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You lie awake in your cot, staring at the world outside. The air is still and quiet, but you still feel the danger acutely, the absence of shelling almost as unsettling as the shelling itself. Your heart thuds heavily in your chest, pulsing in your fingertips. You hold your hand up to the dim light as it filters into the room, imagine that you can see through your skin, the light refracting through your sinews.
You sit up, shuffle the sheets off your legs, your body overwarm and restless. You almost can’t recognize the Swamp around you in the dim moonlight, unfamiliar shapes and shadows following you in your periphery whenever you turn your head, morphing from crates to ottomans, stoves to plants. You close your eyes and the vaguely dizzy feeling in your head gets worse, as you fade in and out of reality, the whir of choppers filling your brain and leaking out of your ears, static over a radio.
“Hawk?” you hear, a strong signal cutting through the static, like Cole Porter dancing on the airwaves. BJ’s up.
“Go back to sleep,” you say. BJ doesn’t. He never does.
“Did you have a nightmare?” he asks, his voice still groggy with sleep.
“No,” you say. “Just waiting.”
“Waiting?” BJ asks, more alert now. “Waiting for what?”
“The choppers,” you respond. There’s a long silence. You feel compelled to speak further. “It’s been too quiet lately. They’ll be here soon, I can feel it.”
There’s another long pause. Time seems to stretch between you.
“I didn’t know you and Radar shared that intuition,” BJ eventually says, his voice smooth and even, like the surface of a still lake.
“I’m surprised you don’t feel it too,” you say. “You know how it goes by now. There’s the calm, and then there’s the storm, like clockwork.” The darkness hangs heavy around you. It is now raining outside. The mud will cling thick to your boots, obscuring the dark dried blood around the soles. The air will smell like water and you’ll get to watch at least three corpsmen fall over outside.
“Hawkeye,” BJ says insistently. He sounds like he’s been saying your name for a long time. You turn to him. He’s turned on a lamp, and you see the light caress his face, golden and intent. He’s kneeling at the edge of the bed, looking at you. “There you are,” he says, smiling softly.
“Here I am,” you echo. “Here we are.” BJ reaches out, cradles your jaw in the palm of his right hand. He drags his hand over your forehead like he’s checking you for fever, before pushing your hair back behind your ear.
“When are the choppers coming?” BJ asks. “Do you know?” You shake your head.
“I just know they’re coming.” BJ nods. His hand is still idly combing through your hair. He must be too tired to know what he’s doing. You lean your head into the sensation and hope that he doesn’t come to and stop, your eyes fluttering shut. “I hear them when I close my eyes. The blades slicing through the air. I taste the dust, smell the iron on my hands. It’ll be soon, Beej, I know it.”
“You’re not going back to sleep, are you?” he murmurs. You shake your head.
“Every time I put my head on the pillow, I feel like I’m drowning. It’s hard to breathe when my head’s that full of noise, much less sleep.” You wonder if a drink would quiet the sound of the encroaching helicopters as they descend on you, vultures carrying carrion.
“Well then,” he says, “how will we pass the time?” You blink at him, focusing on his face again.
“What do you mean?” you ask.
“The whole world is asleep, except us. You get to decide what we do while we wait,” BJ says.
“It’s hard to muster up the will to do anything but wait,” you say. Your stomach rumbles idly. BJ smirks.
“Sounds like part of you has an idea,” he says in a leading tone.
“My stomach may be a glutton for punishment, but I have higher standards,” you demur. Stale cake and yesterday’s powdered eggs won’t feed what you’re hungry for. “I’ll take a drink if you’re offering.”
“How about we give gluttony a go first?” BJ asks, still scratching you gently behind your ear. “I bet you five dollars I can scrounge up something edible for you.”
“Five dollars? On edibility? In Korea?” you ask, skeptical. “You’re bluffing.”
“Ten dollars says you’ll love it,” BJ says, smiling widely at you.
“Now I know you’re bluffing. You always raise like a maniac when you’ve got nothing,” you accuse. BJ laughs quietly.
“So you should take the bet,” he says, very reasonably. You narrow your eyes at him. He smiles at you before getting to his feet and grabbing your robe. He holds it out and wiggles his eyebrows at you. You pull yourself out of bed gingerly, your body aching, and let him help you into your robe. You feel tired and old, much older than you are. He reaches around you to tie the sash, inadvertently wrapping you up in his arms, safe and warm.
“Why do I get the feeling that you just got away with something?” you ask warily, as he takes your hand and rests it in the crook of his arm.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, leading you out of the door and into the quiet of the night. In no time, he’s ushering you into the kitchen and sitting you down on a leather barstool. He moves away from you for a second to turn on the lights and you begin to shiver uncontrollably, something cold seizing your body.
“Here’s a blanket,” BJ says, materializing one out of nowhere.
“What, did you weave that out of thin air? Where do you keep your knitting needles?” you ask, looking around for where he found it as he tucks it around your shoulders. It’s soft and plush, nothing like standard army issue, and you immediately feel your shaking subside, the warmth of his hands and the blanket chasing your shivers away.
“A magician never reveals his secrets,” he says, smoothing the blanket down your arms. You get the feeling that he’s worried about you, but you can’t tell why.
“It’s just choppers, Beej,” you reassure him. “I’ve been doing this since the dawn of time. I’ll be fine.”
“Who says I’m worried about you ?” he asks. You smile at him.
“You’ll be fine too,” you say, and he looks at you with so much affection in his eyes that you can’t sustain eye contact, clearing your throat and looking down at your bare feet. “I believe you mentioned salvaging something edible in this culinary wasteland,” you prompt. “Falsely, I might add.”
“You’re going to eat those words, and they won’t taste nearly as good as your breakfast,” he says, giving your arms one last squeeze before pulling away to gather ingredients. You zone out as he putters around the kitchen, staring aimlessly at the refrigerator. There are little drawings pinned to the front of it, flowers and stick figure men and yellow blobs that are vaguely reminiscent of dogs. You wonder if the cook has a kid.
“Are we incurring risk of court martial for stealing the cook’s food?” you ask, and BJ pauses before grabbing a pan out of a cabinet.
“No, Hawk, I don’t think anyone will be upset at us for feeding ourselves tonight,” he says carefully, before he places the skillet on the stove. You look around you again. You don’t spend that much time in the kitchen, which might explain how unfamiliar you are with it. There are small hangings all over the walls, photographs of smiling people, too small to make out from where you’re sitting.
The smell of cooking butter and fresh bread fills the room, which surprises you considering that most of the bread that comes through this unit served in the First World War. Your stomach growls its unmitigated approval.
“You should ask that wild beast in your stomach what I should spend my winnings on,” BJ says, a smile in his voice.
“Don’t get too cocky, you still have to put your money where my mouth is,” you say, and he smirks, grabbing a plate from a cabinet.
“I like to think I’ve established some credit with your mouth,” he says, and you bat your eyes at him. He sets a plate laden with scrambled eggs and buttered toast in front of you. You blink at it, unable to believe your eyes.
“BJ, this plate might be worth its weight in gold,” you say, almost aghast. “How did you do this?”
“Alchemy, of course. The plate was only worth its weight in lead before,” he says. He deposits a forkful of egg on the toast and holds it up to your nose, letting you sniff at it. It smells like butter and salt and everything good and right in the world. You don’t open your mouth.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have much of an appetite right now,” you say. “But if you check back in with me in two to four business days, I’m sure I’ll be able to muster up a bite or two.” BJ puts the toast down on the plate again and looks at you. Sometimes you feel like he can see right through you, your skin papery and translucent under his blue eyes. Sometimes you worry he’ll stare so long at your messy viscera that he won’t be able to see you anymore.
“Talk to me, Hawk,” he says. “What’s wrong?”
“What if I start eating and the choppers come?” you ask in a small voice. BJ blinks at you and you scramble to make sense. “It happens like that, you know. Something small goes right, and then everything goes wrong. Something works and everything breaks-”
“You’ll get to finish the eggs before you have to go anywhere, I promise,” BJ says, but you shake your head.
“No, you don’t get it, it’s not about the eating, it’s about the having. I can’t have anything, not here. Nothing stays, nothing lasts, nothing survives, not the eggs, not your hands, not the drawings on the refrigerator,” you mutter, your head filling with the whirring blades of choppers again. The kitchen lights seem to dim and flicker and you see shadows moving on the walls, shifting and warping around the floor.
You dig the heels of your hands into your eyes and rub them until you see bright purple splotches behind your eyelids, trying to shake off the creeping unease building in your gut. The whole world feels unfamiliar and strange, and your eyes hurt in your head and you don’t know when the choppers are coming and you don’t know what’ll happen if you start to see things during surgery. You don’t know anything right now.
“Hawk?” BJ asks, reaching out to pull the blanket back over your shoulders. You realize that you’re shaking again, almost violently, dislodging the blanket. “Hawk, come here. It’s okay, you’re okay, don’t worry, everything’s okay, I’ve got you,” he croons, tugging you gently until you’re resting your head on his stomach, your shoulder pressed against the edge of his pelvis. You listen to his steady heartbeat thrum in counterpoint to your syncopated shivers.
Slowly but surely, the trembling dies down again and you’re left sagging against him, jittery and weak. “I’m sorry,” you start to say, but he hushes you gently, carding his fingers through your hair.
“There’s nothing to apologize for,” BJ says. You almost want to ask him why he’s being so touchy all of a sudden, but you know very well he only gets like this when you’re acting crazy. You just can’t tell what’s so crazy about you right now, other than the shaking and the tears that are sliding unbidden down your cheeks.
“Something’s wrong, BJ,” you say quietly. “I don’t know what’s wrong, but something is.”
“I know,” he says, just as quiet as you are. “But that’s okay. We’re safe and we’re together, and the rest will sort itself out, I promise.”
“I don’t know why I can’t eat,” you sob softly. “It smells good, I want to eat it, I just don’t know how.”
“That’s okay too. We’ll figure it out,” he responds.
“Why are you even up?” you ask, belligerent. He continues to hold you, wiping the tears off your face with the sleeve of his robe. “Nobody asked you to hold my hand - the choppers are coming for you too, you need rest. Why are you putting up with this?”
“I have a fetish for watching men eat toast,” he says. You snort against him, your vague aggression dissipating, and feel his belly rumble in laughter.
“I’m serious,” you say, but there’s a smile in your voice.
“I’m serious too,” he says. “Normal bread doesn’t do it for me, but something about the crunch-“
“BJ,” you interrupt. “Be honest.”
“I’m in love with you,” he says. You freeze against him. You didn’t think you’d get that response. You didn’t think at all, to be fair. “Will you try and eat again?” he asks, as if he didn’t very casually alter your whole world.
“Do you mean it?” you ask, tilting your head upwards so you can see his face. He looks down at you seriously, though fondly.
“Yes,” he says.
“I thought you were in love with Peg,” you say. He shakes his head.
“She doesn’t eat toast like you do,” he says, and your shoulders shake a bit.
“She’s also probably not crazy,” you say.
“I don’t mind if you’re crazy, Hawkeye, I just want you to be well-fed.”
“You’re really pushing the toast agenda, huh?” you ask. “You’re a very particular kind of deviant.”
“It’s that or asking you to put on some fishnets in front of me, but I figured your stomach would want something with less holes,” he says.
“Well, Father Mulcahy would say bread is the holiest of foods,” you counter.
“All the more reason to take a bite,” he says kindly but firmly. He picks it up and holds it out to you again, and you sniff at it. It still smells good, a little cooler now but still well-seasoned, with the faintest tinge of cheddar as well. You take a nibble out of the crust, and then a larger bite. The eggs taste fantastic, warm and buttery and fluffy in your mouth, and the bread melts and sweetens as you chew.
“Good?” BJ asks, and you nod, taking the toast from him and putting another forkful of egg on it. BJ stays close as you straighten and eat, leaving for a second here or there to put something away or tidy something up, but always returning to your side. You polish off the plate, the hunger in your belly drowning out the cloud of confusion in your mind.
Your eyelids grow heavy and the buzzing static of before dims and warps into the gentle whir of a ceiling fan overhead.
“I think my eyelids are going to sue for shorter working hours,” you say. “We might need to save the fishnets for another night.”
“That’s alright with me,” he says, bending to press a kiss on your temple. “I already caught you.”
He grabs your plate and rinses it in the sink, before taking you by the elbow and ushering you to your feet. He turns the lights off and walks you up the stairs to the Swamp, one hand protectively on your lower back, the other on your arm. Something is wrong, but you’re not as upset about it now. BJ will tell you if there’s something you can do about it.
You get to your bedroom and he unties your robe, shuffling it off your shoulders and gently guiding you into the bed, which feels bigger than usual, and softer as well.
“Beej, wait, what about the choppers?” you protest weakly.
“What about them?” he asks, tucking the blankets up to your chin.
“They’ll be coming soon,” you say, even as your eyelids droop.
“You can sleep ‘til then, can’t you?” he asks, fluffing your pillow under your head.
“What if I don’t wake up?” you ask.
“I’ll wake you up.”
“What if you don’t wake up?” you persist. He stops and looks at you for a long moment, and you wonder if he’s finally lost his patience with you.
“How about this,” he says eventually, maneuvering you down the bed a bit until you’re sitting up, before crawling behind you and sitting against the headboard. “You go to sleep, and I’ll stay awake until I hear choppers, okay?” he says, pulling your head down to rest on his chest, your body slotting neatly between his unreasonably long legs. You hear his heart thud steadily in his chest, as you make yourself comfortable on his sternum.
“Are you sure?” you ask in a sleepy voice, already beginning to doze off. You feel him nod.
“I’m sure,” he says, pressing a kiss on the top of your head. “Don't worry darling, I’ll be up.”
Minutes pass. You listen to the whir of the fan, BJ’s breath coming in steady puffs, his reliable heartbeat thumping away.
“Beej?” you ask, a strange clarity making its way through your mind. BJ hums in inquiry. “What if the choppers don't come at all?”
“I’ll stay up anyways,” he says. You nod, and he tightens his arms around you. The sheets are cool and BJ is warm, and birds are starting to sing outside. Soon the sun will peep over the horizon, and the rays of early morning will shine through your window. BJ presses his lips against your head again, and you fall asleep.
*
When you wake up again, there is no static. BJ is still sitting up against the headboard, his heartbeat thudding in the same lullaby you fell asleep to.
“The choppers aren’t coming, are they?” you say. BJ shakes his head. Of course they aren’t. Helicopters don’t often visit residential neighborhoods in San Francisco. “Did you get any sleep at all?”
“I said I wouldn’t, didn’t I?” he asks. You close your eyes, self-pity and self-loathing battling in your stomach.
“You know, there are easier people to live with,” you point out bitterly. “Most other men wouldn’t put up with this.”
“Most other men haven’t seen you eat toast,” BJ jokes.
“BJ-“
“I don’t want to hear it, Hawk,” he says, all the humor gone from his tone. You close your mouth. “I don’t need you telling me what I should and shouldn’t want. I know what I want.”
“You couldn’t have imagined that being with me would be like this,” you argue. “You couldn’t have predicted it would get this bad.”
“No, I couldn’t have,” BJ agrees, and you feel a twist of sick satisfaction. “What we have is much better than I ever let myself imagine.”
“Don't joke around with me,” you say, more than a little peeved. “Not now. Last night was a matinee performance of a shitshow that premiered and panned weeks ago. There’s no way you’re happy with this.”
“Who’s joking? A couple nights a month, the love of my life wakes up, stares at me like I’m his whole universe, and lets me take care of him. The rest of the time, he takes care of me. There’s no earthly way I could be happier.”
“The novelty will wear off soon,” you insist. “The crazy will stick around.”
“The novelty wore off in Korea,” he counters, and now he sounds a little peeved as well. “And you can call me crazy, because I’m sticking around too.”
“I’m just saying-“
“I know what you’re saying and I told you, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Well, if you’re not going to listen to me, I might as well not talk anymore,” you snap.
“That’s fine with me,” BJ snaps back. You rearrange your head on his chest forcefully and he makes a little ‘oof’ of discomfort that you relish spitefuly. You stare out the window. Last week, Erin and Peg went to a stained glass painting class together and brought you a little painted rose to stick on the window. You stare at the light as it streams through it, leaving a pink stripe across the bedspread.
“What day is it today?” you ask after a few minutes of synchronous breathing.
“Saturday. Sidney should be awake. We can call him and get that list of doctors whenever you’re up for it,” he says, predicting your next question easily.
“So you agree that there’s something wrong with me,” you goad him for no real reason.
“As a medical professional, I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” BJ says, implacable to the end. You subside, vaguely disgruntled, into his chest. There are worse places to subside. “Hawk. You know I love you, right? That I’m not even a little bit scared off by this?”
You consider being difficult to spite him, but decide against it. “Yes.”
“And you know that I couldn’t love you more even if you slept eight hours every night like clockwork and never inconvenienced me?” You stay silent for a while after that one. “Hawk?”
“Yes,” you say, because you believe that he believes that at least, even if it sounds ridiculous and implausible.
“Okay,” he says, sounding genuinely relieved. “Well, that’s all that matters.”
You curl further into him, your throat swamped by an immense gratitude you can’t begin to express. You don’t think anyone has fought this hard to convince you they love you before. Half the time the effort isn’t worth it.
“I make it hard for you, don’t I?” you ask.
“I told you-“ BJ starts.
“No, not just because of my zany midnight excursions,” you say. “I mean, I make it hard for you to love me.” You’ve only been living together for a few months now, and you’ve made every single step of it difficult for him, from convincing you to come out to California, to getting you situated with a job — he even had to coax you into sharing a bed with him in the beginning, you were so scared of disturbing him with your nightmares.
“That’s not true,” he says. “It’s very easy to love you. I love you more every day”
“But I fight you,” you point out. “On everything. I fight you all the time.”
“Hawkeye, I spent years in Korea making it almost impossible for you to believe me when I tell you I love you. If that means I have to spend every morning for the rest of our lives convincing you that I loved you through the night, then that’s what I’ll do.”
You blink at him.
“Sometimes I think I’m making you up too,” you say. He laughs a little bit. “Don’t laugh, I mean it. Most of the time I’m sure I’m talking to myself in an empty house. You make me feel crazy.”
“You couldn’t come up with my half of the conversation, I’m much wittier than you,” he says and you snort into his chest. “I love you, Hawkeye. That’s not crazy. It’s the least crazy part of my life and one of these days, it’ll be the least crazy part of yours,” he says sincerely, his eyelids heavy with that same overwhelming affection. You tilt your chin up and he answers your unspoken request with a kiss, sweet and lingering. The sun dances on his skin, and you nuzzle into his neck as he readjusts his arms around you to hold you closer.
“We’ll call Sidney in an hour,” you say. He nods.
“It’ll be nice to catch up with him.” You stare out the window, at the birds flying by, the gentle waving of the tree branches, the little rose in the middle of the sky, beautiful and impossible.
“I love you too, you know,” you say, fairly out of the blue. “I always have.”
“I know,” he says, placid. You nod. “It’s nice to hear.”
“I’ll try to say it more often.”
“There’s no rush,” he says, pressing his lips against your temple. “We’ve got time on our side.”