Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hawkeye pulls in another slow and shallow breath. He tries to shift all his focus to his chest - the way it expands. Or, rather, the way it doesn't seem to expand at all. His hands shake against his rib cage, twisted up and curled tightly into the blankets. The shaking doesn't stop or slow, rattling him to his spine. Another exhale, and god, he wants a drink. He wants to be home, throw his arms around his dad, but that comes with a large side of losing BJ and he can't bear the thought. He pulls his fingers free, the shaking crawling up his arms and settling behind his ribs.

Releasing another shuddering exhale, he rolls his head against the too soft pillow. He can just make out BJ's back, imagines the even rise and fall of sleep beneath the blankets. Trapper left and BJ filled his spot. Henry died and Potter landed in their little section of awful. Nothing stays the same here. It changes, forces Hawkeye to watch it burn to ashes and then reform into something he has to learn to love again. New people fill more of his heart, and they'll take it with them when they go. Hawkeye knows the cost of love here, and he keeps paying it because empty is worse than broken.

Or, at least it used to be. He doesn't know now.

He shakes. His whole body rattles the cot; his heart pounds inside his chest and pulses at the base of his throat. The air in the Swamp is too thick. The air in Korea is too thick. He can't breathe here. If he could just get in a breath surely the shaking would stop. Surely the darkness would recede, even just a little.

He kicks the blankets away and drops his legs over the side, forearm shoving him upright. Fingers fumble in the darkness until he feels the tops of the boots and he slides them across the dirt until he can shove his feet inside. His fingers slip off the laces an alarming amount of times before he finally gets them messily tied.

He needs to get away. And as much as he longs to wake BJ, to hear a soft voice promise him that it will somehow be okay, he can't cross the line. He'll survive without the help. He's done it before. He'll do it again. 

Or he'll die trying.

The war has taken so much from him, stolen bits away when he isn't watching (a dash of kindness, a helping of sanity) and he's left to helplessly shift into an evolving, or devolving, version of Hawkeye. All the fractured parts he'd arrived with are open wounds now, jagged and raw edges that he's too afraid to touch, even to mend. So he avoids them, feelings turned mines that he tiptoes around.

He steps out the Swamp and into the too still night air. Klinger is nowhere to be seen.

Small blessings.

His breath comes out faster here, freer. Clenching his fists, he crosses the camp, swings open the supply door and slinks inside. Weaving his way to the back cot, he drops down onto it and his fingers curl over the edge. His chest seems to collapse, his head dropping, his shoulders falling forward.  This isn't something he normally does, the heavy breathing without a partner, but he's starting to become used to it after the last few weeks. 

When nothing had changed, and everything had changed, and it caught up to him with the force of a brakeless train. He's left gasping now, grasping for a hold, no matter how tentative, on reality.

Thoughts close in around his chest and throat, tiny fingers, so harmless on the surface, threatening to pull him into an abyss. A single thought beckons him, white-hot and dangerous but still so tempting all the same. Give in, now. Rest. 

He'd give anything to escape, accept a scalpel or a bottle of pills as easily as he would a kind word and a pair of familiar arms. Hawkeye grips the cot a little tighter, feels it vibrate as the tremors roll over him.

Then, it stops. And he's left somewhere beyond exhausted, can't bear the thought of trekking back to the Swamp. So he doesn't. He scoots until he's on the cot, fingers tucked between knees, and lets sleep make a claim. 

M

Hands shake him awake. So gentle, and slow, and he hates that he jerks up anyway, roughly grasps the arms attached. He lets out an exhale, fingers curling around familiar muscles.

"Hawk?"

He blinks until BJ becomes clear, and wishes at once that he hadn't. BJ's face is tight, so full of concern that guilt churns deep in Hawkeye's gut. That burning pain in his stomach flares a little brighter. BJ's eyes search him, for what Hawkeye isn't sure. His hands are steady now, and he sits up and manages a smile. Only broken on the inside, Beej. Still here.

"What are you doing out here?" BJ finally asks, taking a step back while Hawkeye stretches for show.

Hawkeye rolls his neck, drops a hand back to massage at the stiffness over his spine. He can't quite meet BJ's eyes, even with a smile firmly planted on his face. BJ doesn't need to know. BJ worries too much.

"Ferret Face was snoring," Hawkeye says. "Didn't you hear it?"

BJ shifts and Hawkeye isn't sure he believes him. He also isn't sure that BJ is ready to face him head-on, that he wouldn't rather lure him to self-care than force him into it.

"You should have woken me, Hawk."

Hawkeye's throat tightens for a moment, but he pushes it away. It's so much easier in the day, and he rolls his eyes and climbs to his feet.

"What for?" he says, brushing by BJ and heading for the door. "I need coffee. Coming?"

He pauses, looks over his shoulder at BJ's best kicked-puppy impression.

Then BJ nods, and air fully fills Hawkeye's lungs. He can make it. He has to make it.

 BJ needs him.

Chapter Text

He can feel BJ's eyes on him still, the concern that is seeping off him and encroaching on Hawkeye's side of the table. Gripping his coffee mug tighter, Hawkeye pretends the heat can reach the places where he's frozen over, pretends to take another sip because he sure can't handle anything more solid. His stomach aches, the burning seems to double in his chest when he glances at BJ, who has gone brooding and silent on him.

Hawkeye's half-certain the mess tent, if not the whole camp, can feel the tension following them around.

If he had any choice at all, he'd just stop all this, slow down this tailspin, stop the feelings that catch him when he least expects them to arrive. He wishes he could just stop, just stop. The clenching in his stomach has spread to his fist, and he hides it under the table, blinks a few too many times before he can exhale.

Just stop. Please.

"You feeling all right, son?" Potter asks, and Hawkeye manages to shift his eyes to him.

BJ shifts and Hawkeye's certain he's doomed, that a call will be made to Sidney, that it'll all crash down around him, and he can hardly blame BJ for a thing. He wants to save Hawkeye. And maybe he should admit what Hawkeye can't, all the nights sleeping off panic in the supply tent, how he hasn't had a decent meal in weeks, how often BJ has found him breathless and clenching the arms of his chair and when BJ finally asks the only thing Hawkeye is capable of is joking.

He should do all that, Hawkeye more than deserves it, but he doesn't. BJ takes another drink of his coffee, and when Hawkeye dares to meet his eyes they're still soft and warm and full of something that Hawkeye can only reasonably call love. If anything, the agony inside him doubles. He'll take BJ down with him, he knows, if he doesn't figure out how to let go.

"Swore off breakfast," Hawkeye says on a shrug.

"And lunch," BJ mutters, but Hawkeye is quick to drain his cup.

"Duty calls," Hawkeye says and hurries from the tent.

By something akin to a miracle, Hawkeye makes it through his shift focused and driven. When he sheds his coat, however, he seems to leave that Hawkeye behind inside it. By the time he makes it back to the Swamp, he's shaking and sweating and out of breath for none of his favorite reasons.

The room spins, or perhaps that's only his head, but he topples into his bed, presses his face into his pillow and breaths in through the stifling material. It smells of late nights and spilled drinks, but it's familiar and steady and for just a moment all the things he needs and wants are held at bay. At least until the crying starts, until the sobs rattle him spine to bed frame.

When the worst begins to subside, Hawkeye curls into himself, thankful BJ is still off on his shift, and Frank has scurried somewhere off into the afternoon.

He lets himself be exactly what he is -broken. A broken man trying to save broken people, and of course he's miserable and exhausted. What else could anyone be when in a foreign country trying to sew kids' bodies and lives back together? It's been far too much for far too long, and Hawkeye's been rattled a few times too many to not have left a few pieces of himself in other people.

He doesn't actually intend to fall asleep, despite the need, but when he feels a hand on his shoulder, a gentle shake, he realizes he's lost some time between then and now.

He jerks his eyes open and is surprised to find that the sun is sinking low in the sky, and his fingers are numb from where they've been pinned in-between his knees.

"BJ?"

Somehow, he knows it's him. He can feel him or smell him or it's just plain logical for it to be him, but Hawkeye doesn't have to guess at his waker even before he rolls to look. Sure enough, he finds BJ watching over him in the dimming light and the way his eyebrows tighten and his lips go thin are growing far too common for Hawkeye's taste. He more than hates himself for being the impetus, but he's helpless to do anything but add the guilt to an expanding list.

The chair creaks as BJ settles into it and Hawkeye braces himself for the impending 'talk'. He shifts himself up and smoothes the wrinkles from his shirt while he lets BJ pick his best path to try to reach him. Hawkeye watches him, the careful and considerate way he's taking all of this, and wonders, for just a moment, if it were Trapper in that chair how it would change? Would he be allowed to fall apart in peace, to slip under the waves in favor of keeping the status quo?

The thought feels like cheating and he pushes it away, tries to force himself to focus on BJ, on nothing but BJ, no matter what the words are going to be. BJ cares about him, likely far too much. He's followed Hawkeye as much as Hawkeye's clung to him and they are what they are and Hawkeye can't begin to figure what that might be.

"We need to talk," BJ finally says.

Hawkeye nods. What is there that he can possibly say? BJ needs to get this out, and easing BJ's pain is worth any extra weight Hawkeye might have to bear.
When the silence becomes too heavy, Hawkeye slides his legs off the bed. BJ's watching him, and to his credit, his mouth isn't opening in closing uselessly. Hawkeye would bet he's choosing his words carefully, wants to be sure of how to approach, if nothing else, to not spook Hawkeye.

As if BJ isn't the only place he's running.

Finally, he breaks the silence, because he can't bear to watch BJ feel so much for him. He pats his leg, throws on a grin.

"I'll be fine, Beej," he says.

"I can't do this without you, Hawkeye."

The honesty seems to leave them both raw, and Hawkeye doesn't know how to function, but he's going to have to try.

"You won't have to."

"Forgot to say," BJ says, pulling something out of his pocket. "Passes, three days. You and me, interested?"

Three days with BJ, away from the blood and reality and the loss of hope.

He smiles at BJ, claps him on the shoulder and for the first time in weeks, he feels like he's got a chance.