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Hawkeye wakes with the light of morning. It’s late spring and not so hot yet, a pleasant breeze still in the air. It drifts through the Swamp and carries out the stagnant atmosphere that has been hanging around for the past few weeks. For the first time in days, they’re not woken by choppers. Hawkeye yawns and rolls onto his back. If he were to let himself forget for a moment, it could almost be pleasant. He isn’t even hungover.
He lies there for a little while, basking in the silence. No wounded, at least for now.
There’s a grumble to his right. “What time is it?” BJ asks.
He looks at his watch. “Seven,” he replies. “Just in time to miss the breakfast rush.”
BJ mumbles something he doesn’t catch.
“All quiet on the Eastern front,” Hawkeye comments. “Sleep in as long as you like.”
“Don’t think the sun got the memo,” BJ says and rolls onto his back, arm over his eyes.
“Would you two imbeciles shut up?” Charles says.
Hawkeye looks over to him. He has his sleep mask pulled over his eyes. “How else would we make sure you catch the sunrise, Charles?”
The sun is, of course, already risen. Not too long after, the three of them are as well. Potter is due in post-op this morning, so they have a little while to enjoy the quiet. Charles opens a book Hawkeye still hasn’t managed to take a peek at and he and BJ resume the game of chess they started yesterday night.
He’s losing.
The door swings open. “Good morning, sirs,” Klinger says brightly. He is wearing his fatigues, but Hawkeye notices the salmon-pink polish on his nails and smiles. “I come with valuable cargo.” He pulls out a pile of letters. “Mail.”
Hawkeye watches as BJ immediately perks up. Unlike most people, he always gets something. Though he often feels jealous of it – and of who BJ perks up like that for – he likes how happy it makes him. Hawkeye has to look away before he catches him staring.
“First up, we have three fine letters from sunny California,” Klinger says. “Wonderful penmanship, finest stationery – do I hear five dollars?”
“Nope,” BJ says and reaches out, snatching them out of Klinger’s hands. Klinger doesn’t try to hold onto them.
“Three, Beej?” Hawkeye questions.
“You’re just jealous,” he replies and sits back on his bunk. Hawkeye watches as he runs his thumb over the writing, as he always does when he gets something from Peg. Like he wants to feel her in the paper, experience it rather than just read it.
“The only person who’d want to write me three letters is my dad,” Hawkeye replies. “And he has carpal tunnel.”
“So he tells you,” BJ says, teasing.
Hawkeye pouts dramatically and feels warmth spread in his chest when he sees BJ grin.
“Only one more today, folks,” Klinger says. “All the way from Boston, Massachusetts,” he brandishes an envelope, showing it around the Swamp for all of them to see.
Charles doesn’t look up from his book and simply holds out his hand. “Get on with it, Klinger.”
“Not so fast, Major!” he replies dramatically. “This one is addressed to our esteemed colleague, one Benjamin Franklin Pierce.” He hands it to Hawkeye.
Hawkeye takes it, confused for a brief second before he recognises the scrawl. His stomach drops and his heart sings. It’s an odd contradiction.
Charles scoffs. “Who do you know in Boston?”
He is loosely aware BJ is watching him. “Hawk?” BJ asks, sounding somewhere between curious and concerned.
Hawkeye finds himself doing what BJ does – he runs his fingers over the writing, feels the slight indentation of pen on paper. The return address says Louise McIntyre, although Hawkeye knows – still remembers, after all this time – that the writing is Trapper’s.
He tears the envelope gently, as if he could damage it, and unfolds the paper. It’s only two sides.
Dear Hawkeye, it begins. Dear Hawkeye, in Trapper’s awful doctor’s scrawl, and Hawkeye feels a wave of something – of nostalgia and anger and relief and love – wash over him, douse him head-to-toe.
Trapper starts with pleasantries. It almost doesn’t sound like him, though he can hear his voice all the same. He wonders if Trapper has changed much since going home. As he reads more, as Trapper relays the bare minimum of his life, his daughters and his work, he honestly can’t tell. It burns a little in his chest, to know the man he once called his best friend is someone he doesn’t know anymore.
There’s so much I want to say to you that I don’t know where to begin, Trapper writes. I don’t think I’ll get it all down anyway. You know, I’m more prone to saying too little than too much. You’ll also notice that Louise’s name is on the envelope of this. I figure it’ll give me more of a chance to be ‘straight’ with you.
The word ‘straight’ is emphasised and Hawkeye understands instantly. He feels memories of Trapper flash through his mind. Very specific memories, too. Of mouths and bodies and bruising grasps, of desperation, comfort and sweat.
I’m sorry for how I left. I’m not sorry for leaving. I’m sure you must understand that. But I am sorry it happened the way it did. There was too much to say and I thought if I started writing I’d never stop. Goodbye seemed like it meant too much. I know it can’t have looked like that on your end. So I am sorry, Hawk. I shouldn’t have done that to you. It’s been tearing me up ever since.
Hawkeye feels, at last, that final simmer of anger he feels at Trapper disappear. Catharsis, almost.
I don’t think it sounds too big-headed to say that I hope my replacement is more like me than Frank Burns.
Hawkeye smiles gently. He supposes that’s true, although BJ is, of course, something entirely different.
This was Louise’s idea. To write you. She says I’ve been bottling all this up for so long that if I don’t get it out it’s going to eat me alive. I love the woman I married, Hawkeye. I don’t know why I ever acted like I didn’t.
He wonders, briefly, if this is Trapper’s attempt at a rejection. Hawkeye had got the message anyway. Besides, it isn’t like he’s still keeping the candle burning for Trapper anymore. He spares a quick glance at BJ.
Still, I need you to know that I loved you. A part of me still does.
Hawkeye runs a finger over the words. He sometimes feels like maybe he understands Trapper better than he does BJ, and he feels much the same for him. He and Trapper got each other through the worst of it, how could he not? Things have changed since, though, and Hawkeye has enough self-recognition to realise that those feelings have turned to another tentmate. Turned to him and increased by tenfold. The part of Hawkeye that still loves Trapper pales in comparison to the enormity, the entirety of him that loves BJ.
He wonders if it’s insulting to Trapper’s memory to think it as he reads the letter.
He’s reaching the end of Trapper’s writing. This feels too short. See, I was right. There really is too much to say. I still owed it to you to try. Maybe when you’re back Stateside you can pay me a visit. We can go for a drink – something a damn sight better than our gin!
Be seeing you, Hawk.
Your friend,
T.
The letter is signed with a single letter. Hawkeye knows it’s to turn away the attention of anyone reading their mail.
As soon as he finishes reading it, Hawkeye turns to the front and re-reads it all over again. The more he takes the words in, the more he feels something within him relax, like a weight has been lifted. He feels happier over it than he imagines he should, given how melancholic it sounds.
After he’s done reading it, he leans back in his bunk and exhales clearly. It feels nice.
BJ looks up from his own letters. “You look pleased,” he remarks. “You gonna keep us in suspense?”
Hawkeye turns to him and smiles. “It’s from Trapper,” he says.
Something very odd crosses BJ’s face. He isn’t sure what it is, and as soon as it’s there, it’s gone. “Oh,” he remarks, clearly aiming for casual but falling short of the mark.
“Just some stuff about- about his girls, about being home,” he says, fumbling a little under BJ’s eyes. “He’s never written me before.” Hawkeye had almost thought he’d forgotten him. The knowledge that he hasn’t does wonders.
BJ smiles, but not in the way Hawkeye loves. Gritted teeth, almost. Something feels distinctly off. “Never?” he says, although Hawkeye knows he knows that. “And I thought you two were thick as thieves.”
It sounds like BJ might be needling him, Hawkeye thinks, before he quickly realises that he definitely is. He tries not to rise to it. BJ’s been reading Peg’s letters – he often gets like this when something has upset him in her words. Soon enough he’ll find out what it is and it’ll blow over. “Thicker,” he says simply.
*
BJ spends the rest of the morning with this underlying tetchiness that courses through his muscles, makes him bounce his foot under the table of the Mess Tent as he taps his fingers on the table.
Hawkeye sits next to him, close like he always does, and BJ nearly jumps away from his touch. Hawk gives him a pointed look before he turns to his tray and starts sniffing his food.
BJ grinds his teeth.
Margaret sits down opposite them. “Room for one more?” she asks, already sat down.
“Please,” Hawkeye says, a grin on his face.
It hasn’t escaped BJ’s notice that Hawk seems pleased, light on his feet. He vibrates with a sort of excited energy. He wonders if Hawkeye would notice if he read Trapper’s letter himself before he scolds himself. However close they are, Hawk deserves some privacy.
“You’re in a good mood,” Margaret comments.
“Well, it’s a beautiful morning,” he replies. “And, more importantly, quiet.”
BJ resists rolling his eyes. “He got a letter,” he says.
“I was building up to that,” Hawkeye says. “You have no sense of dramatic timing.” He has an expression of mock-betrayal on his face.
He feels himself ease a little.
“From who?” Margaret asks.
“Trapper,” BJ answers for him.
Hawkeye turns to him, hand on his chest. “Why must you steal my thunder?”
BJ smiles. He is pretty sure it doesn’t reach his eyes. The feeling is back – bitter, acrid like the last dregs of coffee.
Margaret leans in. “Trapper?” she prompts, and BJ can hear something like concern in her voice. “You okay?”
“I’m great!” Hawkeye says. “My best friend didn’t forget me.”
He tries not to flinch at best friend and stands before he even realises what he’s doing. The two of them turn to him. “I’m going to shower,” he says, knows it sounds abrupt, and leaves the Mess Tent without a second thought.
As BJ slips into the shower and lets the water – lukewarm, which is a bonus – wash over him, he scrubs the soap on his body rougher than is probably necessary. He can’t work it out. Why the idea of Trapper writing to Hawkeye gets to him so much. He’d like to tell himself that he’s angry with Trapper for leaving Hawk in the dust, but he must admit that’s not it.
Sometimes BJ feels like the understudy. That this is Trapper’s role, in both the war and as Hawkeye’s friend. He wonders if Trapper irks him so much because he gets to be home with his wife and daughters while BJ is stuck out here, gets to leave all of this behind when he can’t. Maybe that’s part of it, but there has to be something more.
BJ does have some inkling what that something more may be. He knows he envies Trapper. He usually tells himself that it’s because Trapper’s home, but it all leads back to Hawkeye, one way or another. He also tells himself that maybe he feels inadequate as Hawkeye’s friend, but BJ’s never felt jealous of his friends’ friendships before.
After he’s scrubbed his skin raw, he pulls his robe on and heads back to the Swamp. He sits on his bed, picking up Peg’s letters to flick back through again in the hopes of it calming him down.
He doesn’t dwell on it – or tries not to, anyway. He reads Peg’s letters repeatedly, their optimistic tone describing the happy home he has to return to, Erin’s latest developments complete with a new photograph, and while it usually brings him comfort, this time it makes it worse. She writes something kind and pleasant about Hawkeye, something vague about understanding that he himself doesn’t understand, speaks about him in the same sentence as a woman she knows at work. She tells him she can’t wait to meet him, and for him to meet her. He feels confused through most of it, though the way she signs her name and Erin’s together with a handful of kisses makes him feel guilty.
He feels guilty, and jealous, and irritated, and because he isn’t Hawkeye – he turns it outward on everyone else.
Despite the bright weather and the lack of influx of casualties, BJ’s day doesn’t go well. He snaps at a few of the nurses for little to nothing, snaps at Klinger for getting in the way. He’s at it all day, and he’s feeling too tetchy and self-righteous to feel bad for it. He knows, distantly, that he will later.
They have three patients sat in post-op, two fine – both Charles’ patients – and one less so. Incidentally, the patient is BJ’s. The patient’s blood pressure is dropping. They’ve already given him eight pints of blood, which is almost their whole supply of B positive.
BJ reluctantly knows they’re going to have to open him up again.
Hawkeye comes to cover for him in post-op just as he’s scrubbing up for OR.
“You want me to assist?” he asks.
“I can handle it,” he grouses in a tone that’s gruffer than even he means it to be.
It seems to roll off Hawkeye, who shrugs and heads back to post-op.
He operates quickly and meticulously. He can feel Margaret’s concerned gaze and he refuses to meet it. She doesn’t bring anything up, lets him work in silence. He’s mostly glad of it. He removes a small piece of shrapnel behind the boy’s spleen. He must have missed it before. BJ knows it happens to all of them. It doesn’t make him feel any better.
Really, he knows if anyone is at fault for what happens, it’s him. He calls for scissors and Margaret holds them out for him. In his temper – in the anger that courses through everything he is doing – he knocks them out of her hand as he goes to grab them. They clatter to the floor.
“Careful,” BJ scolds, as if it’s her fault.
She looks up at him, expression somewhere between surprised and cross. “I didn’t-”
“Metz,” he interrupts, holding out his hand expectantly.
Margaret presses a pair into his hands obviously. He tries not to glare.
When he’s finished, he asks her to close up and leaves. He cleans up and checks the time. Charles is on shift now, he judges, and is grateful for the small mercy. He really needs a drink.
“I heard you snapped at Margaret in OR,” Hawkeye comments as BJ walks into the Swamp.
He clenches his fists, heading straight over to the still. “News travels fast,” he replies, as calmly as he can, and spares a glance at Hawkeye.
“Klinger told me,” he says. He sits on his bunk, reading the same letter from Trapper again. BJ clenches his jaw.
“You’re reading that again?” he asks. It comes out sharper than he intends it to. He pours himself a glass and drinks it quickly.
“What, I’m not allowed?” Hawkeye questions, sounding a little riled up. “You re-read Peg’s letters about thirty times.”
“She’s my wife,” he replies tersely.
Hawkeye puts the letter down. “Well, some of us don’t have a wife to send us a novel every month.”
“I wonder why?” It’s out of his mouth before he can stop it. He isn’t sure why he says it. He doesn’t know why he’s angry in the first place. He isn’t even angry at Hawkeye. He’s angry at- well, Trapper, but that seems irrational.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Hawkeye asks.
BJ sighs. He isn’t sure what he means, really. “Never mind,” he says simply.
“No,” Hawk replies, standing. BJ tries to turn away, but Hawkeye puts his hand on his shoulder, fisting it in his shirt to keep him in place. “If I’ve done something to upset you, I’d like to know.”
He scoffs. “You haven’t upset me, Hawkeye.”
“You’ve been catty all day.”
“Catty?” he repeats incredulously.
“Yes,” Hawkeye stresses. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing has gotten into me,” he bites out.
“Oh sure, this is the BJ Hunnicutt we all know and love,” he says. “From the top of the chip on his shoulder all the way down to his size thirteens.”
“Shut up, Hawkeye,” he snaps.
Hawkeye puts his hands on his hips. “See!” he says. “You’ve been like this since mail call.”
BJ freezes for a second. He wonders if Hawkeye will work it out.
“What is it this time? Your toilet’s clogged and you think Peg’s going to run off with the plumber?” Hawk barbs. BJ can tell he’s trying to get a rise. “She learn how to change a car tire without you?”
“Oh, give it a rest.”
“No,” Hawkeye replies firmly. “Not until you tell me what’s bothering you.”
“You!” he practically shouts. Hawkeye looks momentarily victorious, like he thinks he’s right in that BJ is upset with him. Somehow, it makes him angrier – he just wants to be left alone. “You’re bothering me, Hawk! Can’t a guy get some peace and quiet around here?”
“I’ll put in a call to MacArthur, see if they can lay off a bit,” Hawkeye replies, purposely facetious.
He puts his hands on his hips. “I don’t mean the war, I mean you,” his voice sounds bitter. Spiteful, even, and he’s loosely aware his mouth is about to run away with itself. “It’s relentless. Where the hell do you get off, making fun of my family?”
Hawkeye looks exasperated. “I’m not making fun,” he replies, sounding how he looks. “We all miss home, BJ. You don’t need to take it out on the rest of us just because you do too.”
“That’s not even why-” he cuts himself off before he can give it away. “What would you know? You don’t even have anyone back home except your father to miss you,” BJ says before he can stop himself. “Is that why Trapper’s letter got you so excited? A second person to add to the list?”
Hawkeye shuts up then. BJ feels triumphant for all of a second before he realises what he’s said. His stomach drops. He looks at Hawkeye who just stares at him with this awful expression of surprise and hurt and resignation.
“Hawk,” he says weakly, wanting so desperately to reach out to him but feeling frozen. “Hawkeye, I didn’t mean that.”
“Yeah, I know,” Hawkeye says unhappily, turning away anyway.
BJ wishes he could summon the strength to prevent Hawkeye walking out of the Swamp, but he doesn’t. The door swings shut behind him and BJ gets this feeling that he’s just made some horrible, irreversible mistake.
*
The next day, Hawkeye avoids him. Hawkeye so rarely avoids him that BJ knows what he said must have hurt him, which makes him feel even worse. He curses himself for feeling sorry for himself.
He sees Trapper’s letter, still on the table by Hawkeye’s bed, and feels another flare of anger. He hates himself for it and tries to avoid Hawkeye in return to avoid lashing out at him. Preventative medicine, he thinks humourlessly.
Potter calls them into his office shortly after midday.
“What’s going on between you boys?” he asks.
Hawkeye perches on the desk and throws BJ a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. BJ feels something cold settle in his gut. “Nothing at all, Colonel.”
“Well, be sure there isn’t,” Potter says. “I want you both to head out to the 8063rd to chase down some spare B positive blood. Your patient drank the last of it yesterday.”
BJ nods. “Both of us?”
“Sure. Captain Goldman over there has a new graft technique from Tokyo I want you to observe, and they want your defibrillation technique, Hunnicutt.” He glances between the two of them. “We’ll be fine over here. Winchester and I can hold down the fort.”
BJ would almost be proud of himself if he still wasn’t so torn up about the fact he’ll be going with Hawkeye.
“Sounds good, Colonel,” Hawkeye says. BJ doesn’t think he means it and almost flinches at the blank look he shoots his way.
They head out, medical bag tossed into the back and helmets loosely on their heads.
The jeep ride is quiet. Hawkeye barely speaks, which is how BJ knows he’s fucked up. He knows he should apologise, but he’s never been very good at it and he can’t find the words. He sits on his hands and waits to get there.
When they arrive – because things never go to plan – the 8063rd is in the process of bugging out. There are so few of them left BJ doesn’t think they’ll be able to do any of what they had come there for, but soon they’re loaded up with about fifteen bottles of blood and the promise of a future seminar.
“Looking forward to it,” BJ says. It’s a lie.
He and Hawkeye load up the jeep and begin the drive back just as the last of the 8063rd pull out of their camp.
The drive back begins much the same way – quietly.
BJ sits and tries to work up the courage for an apology, to formulate the words in his head to make one, but he knows it’ll only mean Hawkeye will pry, will ask him what had caused his temper tantrum, and BJ simply doesn’t have an answer.
He spares a glance at Hawkeye, who stares resolutely at the road.
The rapid drum of gunfire takes them both by surprise. Hawkeye skids the jeep to a halt, and they both dive back behind it. It stops almost immediately. After a moment of silence, BJ peers up over the vehicle.
“Hawk, you good?” he asks before any real panic can set in.
“Yeah,” comes his voice from the other side, clear and normal. The relief is instantaneous. “You?”
Hawkeye still cares enough to ask, then, he thinks briefly before he frowns at himself. BJ doesn’t think he could do anything to Hawkeye that would make him not care anymore. He isn’t sure if it’s a good feeling.
BJ stands carefully, adjusting his helmet on his head as walks around to inspect the damage. Both the front tires are burst. They only have one spare. “Damn it,” he says. “Bad news for your blisters. Looks like we’re walking.”
Hawkeye doesn’t reply. He doesn’t come up from behind the jeep, either.
Alarm bells ring in his ears. Something’s wrong.
Dread pools in BJ’s stomach and he begins to continue round the jeep. He knows what he’s going to find before he sees it. The idea of it has his heart in an icy grasp, frosty tendrils spreading through his veins. He feels slowed.
Hawkeye is sat in the dirt, back leant against the jeep and a hand pressed high on his chest, blood seeping between his fingers – his shoulder, BJ hopes desperately. He crouches, feeling numb, trying to get a better look, but his eyes won’t focus. He can’t compartmentalise like he needs to, can only think– Hawk, Hawk, Hawk, while he bleeds in front of him. His hands hover over him, not knowing what to do.
He’s imagined this – dreamt it, in those dark nights where the bombs rumble in the distance, woke gasping with tears in his eyes. His mind conjures images of Hawkeye removing his hand, letting him look, images of his own recognition of a mortal wound, images of Hawk smiling at him with bloodied teeth. This can’t happen, he thinks.
“Hawk,” he says like it’s ripped out of him. He knows he’s staring at Hawkeye with wide eyes.
“Shoulder,” Hawkeye replies immediately, reassuring. “I’m okay.”
BJ relaxes a little, lets it wash through him and weaken his knees, feeling a little guilty that Hawkeye is reassuring him, not the other way around. He pulls Hawkeye’s bloodied hand back to take a look, handles it like he could hurt him. It doesn’t seem too serious, he thinks rationally, but it’s Hawkeye. Anything is serious if it’s Hawkeye. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been shot,” he says drily. His voice is pained and it strikes like an ice pick to BJ’s chest.
He examines Hawkeye a little longer, if for no other reason than to put his mind at ease. He pulls him forward, checks for an exit wound – there isn’t one – and gently holds his arm out, checking its movement, pretending not to notice Hawkeye wince.
“You should remove it,” Hawkeye says.
BJ glances up at him. “Your arm? I don’t think that’s necessary,” he jokes weakly.
“If- If we’re walking all the way back,” Hawkeye continues. “It’ll be a couple of days at least. If I get sick…” He trails off, and BJ knows what he means.
Neither side is particularly known for sterile ammunition – there’s a very good chance of infection. If Hawkeye gets sick, sick enough to pass out, BJ will either have to carry him or leave him. He’s not sure if he could manage the former, and the latter is unacceptable. If they pull it out now, it might gain them some time.
“And if it shifts, it could cause nerve damage,” Hawk continues. “You know I’m right.”
BJ nods. “It’ll hurt,” he comments uselessly.
“It already hurts,” he says, under his breath like he doesn’t expect BJ to hear it.
He does. He isn’t sure what to do with it.
He helps Hawkeye stand, before he pulls the bag of blood over his shoulder as Hawkeye does the same with the medical bag, and they set off down the road. Somehow, irrationally, this feels like his fault. He remembers the hurt in Hawkeye’s eyes yesterday and knows that now, with a half-empty medical bag, there’s no way he can take that away from him anytime soon.
The sun is low in the sky. It’ll be night shortly, he thinks, and hopes they find a place to stop soon. BJ isn’t prepared to pull a bullet out of Hawkeye’s shoulder in the dark. He isn’t prepared to do it at all.
Sure enough, they find a small hut, empty and almost hollowed out, on the outskirts of what used to be a village. It feels eerie, almost, and BJ immediately hates that he knows they’ll be spending the night there.
Hawkeye enters it and sits down on the ground, laying out the contents of the medical bag next to him. He pulls off his fatigue jacket as BJ stands in the door and watches. He looks up. “Little help here?” he says, and pulls at his t-shirt.
He snaps out of it, walks over and kneels beside him. “People will talk,” he says, trying to put Hawkeye at ease, just a little. Hawk smiles curtly and BJ gingerly helps him take the shirt off. He balls it in his hand.
Suddenly it all seems very real. Not that it didn’t before, but it sharpens, pulling into focus. BJ handles the bloody shirt, not sure what to do with it, whether he should throw it to the side as far away from them as possible or place it gently on the ground. It’s Hawkeye’s blood, he keeps telling himself, as if he didn’t know already.
He’s overthinking this.
Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, BJ hates what’s happening.
He watches as Hawkeye retrieves a bottle of scotch he must have stashed in the jeep from his bag. He takes a long swig before he places it down. He lies down on the ground. “Ready, doctor,” he says.
BJ hesitates, unsure where to start. He’s usually so competent. He feels helpless. After a moment, he retrieves a glove from the bag and puts it on. He pours some of the scotch over a pair of tweezers. It feels monotonous, almost, like going through the motions. He pulls off his belt.
Hawkeye watches him with weary eyes. He raises an eyebrow. “I’m too tired for that.”
BJ forces a laugh as he folds the belt over three times in his hands. He hands it to Hawkeye. “Bite down on this,” he says.
He watches as Hawkeye puts it in his mouth, as he seems to steady himself. His bloodied hand hesitates in moving for a moment and BJ takes it, gently placing it away from his shoulder. He wields the tweezers like a weapon, and knows it’s going to hurt like it is one. He hovers over the bullet hole for a moment.
“Ready?” he asks.
“No,” Hawkeye says through the belt. BJ looks at him, squeezes his other shoulder in some attempt at reassurance. He wishes he could do more, hold him more tenderly as he does this, but he knows he can’t. He waits for him to clench his eyes shut and nod.
When he does, BJ breathes out shakily. He leans over him, pressing an arm across Hawkeye’s chest to pin him still, and delves in.
Hawkeye’s scream is muffled against the belt, but it still strikes to his core more than anything else ever has. BJ was loosely aware that Hawkeye has an awful pain tolerance, although it’s not like the knowledge of it improves anything as he leans down firmly on Hawkeye’s chest to stop him moving. BJ tries to be quick. The trade-off is roughness, and Hawkeye writhes under him as his blood wells up around BJ’s fingers.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he murmurs, keeps murmuring, as he pushes the tweezers deep into Hawkeye’s flesh.
The bullet is difficult to find and BJ knows, awfully, that it must have fragmented. He closes the tweezers around a small piece of metal and pulls it out, inspecting it before he drops it on the ground. It flecks blood in the dirt. Hawkeye’s pained noises quiet down after a moment. His fingers scrape in the dust beneath him.
“I-” BJ starts before he finds he has to clear his throat. “Hawk, I have to go back in.”
BJ glances back up to Hawkeye’s face. A couple of tears have leaked out the side of his eyes and BJ resists the urge to wipe them away. He’s pale and his forehead sheens with sweat. When he opens his eyes to look at BJ, he looks exhausted and the blue of his eyes is sharp and clear. He can’t help but feel it’s his fault. “Fragmented?” Hawkeye asks.
He tries for a reassuring smile that he’s sure doesn’t land. “Afraid so.”
Hawkeye breathes for a few moments, heavily out through his nose. Then, he nods.
This time, he doesn’t scream. He whimpers horribly against the belt, no longer writhing but pushing back into the ground, as if trying to get away – from the pain, from BJ. BJ feels his vision cloud and he blinks away the tears in his eyes as he quietly, quickly as he can, retrieves the fragments.
BJ hates this, he tells himself again. He repeats it, over and over. He hates gunshot wounds. He hates that Hawkeye is hurt. He hates that he’s the one hurting him, at Hawkeye’s request, hates that he’s hurting his best friend, the man who has made this at all bearable, the man who he-
The thought hits him so keenly that he almost fumbles the tweezers.
He looks to Hawkeye, his jaw clenched around BJ’s belt and his face screwed up in pain as he gouges into his shoulder, and realises for the first time, very lucidly, that he loves him.
He swallows thickly and pushes it down. It isn’t the time or the place for this. BJ isn’t sure whether he means right now, with Hawkeye’s blood on his hands and his body under his grasp, or the entire war.
There are only two more fragments. Once he discards them, BJ drops the tweezers and gently takes the belt from Hawkeye’s mouth. He pulls off the glove and tosses it aside. He feels briefly grateful of it – the idea of Hawkeye’s blood stained into his fingertips, dried and crusting around his nails, is almost sickening.
He wipes away the tears on his own face, hoping Hawkeye hasn’t seen them.
BJ places a hand on Hawkeye’s face, briefly. “Done,” he says softly.
Hawkeye opens his eyes, bringing his other arm up to rub at them. BJ leans back on his heels, retrieving the bottle of scotch. He helps Hawkeye sit up, lets him lean in his arms as he offers him the bottle. Hawkeye takes a few swigs.
“You okay?” he asks, concerned when Hawkeye doesn’t say anything.
Hawkeye makes a small noise of affirmation. “Let’s not do that again,” he says simply. His voice is hoarse and it makes BJ’s heart clench.
“Not if I can help it.” He leans Hawk forward some more and pulls out a field bandage from the bag. He wraps it tightly around Hawkeye’s shoulder, trying not to wince when he grunts. BJ ignores the urge to kiss him on the forehead.
The sun has almost set now. They have some rations in their bag, but BJ realises that neither of them is likely to keep it down right now. He takes a drink of Hawkeye’s scotch.
They bed down not long after. Hawk is exhausted, he can tell, and BJ isn’t doing much better. He stares at the ceiling and feels like he might cry. His fingers still feel hot from where Hawkeye’s blood had coated them.
Although it’s taken a backseat, BJ still feels deeply guilty about yesterday. He feels worse now, too, now everything is so clear and painful. He hates that it’s taken something like this to happen for him to see the bigger picture, for him to let go of that odd bitterness he feels about Trapper and realises there are more important things at stake.
He listens to Hawkeye shift next to him, shift and keep shifting. He grunts a little as he does. BJ realises he can’t get comfortable.
He sighs and sits up. “Alright, Hawk?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Hawkeye replies faintly, sounding every bit like he’s lying. BJ can barely see him in the dark. The moon is bright outside and it lights the hut with a pale, dim hue.
He sits up, pulls himself backwards to lean against the wall just behind them. He stretches his legs out in front of him. He debates for a moment whether to ask or not, whether this is an entirely selfless gesture. Maybe it isn’t. “Come here,” he says anyway.
“Hm?” Hawkeye queries. BJ can see him shift slightly.
“You’ll be more comfortable with something to lean against,” he excuses.
Hawkeye doesn’t move for a moment and BJ thinks that perhaps he’ll turn him down. That perhaps he wouldn’t be comfortable doing it, especially after what BJ had said to him. BJ is about to work himself into some emotional pit when Hawkeye shuffles back, tentatively inserting himself between BJ’s legs, like he isn’t quite sure he’s allowed to do it. He leans back carefully, head against BJ’s chest.
BJ hopes he can’t hear his heart pounding. He knows he has to apologise or it will eat him alive. “I’m sorry about yesterday, Hawk,” he says. He tries so hard to make it sound as genuine as he means it to be.
Hawkeye hums. He leans more heavily against BJ. It feels like trust and BJ knows Hawkeye will forgive him, then. Hawkeye always forgives him whether he deserves it or not. BJ brings a hand up to stroke his hair. He isn’t sure if it’s too intimate. “What’s going on with you?” It’s gentle. Prying. Not the tone BJ was expecting.
“I don’t know.” It’s not quite the truth, but it’s not quite a lie either.
Hawkeye is quiet for a moment. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
He feels a little deflated. BJ almost misses the anger he had before. Anger is safe, at least for him. This feels confusing and messy and he isn’t sure where to put it.
“It was mail call, right?” Hawkeye asks, but it’s barely a question. He’s stating it again.
BJ feels his heart in his throat. Hawkeye’s going to work it out – realise how stupid BJ is being, or make the clear connection that BJ had been so conveniently been trying to avoid thinking about himself before this evening. “You think so?” he tries.
“Was it Peg’s letter?” Hawk asks.
He’s almost relieved, but then his conscience makes a convenient reappearance to tell him that he owes Hawkeye the truth. “No,” he replies. He almost says more but doesn’t.
“This is like pulling teeth,” he remarks.
“It was Trapper’s,” BJ tells him quietly, like a secret. He supposes that it is.
Hawkeye looks up at him, the angle a little awkward. In the dim light, BJ can just about make out that he looks confused, brows furrowed. “Trapper’s?” he asks. “Did you read it?” Hawkeye almost sounds scared and he hates it.
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Oh,” he replies. “I don’t follow.”
He smiles humourlessly into the dark. “That makes two of us,” he says, although he supposes that he might know now.
Hawkeye is silent for a little while. “Do you want to know what it said?” he asks after a moment, voice unsure.
BJ wonders if it’d be an intrusion. Whether he even deserves to know. “Yes,” he replies truthfully. “Only if you want to tell me.”
“It was an apology, mostly,” he starts quietly. “And a goodbye, I think.”
BJ keeps holding him.
Hawkeye hesitates, like he isn’t sure he wants to continue. BJ, however much he wants to, won’t pry it out of him. “I- Can I tell you something? And you won’t tell anyone else?” He sounds so tired. BJ doesn’t want to keep him up much longer if he can.
“Anything,” he says immediately.
“He said he loves me,” Hawkeye says. “I loved him too.” The second part is said so faintly that BJ isn’t sure he heard it right.
He tries not to freeze.
He finally places his feelings for Trapper – jealousy. And now he’s just had his concerns confirmed.
It answers the question that has been playing on his mind for a long time. He tries, desperately, not to feel upset or jealous, not to react badly as Hawkeye shares such a closely held piece secret. One that could ruin both him and Trapper. The past tense of the statement bolsters a selfish flare of hope in his chest. He ignores it.
“Do you still love him?” BJ asks gently.
Hawkeye shrugs against him before he gasps like he wasn’t expecting the pain it caused. BJ tries not to wince at the sound. “Only in the same way I still love Carlye or Kyung Soon,” he says.
BJ nods. It’s quiet for another moment. He wonders if Hawkeye is asleep. “Thank you,” he says softly, under his breath so as not to wake him if he is.
“Hm?” Hawkeye responds drowsily.
“For telling me,” he replies.
*
Hawkeye wakes leant against something firm and steady, moving ever so slightly. He realises fairly quickly that it isn’t a something, but a someone. He’s almost surprised when he realises it’s BJ.
He doesn’t get a chance to enjoy it, however much he wants to. The pain in his shoulder makes itself known as he dips further into consciousness. He breathes sharply. It burns, low and throbbing. He doesn’t move, lets himself feel BJ’s breathing against his body.
His head is turned against BJ’s chest and BJ’s hands wrap around his waist. Hawkeye finds himself wondering, briefly but cruelly, if BJ would ever do this if he wasn’t hurt, if he didn’t feel guilty. For a moment, he pretends he would.
He tries not to get too caught up in it. He tries to ignore that this is the first night he hasn’t had a nightmare in months even under the circumstances, to ignore that his heart cries out for more even though he can’t have it, just as he ignores BJ’s usual lingering touches. Just as he pretended not to notice that BJ had cried as he dug the bullet out of his shoulder.
Hawkeye sighs. He knows they’ll have to start moving soon. The walk will take at least another day and he doesn’t want to be away for any longer than they have to be. He gently extricates himself from BJ’s grasp and shakes his arm.
BJ’s eyes blink open slowly, dazed. Before he even says anything, his eyes drop to Hawkeye’s shoulder and he leans forward, checking under the bandage with gentle hands.
He is almost struck with the tenderness of BJ’s movement. “We should get moving soon,” he says weakly, if for no other reason than to fill the quiet.
“Yeah,” BJ nods and presses his hand to Hawkeye’s forehead.
Hawkeye stares at him as he does it. BJ meets his eyes and his gaze lingers. He feels his mouth dry.
BJ drops eye contact then, pulling back and clearing his throat as he goes to gather their things. They eat a few mouthfuls of whatever passes for food from their bag before BJ helps him into the shirt of his fatigues and they head out.
*
The next day is uneventful, but it is long. Hawkeye sets a decent pace, at least by BJ’s standards for a man who has been shot, and BJ is glad that it isn’t quite summer yet. Still, his feet ache, and he has it on good authority that Colonel Potter’s footbath is going to go missing in the coming days.
If his feet hurt, he wonders how Hawk is holding up.
“How’re you doing?” he asks as he walks alongside him.
“I feel like you could steam rice in my shoulder and I have a blister the size of Korea on my foot,” Hawkeye replies, “so about as well as expected.”
“Wait,” BJ says, grasping Hawk’s arm and pulling him to a stop. He presses his hand to Hawkeye’s forehead again. He doesn’t seem too warm.
“I’m fine, Beej,” he says, though he doesn’t pull away. He watches BJ with an odd expression that BJ can’t place.
He doesn’t quite trust him, so he slips a hand in the front of Hawkeye’s shirt to feel the surrounding skin. It doesn’t feel too warm there either, at least no more than half a day of walking in the sun should make him.
Hawkeye waggles his eyebrows at BJ and he snatches his out of the shirt, feeling like he’s just been caught doing something he shouldn’t. “You need a rest?”
“No,” Hawkeye replies. “If we stop, I don’t know if I’ll want to keep going.”
BJ can understand that. Even standing still makes his legs feel heavy. He thinks hoping to stumble across a motorbike like last time something like this happened to them would be too much to ask.
As they keep walking, BJ stays a step behind Hawkeye, not wanting to make him rush if he doesn’t feel like it. He stares at his back, feels hopelessly like he could do it all day.
Peg’s latest letters – the ones of understanding and acceptance in their vague discussion of Hawkeye – suddenly seem a little clearer. He almost freezes as he walks. Was it that obvious? He didn’t even know himself until yesterday.
It’s a little disconcerting. He tries not to dwell on it.
They walk until the sun is high in the sky before they sit themselves down under a tree. BJ hands Hawkeye the single bottle of water they have, letting him drink first before he allows himself a couple of conservative swigs. He eats a little of one of the canned foods from their rations. It’s brown and non-descript.
“I wouldn’t feed this to my dog,” BJ notes.
Hawkeye grunts in agreement. “Can’t believe I’d actually rather have powdered eggs.”
“I won’t tell Igor if you don’t,” he replies.
The tone feels a little lighter between them, but somehow it still makes BJ’s heart ache.
The slow walk continues for a few hours more. It’s quiet and peaceful all the way up until the point it seems too quiet and too peaceful. Hawkeye freezes suddenly.
“Did you hear that?” he asks, whispering.
BJ looks around. He didn’t. “What?”
Hawkeye’s hand is on his chest, stopping him from moving.
Nothing happens for a moment. BJ is about to make some crack about Hawk’s ESP being off before a mortar explodes at the side of the road. They both flinch, immediately ducking to the ground and starting moving instinctively.
Another lands, and the fast walk shifts into a run.
“Guess we caught up to the war,” Hawkeye says.
All of a sudden, it seems relentless. BJ wonders briefly if this is why the 8063rd was bugging out, but is quickly distracted from the thought by the crack of a bullet in a tree beside them.
They stumble for a good while across uneven ground. He doesn’t even know where it’s coming from, can’t see anyone apart from Hawkeye.
Hawkeye cries out. BJ is a couple of steps ahead of him and he swings around immediately. Not again, he thinks, unsure whether Hawk could be so lucky again. The sight of Hawk, apparently no more harmed than he already was, knelt on the ground having tripped is a relief.
BJ steps back, tries to haul him to his feet.
There’s a cave up ahead. It’s the only cover he can see. A bullet whizzes past his ear and he flinches. He wonders, a little hysterically, what side fired it. He supposes it doesn’t matter – a bullet is a bullet, no matter who fires it.
“Come on, Hawk,” he says, practically pulling him by the back of his collar. He hopes desperately that Hawkeye is frightened enough to let him lead him inside.
Hawkeye stumbles after him, alongside him, seemingly unrealising of where they’re going until they reach the mouth of the cave. He stops, feet grounded in the dirt like a stubborn horse. “No,” he says. “Beej, please.”
BJ stops with him and a mortar explodes about twenty feet away from them. “Hawkeye,” he pleads gently.
Hawk hesitates long enough that BJ grabs him and hauls him into the cave alongside him. He doesn’t let go of him as he sits them both down, worried that Hawkeye will run if he does. He lets himself cower into his body a little.
The cave is dark and dry and the sound of mortars and gunfire echo around them. They stay near the entrance, but even Hawkeye shrinks back away from it. Something hits the embankment the cave is in and dust tumbles from up above them. BJ feels Hawkeye begin to dart out and grabs him roughly by the arm to stop him running.
Hawkeye yelps as it pulls at his shoulder, and however much it hurts him to do it, BJ doesn’t let go. He pulls Hawkeye close to him, wraps his other arm around him as well. “I don’t want to die in here,” Hawkeye tells him clearly, eyes wide and struggling against his grasp.
“You’ll die out there!” BJ says sternly. He presses Hawkeye against the wall, holds him steady and looks at him intently. “Look at me.”
Hawkeye freezes. He does as BJ tells him.
“You’re okay,” he tells him. He tries not to glance at the bloodied field bandage still on his shoulder, lets the words reassure himself as well as Hawkeye. “You’ll be okay,” he says, softer. “We just have to wait it out.”
Hawk keeps staring at him. His breathing calms a little and he nods. For the first time, BJ notices that Hawkeye is holding onto his shirt with a white-knuckled grasp, looking at him like he’s the only thing standing between him and insanity. BJ almost buckles under the weight of his trust.
Another mortar hits the cave entrance. The flash is bright and loud and more dirt rains down upon them. Hawkeye gathers BJ into a hug before BJ even realises what happened.
BJ holds him close. The shelling doesn’t stop and Hawk tries to pull back again, but he doesn’t go far. His face is close to BJ’s, just in front of it, so near that BJ can feel Hawkeye’s unsteady breath on his skin, can see him drop his gaze to his lips. He feels a little crazy, a little like the world is ending around them. Like he could do anything.
BJ kisses him. His body is at least five steps ahead of his brain and he leans forward, grabs Hawkeye’s face and presses their lips together. Hawk makes a surprised noise into his mouth, hands braced on his arms like he’s about to push him away, but he doesn’t. He kisses back.
He grips him a little looser, a little more freely, trying to give Hawk the option of pulling away if he needs to.
He clenches his hands in Hawkeye’s hair, pushes a tongue past his lips and into his mouth. Hawkeye lets him, moans in a way that goes straight through him. Hawkeye bites his lip, not hard enough to hurt, but the press of his teeth makes his stomach flip. He makes an embarrassing noise in the back of his throat.
Bullets and mortars whistle through the air outside, landing with such power that the ground shakes.
BJ presses Hawkeye against the wall, hard but careful not to jostle his shoulder, pulling back a second to stare at his face. His hair is dishevelled, lips swollen and pupils blown wide. Other parts of BJ start taking serious interest. BJ turns his attention to Hawk’s neck, kissing it, scraping his teeth against it and desperately trying to resist leaving hickeys there. Not that it would matter – it would hardly be the first time Hawkeye wandered around camp with them.
He works himself into Hawkeye’s lap, trying to get as close as he can without putting too much weight on him.
“BJ,” Hawkeye pants. His hand presses against BJ’s shoulder. It takes a moment for BJ to realise he’s pushing him.
Immediately he pulls back. “What is it?” he asks, breathless, worried. They shouldn’t be doing this, not here, not now. The ground continues to rumble.
Something deeply world-weary and sad crosses Hawkeye’s face for a brief moment, so brief BJ thinks he could have imagined it. Hawk seems to weigh something up, toy with it. After a beat, Hawkeye nods, enthusiastically and eagerly. He pulls him back in and BJ instantly relaxes. He knows he should ask. He knows it’s important, but Hawkeye is doing something obscene in his mouth and if they don’t keep going, BJ thinks he might just have a heart attack with the fear of what’s going on outside.
BJ’s never done this before, but he’s got the same machinery, hasn’t he? He kisses Hawkeye again as he drops both his hands to fumble with Hawkeye’s belt. Once it’s undone, he brings his left hand back up to hold the back of Hawkeye’s neck as he shoves his other hand into his pants.
As soon as BJ gets a hand wrapped around him, Hawk gasps into his mouth. It starts slow, and BJ spits into his palm before returning and working up a rhythm. Hawkeye stares at him in a strange sort of awe.
“Beej,” Hawkeye breathes, huffs even, writhing in an entirely different way under BJ’s hand. This is far better than before, he thinks absently, and he wants to do this again and again.
“Hawk,” he murmurs into his ear, biting it as he grinds against him.
Hawkeye’s fingernails scrape at his hips briefly before he sticks his hand down BJ’s pants and takes him in hand. BJ’s breathing is shaky, he’s aware, and all his nerve endings feel like they’re about to explode. He presses his forehead against Hawkeye’s temple and the touch of skin burns.
He doesn’t last long. He’d be embarrassed if he wasn’t already so muddled with joy and pleasure and fear. He’s glad with a funny sort of sense of competition when Hawkeye doesn’t last much longer either.
After, they don’t speak. BJ lies down in the dirt, pulling Hawkeye with him, and holds him carefully, close to his chest.
*
When he wakes, it’s light and quiet and he’s alone. BJ’s eyes shoot open and he leans up on his elbows.
Hawkeye stands at the mouth of the cave, leant against it. BJ squints at the sun behind him as it silhouettes him. His shirt is off again, and BJ wonders if he changed the dressing himself. He is looking at something – or at nothing – outside as he eats some more of the canned gruel.
“Morning,” BJ calls. He feels a little lost. He isn’t sure what’s going to happen.
“Shelling’s stopped,” Hawkeye comments.
He stands, wincing as his joints crack as he hauls himself off the ground. “I’d noticed.” He walks up behind Hawk. The dressing is clean and neatly applied. He isn’t particularly surprised. “How’s it look?”
Hawkeye glances to him. His expression is unreadable. “Fine,” he replies.
BJ presses a hand to his forehead again. No fever. He feels Hawk lean into it, which strikes him as a little strange. “You okay?”
Hawk hesitates. “Listen, Beej,” he starts, and BJ’s heart sinks immediately. “I- It’s been a very stressful few days. I know maybe with Trapper, and with me being hurt and you feeling sorry, you probably just got your wires crossed. I know you were trying to help.”
“What?”
“I just mean, it’s fine,” he says casually. “You don’t have to worry about it. Last night, I mean.”
He isn’t sure what’s happening.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Hawkeye keeps speaking and it’s making everything worse. “I know it didn’t mean anything to you.”
BJ feels like the cave is finally collapsing, like he’s going to be buried alive. He’s about to fight it, ask what Hawkeye could possibly mean, before he notices something in what Hawkeye has said. “Did it mean something to you?”
Hawkeye looks to him, surprised. “I- What?” he says. “Of course it did. I thought you knew.”
BJ really isn’t following. “Knew what?”
“That I-” Hawkeye starts. He looks small, young and unsure. “That I love you,” he says quietly, like he’s telling BJ something terrible, like he’s telling him he’s sick, that he’s going to die.
Suffice it to say, BJ did not know. He still isn’t sure what’s happening – his heart sings but his stomach churns. “What are…Why are you making excuses?”
Hawkeye gives him this tired and hurt look. “Because you love your wife,” he says. And you love Trapper, he thinks briefly, wondering if it’s the same thing. “Because I know this was pity. Your misplaced guilt gone crazy.”
BJ stares at him. “It wasn’t pity!” He tries not to think about Peg. Hopes he’s read her understanding correctly, hopes it extends far and wide over the breadth of his feelings and how Hawkeye has muddied the water.
“BJ,” Hawkeye says simply, like he doesn’t believe him.
“Is it that hard to believe that I might-” he starts, stops, is unsure where to go. Hawkeye’s just told him he loves him – the last thing he wants is to fight. “I love you too, Hawk.”
Hawk looks at him like he’s just killed his dog. “No.”
“No?”
“Beej, you can’t,” he says desperately. “You- What about Peg? You can’t- I can’t-”
“Peg understands, Hawk,” BJ replies. He knows in his heart he’s right. “She knew before I did,” he adds.
Hawkeye looks at him in the pale sunlight and his expression is one of confusion, happiness and weariness. He leans forward and tilts Hawkeye’s jaw up with his hand, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips. When they break apart, Hawkeye sighs and leans forward, pressing his head against BJ’s shoulder.
BJ cradles the back of it with his hand, fingers lightly intertwining with his hair.
“I’m really tired, Beej,” he says, and BJ can almost feel how hard the past few days have hit him. He wonders if he's been holding back in feeling it. BJ certainly feels like he has.
BJ presses a kiss against his head. “I know,” he says simply. They haven’t got long to go, he reckons, although he thinks Hawkeye might mean a little more than that. He understands it, knows the feeling intimately. At least now, he thinks, they can face it together.
*
BJ helps him into his shirt and lets him lean on his shoulder on the way back to the road.
Hawkeye vaguely recognises the road, knows it shouldn’t be too long until they’re back. He hopes the next time he and BJ get some alone time, it’ll be at least marginally nicer than this. His shoulder twinges. He can’t wait for a hot shower and some novocaine.
He doesn’t need to lean on BJ for as long as he does, but he chases the closeness. BJ doesn’t seem to mind.
By the time they get back, he feels dead on his feet. He knows BJ must be much the same.
Hawkeye supposes a quiet arrival would be too much to ask.
“Pierce! Hunnicutt!” Potter’s voice calls across the compound and he walks quickly to meet them. “What the Sam Hill happened?” His voice is gruff, as usual, but Hawkeye can hear the concern there.
Margaret appears shortly after, as do half the nursing staff and a handful of enlisted men. “Am I glad to see you,” she says, and goes to hug him.
“Ah-ah,” he says, stepping back and wincing.
She looks briefly insulted before she realises why. “You’re hurt,” she comments.
“Good eye,” he replies.
“We had to put the jeep out of its misery,” BJ tells Potter.
Potter handles his shoulders to get a better look. “Good job you didn’t do the same to Captain Pierce, here.”
“I wish you had,” he says to BJ, smiling slightly. Suddenly he realises how worn out he feels. BJ’s arm loops back around his waist. He leans into it.
“Come on,” he says, and he and the rest of the party cross the compound into OR.
Potter shoos most of them away.
“I can handle this, Colonel,” BJ tells him. “I can give a report later.”
“If you say so, BJ,” he replies gently and leaves them be.
“If you need anything, I’ll be in post-op,” Margaret says.
BJ nods and sits Hawkeye on an empty table. “I’ll be right back.”
Hawkeye watches the doors swing behind him as he goes to scrub up. He wonders if it’d worry BJ too much if he were to fall asleep where he sat.
BJ returns with freshly gloved hands. He potters around for a little, putting a tray together. He returns then, wielding a needle. He injects it in Hawkeye’s shoulder and soon a calm numbness spreads throughout him. He sighs, feels himself relax and unclench muscles he didn’t realise were tense.
“I’d have preferred a general,” Hawkeye says, eyes closed, as BJ cleans and stitches his shoulder.
“I’m afraid I’m only a captain,” BJ says.
Hawkeye opens his eyes just to glare.
BJ grins at him. “You can sleep soon.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” he replies.
BJ bandages his shoulder – real bandages, crisp and neat – and finishes up. He injects a healthy dose of penicillin and kisses Hawkeye on the temple. He leans into it.
He leans on BJ again as they head out, lets himself be led into post-op. Margaret watches them from afar, not coming any closer, and he makes a mental note to buy her a drink sometime for it. Hawkeye imagines he might forget it, though.
BJ sits him in a clean bed and helps him lie down, tucking him in gently.
Hawkeye falls quickly into a dreamless sleep with the warmth of BJ’s hand in his and a feeling of deep affection in his chest.