep quickly, and Eugene expects it of him now. Instead, it’s only a few minutes before he hears the wet scrambling of Shelton digging himself back up to Eugene’s side.
“What?” Eugene sighs. He feels idiotic, letting himself still be angry at Shelton, as if it will do anything. As if Shelton cares.
Shelton doesn’t answer, just stares back at him, as he is wont to do.
It’s unnerving, the way he always looks at Eugene. His every glance seems to stand out intense, as if he’s always trying to stare him down from something.
The rain is pouring and it’s pitch dark and Eugene is too damn tired.
“What?” he repeats, almost a snarl this time, and Shelton reacts like the pop of a trigger. Sopping mud slams against Eugene’s back, crawling wet and thick down the collar of his slicker as his unlatched helmet is knocked sideways and drops to the ground.
For a moment, he thinks Shelton has knocked the wind out of him, because he can’t breathe. When he opens his mouth, all he can taste is clay and blood. It isn’t until he feels Shelton’s tongue sweep over his lip he realizes what’s happening.
Somehow, Eugene is more surprised by how unsurprised he is than anything else. It feels, strangely, as if this isn’t the first time Shelton has kissed him.
Despite the downpour, Shelton’s mouth is unnaturally dry, lips hatched with cracks from the heat and the sun, the inside of his mouth about as parched as their canteens. Shelton kisses Eugene harder than he expects he’d kiss a woman. He’s forceful, almost angry.
“Easy,” he hisses into Shelton’s mouth, and Shelton lets out a heavy sigh into the kiss. His body, wound taunt, abruptly sags against Eugene, and one of the hands pinning his shoulders into the side of the foxhole lets go to latch into Eugene’s hair.
He yanks hard to change the position of Eugene’s head, causing him to let out a yelp. “Easy, Snaf, Jesus.”
This time, Shelton stops, pulls away. For the first time, Eugene notices how hard he’s shaking.
Eugene isn’t sure if it’s Hamm’s death or Peck losing it that’s pushed him over the line, but Shelton is finally too scared to hide it anymore.
If he says anything about it, Shelton will probably deny it at best and at worst, throw a punch, so he doesn’t.
“Get some sleep,” he says instead. “Because I’m waking you up at 0300 no matter what.”
There’s no response, but Eugene catches a flash of white teeth against the echo of a flare before Shelton slumps back down into the foxhole. He picks Eugene’s helmet up from the mud and hands it to him.
It isn’t until Eugene takes it from him that he realizes Shelton hasn’t said a word in several hours.
“You all right?” he asks stupidly. Of course he isn’t, Eugene knows that, but it’s still some misplaced instinct to ask.
Shelton snorts at him. It sounds uncharacteristically wet, but Eugene tells himself it’s probably just due to the rain.
“Goodnight, Sledgehammer.”
At 0300, Eugene moves to kick Shelton awake like he normally does, but hesitates when he remembers the kiss. They aren’t going to talk about it, he knows that much. But Eugene still feels an unfounded need to be gentle with him. Leyton’s gone, Jay left. Now Peck’s off to the loony bin and Hamm is dead. If Shelton cracks up too, he doesn’t have anyone.
“Hey,” he whispers, shaking Shelton awake, “hey, Snafu, it’s 0300.”
Shelton wakes up slow, as if he feels like he can. The rain stopped about an hour ago, and it’s possible he’s forgotten they’re at war for a few blissful seconds. His eyes slide over to meet Eugene’s for a moment, and they stare at each other in silence. Eugene has never woken Shelton up like this, and abruptly, it feels too close.
“It’s 0300,” Eugene repeats, and the corner of Shelton’s mouth twitches.
Something like curiosity flashes over his face, and for just a moment Eugene has the idea that Shelton’s going to kiss him again, but he doesn’t.
Hefting his rifle in his hands, he grumbles, “Get some shuteye, then.”
It’s dark and wet and Eugene is exhausted. He closes his eyes and listens to Shelton humming tunelessly to himself.
Eugene just finally falls asleep when he feels Shelton’s hand is on his face. “Sledgehammer.”
It’s too soft, at first, for Eugene to really process. It can’t be light, yet. He only just shut his eyes. Shelton’s fingers are cold and grimy on his cheek, and he’s just awake enough to remember the kiss before Shelton’s hand smacks him, just hard enough to be audible.
“Ow!” Eugene snaps awake, jerking forward and narrowly missing smashing his helmet directly into Shelton’s face. Shelton grins manically at him barely two inches away. “What the hell, Snaf?”
“Rise and shine, Sledgehammer,” he says, handing him the rifle that had slid from his grip in his sleep. He doesn’t move away from Eugene’s face. “0700, we’re movin’ out.” The words don’t register right away, not with how close Shelton is to his face after everything that happened last night.
“Did I smack the sense out of you?” Shelton snaps, “Let’s go.”
They don’t talk about it, Eugene was right about that. He’d be willing to bet it had all been some insane dream, except for the fact that Shelton never leaves him alone longer than the time it takes for either of them to take a shit. At first, Eugene tells himself it’s because he enjoys being close to him, but after another five tallies in the back of his bible, he starts to think it’s just to keep him from spreading rumours to the others that Shelton might be a queer.
He wouldn’t. Shelton must know that.
Days later, the night after they find the Okinawan baby lying on its mother’s corpse, after Eugene crouches alone to hold the old woman as she died, Shelton doesn’t sleep. He offers to take first watch and later in the night Eugene wakes up on his own — whether out of habit or forced from a nightmare is hard to tell anymore — to see Shelton watching him eerily in the dark. He does his best not to seem unnerved.
“What time is it?” he asks thickly.
Shelton shrugs and glances up at the sky. “‘Bout 0400, sometime after.” He brings the cigarette he’s furtively smoking to his lips, and Eugene watches the ember glow as he inhales.
It takes Eugene a moment for the fog of sleep to lift enough to realize that means it’s over an hour into his shift. He sits up, reflexively repositioning his rifle in his lap.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
Shelton looks up again, dropping ash from his cigarette. Eugene watches it fall to the floor of their foxhole, next to three stubbed out butts.
“You’re gonna get us caught with that shit,” Eugene tells him darkly. It barely feels like it matters anymore. The expression on Shelton’s face as he glances back down at him shares the same sentiment.
“Get some shuteye,” he says before Shelton can mock him for still caring about rules. “I’ll take watch.”
Shelton doesn’t react to that, turning his eyes back upward.
“If I’m next,” he asks after a moment, holding his cigarette out over his knee, “What’d you do?”
Eugene doesn’t think about that. He can’t. If Shelton weren’t here he’s not sure what would come of him. “What’re you on about?”
“If I crack up like Peck or buy the farm. If I’m out and you’re still here. What’r’ya gonna do?”
“You won’t,” Eugene answers foolishly. He doesn’t look at Shelton, fiddling needlessly with his rifle. Shelton seems to find his answer amusing. Scoffing, he takes another long drag of his cigarette.
“You know better’n that by now,” he says around a mouthful of smoke. “We’re all gonna. Just a matter of time. Odds be I’ll lose my head savin’ your sorry ass.”
The words freeze Eugene’s blood in his veins. “Shut up,” he tells his rifle quietly.
He sees Shelton out of the corner of his eye looking smugly back at him, proud to get a rise. It isn’t fair.
“I’ve saved your hide more times than I can count, Snaf. If anyone’s dying being a fool hero, it ain’t gonna be you.”
That wipes the smirk off Shelton’s face, but Eugene hardly has the time to feel like he’s won before Shelton surges and slams him back against the muddy slant of the foxhole.
“Don’t,” he says, teasing lilt gone entirely from his voice.
Before the whole fiasco with Peck and Hamm, Shelton had never really been physical with anyone in the company. All his bravado was in his words. Eugene had never instinctively flinched around him before now. The air surrounding them is tense for a long time before Shelton releases the hold he has on Eugene’s poncho. Eugene lets out a breath loud enough for Shelton to notice.
“If your ma finds you died for someone like me, she gonna be real disappointed when I stop by to pay respects.” His voice has changed again, the same tone he had when Eugene tried to rip the teeth from a Jap’s corpse. Condescending. Teasing him.
Eugene narrows his eyes. “So what? Your mother wouldn’t be?”
He knows it’s a mistake the moment it’s out of his mouth. No one who acts like Shelton still has someone to answer to back home. Shelton’s mouth twitches into that damned little smirk, and he takes a long drag from the cigarette still between his fingers.
“I ain’t got no ma left to disappoint, Sledgehammer,” he says, flicking the smoldering butt down in the mud to join the others. “I can die for whoever the fuck I want.”
“I’m flattered,” Eugene drawls sarcastically.
Shelton looks him up and down, the corner of his mouth turned up slightly. Eugene knows better than to give him sympathy. This time, when Shelton leans forward, Eugene is prepared for it. He tastes like smoke and dirt, and his mouth is still impossibly dry.
When the floor of the foxhole gives underneath him, Shelton manhandles him until Eugene falls flailing back into his grip, dropping hard in the mud. Shelton breaks the kiss to laugh at him, crouching over him on his knees.
He swears, and Shelton chuckles. Mortified, Eugene’s skin burns down to his waist. “The rest of the company’s gonna —” Shelton’s hand claps over his mouth, dragging Eugene’s chin up to meet his eyes.
“It’ll be quiet, and it’ll damn sure be quick.” Shelton smiles at his own joke before removing his hand from Eugene’s mouth. Reflexively, Eugene licks the dirt from his lips. “I ain’t getting any shuteye tonight, Sledgehammer. What’cha say?”
They have alert ears five yards away in every direction, but Eugene doesn’t say that. They need to be listening for the enemy themselves, but Eugene doesn’t say that, either. He can’t say any of it. He just remembers that old Okinawan woman’s face, the sound of the baby wailing, and how he and Shelton had just stood there, observing, forgetting they were human at all. He just wants to feel something. Anything.
Doubt ringing in his ears, he hisses, “Just keep your damn trap shut.”
Shelton grins at him. “Ain’t gonna be no fun for you if I do.”
The rustle of dungarees seems too loud, echoing in the muddy walls of the foxhole. It’s not raining anymore, covering the sounds. Everyone can hear them, Eugene knows they do. He wouldn’t be surprised if they can hear the cacophony of blood rushing in his ears.
Dank air hits Eugene’s bare hips as Shelton pulls his dungarees open. Eugene must let out a noise, a gasp or huff of some sort, because Shelton freezes and looks up, pinning him with a stare. Eugene tastes wet earth as Shelton presses his palm back over his mouth.
“Hush up,” he growls under his breath.
Eugene nods, but Shelton doesn’t move his hand away. He situates himself between Eugene’s legs and dips his other hand into his dungarees to pull his cock out.
His fingers are cold on Eugene’s skin. It causes him to shiver, but only for a moment before Shelton starts to move his hand. It stings more than it should. It isn’t slick enough to be comfortable, but he only uses his hand for a moment before ducking his head down and taking Eugene in his mouth.
Eugene swears then, but Shelton still has his hand pressed firm against his mouth, and the only sound is a muffled grunt. Shelton’s other hand takes hold of Eugene’s hip and rips him forward, causing Eugene to slump farther back against the sagging dirt wall until his legs are thrown over Shelton’s shoulders.
If someone catches them, there’s no explaining this. It’s the last logical thought he has before his cock hits the back of Shelton’s throat.
His tongue is like silk over his skin, and when Shelton slides his head down and back, Eugene’s hips twitch of their own accord. Shelton doesn’t seem to mind, rolls his lips in time with the movement, and one of Eugene’s hands scramble for purchase in Shelton’s hair.
It’s been months since he’s taken time for himself, and he’s never felt anything like this. Shelton’s mouth is warm and close and softer than Eugene can remember anything being. His skin is tingling and his bones feel loose. He’s falling apart. Shelton’s hand tightens over his mouth, and Eugene thinks distantly that he must have made a sound.
He can hardly breathe. Shelton is leaning a good deal of his weight onto the hand over Eugene’s face. His eyes roll skyward and he watches the stars fade in and out of focus. When his spine goes rigid and his vision blurs, he tugs hard at the handful he has of Shelton’s hair, but Shelton doesn’t pull away. His throat works rapidly as Eugene comes, making his every nerve light up past the point of sensation.
Time moves without him. Several unaccounted for seconds pass, and Shelton’s face appears without preamble in Eugene’s line of sight.
His manic grin is reflected in the light of a distant flare as he drawls proudly, “Knew it wouldn’t take long.”
“Fuck you,” Eugene says back, breathless voice lacking any kind of bite he could’ve meant.
Shelton licks his lips obscenely in response. “S’at a promise?”
Even in the dim light, Eugene can see him wink. He shoves Shelton off of him, hands shaking, and mumbles, “Smug bastard.”
With the euphoria of his orgasm fading, humiliation settles deep in the pit of his stomach. He’s stuck wondering how many men heard them, and what Shelton expects of him now.
Surprisingly, Shelton falls asleep before the silence between them can cause Eugene to suffocate in his own panic. He won’t get long, only about an hour or so, but Eugene is thankful for both their sakes. He buries the snuffed cigarettes with the toe of his boot and flinches when Shelton rolls halfway onto his lap.
He reaches to push Shelton’s head from his shoulder. Eyes adjusting to the darkness, he looks down and notices the way they fit together is a stark mirror of the way he had held the withered Okinawan woman just hours ago. The memory is brutal and he jumps back, his blood suddenly like ice. Shelton grumbles something, unbothered, and presses heavily back against Eugene.
For some reason, the touch helps bring Eugene back, helps him to breathe. Shelton is warm. Shelton is alive. He can feel breath steady and hot against his skin. They’re both still here. Trying not to focus on how soon that may change, Eugene sits still and watches the sunrise.
When he shakes Shelton awake, they don’t talk about it. Nobody mentions hearing anything the night before, but it doesn’t matter. Eugene feels wary eyes on the back of his neck as they trudge through Okinawa, as if everyone knows. Shelton acts as if nothing has changed, and Eugene catches himself wondering, ridiculously, if he’s done anything with any of the other Marines.
It’s late in the day when they find time to rest behind an abandoned bombed out farmhouse. Burgie leans against a crumbling wall to change his socks, snapping at the boots to do the same when they start to crowd him. Eugene makes a point to sit a good distance from the others and cleans his pipe.
He’s packing it with tobacco when Shelton drops his rifle and sits next to him. “Got a light?”
Embarrassed, Eugene refuses to look up. He hands Shelton his lighter before taking the time to use it for himself without thinking, leaving him to awkwardly stare at his hands while Shelton lights his cigarette. As if he knows, Shelton takes his time before he hands it over, taking a long drag.
Eugene snatches it back without letting himself look at Shelton at all. He lights his pipe and inhales, casually keeping his eyes on Burgie as he tells Anderson to get some of the others together for an ammo check. He can hear Shelton laugh at him, but thankfully he says nothing about whatever he finds so damn funny.
It isn’t long before he falls asleep on Eugene’s outstretched calf. His cigarette is still burning in his mouth, and Eugene can’t take his eyes off it. Rationalizing that he doesn’t want the ash to fall and burn him, he reaches over and carefully takes the cigarette from Shelton’s lips and stubs it out on the dirt.
By the time Eugene realizes he’s watching Shelton nap, he’s not asleep anymore. His eyes slide open already focused on Eugene, as if he’d felt him staring. There’s a flash of a smile on his face.
“You take my smoke?”
Eugene nods. His eyes track Shelton as he sits up and pulls a beaten pack from his pocket, picking out another cigarette with his teeth. He watches Shelton’s lips wrap around the end of the cigarette, too focused to notice when Shelton holds out his hand for the lighter.
When Shelton looks up to see why he hasn’t handed it over, he smirks at whatever look is on Eugene’s face.
“Don’t be jealous, Gene,” he says around the cigarette with far more confidence than he should have with less than two yards between them and the rest of the crew. “You can be next, if you want.”
“Christ,” Eugene snaps back, flustered as he tosses his lighter to him. Shelton catches it easily, chuckling to himself as he lights his cigarette. He doesn’t hand the lighter back, and Eugene doesn’t want to ask for it. Shelton watches the rest of the squad for a moment, scanning their attention.
Eugene is too busy watching him to know where their eyes are when he rounds on him, getting right up to him before tucking the lighter in Eugene’s breast pocket himself. Eugene sits frozen by his wild stare. Shelton’s delicate fingers feel like heavy stone pressing against his chest until he moves them away.
Everyone saw that, Eugene thinks wildly. Everyone knows.
Shelton smiles at him, quick and secret, and picks his helmet out of the dirt. “Hungry, Sledgehammer?” he asks, his voice thick with a joke only he finds funny, “Burgie’s passin’ out chow.”
Eugene pats his pocket awkwardly, as if making sure his lighter is really there, that it really happened. He says nothing to Shelton as he gets to his feet, and watches his boots as he walks toward the rest of the men to get his rations.
Since Peleliu, Shelton has always been there to cover him in times of present danger. He’s always made sure that Eugene is flat against the ground when the shells sound off, and keeps close whenever bullets are firing. It all went unnoticed until, abruptly, Shelton is touching him all the time.
The most obvious, the most nerve-wracking, is that Shelton starts using Eugene to lay his head on during downtime. The other men do it amongst themselves from time to time, especially back in Peleliu when there was nothing but scalding rocks to rest your head on. But everything with Shelton feels too obvious, even when it isn’t.
He won’t only rest his head to sleep, either. Sometimes he just lies there, resting his head against Eugene’s thigh as he talks to him in between drags of his cigarette. No one says anything about it, but Eugene always feels his neck get hot with panic, regardless.
Every time they’re alone long enough in safety for Shelton to get close, he’s on him. It’s terrifying. More terrifying than the idea of Japs around every corner, that their own men would ruin them if any of them knew.
Eugene wonders if Shelton thinks about that. He doubts it. Shelton doesn’t think about anything.
Neither does Eugene, when it’s happening. When it isn’t, he knows he should stop it. He entertains the idea that he should tell Shelton no, push him off when it’s late and quiet in between their shifts and he drops between Eugene’s knees. But he never does. Once it starts, he never can. It gives him a few blessed moments of a quiet mind that he can’t seem to find anymore in any other way.
Downtime doesn’t exist for Eugene since that Okinawan family blown apart by mortar fire. He can’t sleep without nightmares, and he can never focus long enough to read a sentence anymore. It’s always rattling in his brain now. Death he’s seen. Death he’s inflicted. It doesn’t matter anyway. Even if he makes it out of here, he knows he’s already damned in the end.
But Shelton kisses like a dying man if Eugene is the only water he has left. He holds Eugene’s head steady by the sides of his face, nails digging into his scalp as he bites at his lips. He’ll press Eugene still and silent into the soft, cool dirt. Always one hand over his mouth as the other wraps around his dick. If it’s a quiet enough night, he’ll duck between his knees and take his cock in his mouth.
He can feel Shelton’s pulse if he reaches up to cup his neck, light and quick like a hummingbird against his fingers. It feels devious, filthy. And somehow, there’s something pure in it, despite everything. Despite where they are, despite what they’ve done. Something in all the restless, depraved groping feels close enough to atonement.