Travel hopefully in life.

BAD IN THE BLOOD
Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge

“Think you can stand for me?”

It seemed a peculiar question to Eugene’s feverishly wheeling mind, so he cracked an eye up at Shelton—who was frowning handsomely down at him, looking good enough to kiss despite his sweat-stained undershirt and dirt-streaked face, hair slightly matted from a few days’ lack of shower—and sighed exhaustedly, “Why?”

“Gotta get you down to the aid station,” Shelton explained. His hand was still resting possessively on Eugene’s back, his touch astonishingly tender against Eugene’s clammy, goose-pimpled skin. “Can’t have you dyin’ all alone in your rack a week before we ship outta this shithole for good, an’ that putain de docteur on duty got himself so busy with some inventory checklist he can’t be bothered with a house call.”

“Ain’t dyin’,” Eugene mumbled contrarily.

“Might could be,” Shelton shot back.

Author's Note: Written for hc_bingo , with only extremely surface-level research into period-accurate medical procedures and rushed along anyway because I just wanted to get it done, dammit. Follows along with show canon, where Snafu goes with Sledge and—presumably—the rest of K Company to do occupation duty in China, but borrows the bit about blood poisoning and the "hot soak" treatment from the actual canon of Sledge's book "China Marine."

This my first foray into writing these two, and I sincerely hope that I did them justice. Many thanks to scandalinbohemia for the quick-pass and suggestions, which made this fic roughly six thousand times better and several hundred words shorter. You are a gem.

You can also read it over on AO3.

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