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“You may stand down, Captain. We will now have a brief recess.”
Hawkeye is one of the first people standing when Carmichael dismisses them, his heart pounding in his throat.
He meets BJ’s eye as Carmichael leaves, and he can see the concern in BJ’s face.
It’s not unwarranted, Hawkeye thinks wryly, not with his heart pounding in his throat.
He’s never been one to stand on military courtesy, but on the other hand if he doesn’t get out of this makeshift courtroom, he thinks he’s liable to start laughing at the absurdity and never stop.
But still, he offers a smile to BJ, trying to look calm.
“Well,” Frank says, clearly oblivious to the chilly atmosphere, “I think it’s going very well, don’t you?”
“Colonel, permission to take a walk,” Hawkeye says, ignoring him.
“Denied.”
“I’ll chaperone,” BJ adds, grinning at Hawkeye.
“Double denied. I let you two out of my sight, and two months from now I’ll get a postcard from you two – from Canada.”
“I’ve heard it’s very nice this time of year.”
“It would be just like home!” Hawkeye crows, and for all it’s a joke, he thinks about it.
“Boys-”
“Look, Colonel, I just need some fresh air,” Hawkeye says. “My neck is on the line!”
“It’s still a no, Pierce. I can’t have you performing surgery over the telephone.”
“You’re right, I’m not trained as an operator,” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees BJ grin. “C’mon, Colonel. Please? Grant a dying man his last request.”
Potter rolls his eyes. “Fine, but no monkey business.”
“We’ll check our bananas at the door. C’mon, Beej.”
Hawkeye is glad to get out of the room, even if the corridor is full of the same stale air – it’s not that little closed room with Frank’s little closed mind.
The hallway is quiet, save the clacking of a distant typewriter.
“I think I should write a letter to the manager of this theatre of the macabre,” Hawkeye complains, trying to loosen his tie. “I mean think about it, Beej – if we’re all here, who’s gonna operate on any casualties that come in? It’s not just my neck on the line, it’s theirs, and the longer we’re gone, the more the noose tightens-”
“Slow down, Hawk,” BJ says, gently wrapping his hand around Hawkeye’s wrist. “And take a deep breath, okay?”
“You’re right, I don’t have that many left.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, why, do I look bad? Like I’m at death’s door?”
“C’mon,” BJ says, gently tugging him out one of the side doors and into the central courtyard, where there’s a small garden, filled with overgrown trees. “We did tell Potter we were getting fresh air.”
“It’s not too late to hijack a chopper, you know,” Hawkeye tells him, his mind racing.
If he slows down, if he stops to think about it, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to stand it.
“I think Potter would frown on us stealing a chopper.”
“We can bring him too.”
“Hawk…”
“I mean what the hell was Frank thinking? I know Henry always told me one day Frank would get me, but I thought it would be for something I actually did!”
BJ is staring at him, his brow furrowed. “Hawk… you’re not seriously worried about this, are you?”
“Worried? I’ve got Colonel Carmichael in there already doing a death march with his gavel-”
“Hawk.” BJ grabs Hawkeye’s shoulders, forcing him to look BJ in the eye. Hawk is met with a calm blue gaze, and a soft smile. “Frank’s case has more holes than the shower tent. You’re crazy if you think this is gonna go anywhere.”
“Look, Beej, you can call me crazy. Hell, you can call me a fool, call me a cab, take two and call me in the morning… but I don’t want you calling me in Leavenworth. Or…”
“Hawk.” BJ cuts him off before he can spiral further. “Frank has nothing.”
“Except my history of disregard for authority, which I’ve never, not once actually faced consequences for. How was I to know it would all catch up with me one day?”
“Starting to think you were Superman?” BJ asks, letting go of him as they start walking through the garden.
“Faster than a speeding ticket.”
“Able to leap tall offences in a single bound.”
Hawk laughs, but it dies quickly. “Y’know, I don’t think it’s too late to make a run for it.”
BJ smiles. “As if they’re really going to put you away – they need you more than you need them, Hawk.”
“I guess that’s true. But mutiny… that’s a pretty serious charge. Like a step or two below treason. Not that it matters on the way to the noose.”
“Hawk-”
“Sorry, just a little gallows humour.”
“Hawk, would you for Pete’s sake, calm down?” BJ says, shaking his head. “It isn’t even a court-martial yet, it’s a preliminary hearing!”
“I can’t,” Hawkeye says, and although BJ stops walking, Hawkeye can’t help pacing in front of him. “I can’t calm down – Beej, what if…”
But he can’t finish the sentence, can only pace faster, as if that will somehow expel the nervous energy from his body.
And BJ is just standing there.
“Say something, dammit!”
BJ reaches out and grabs Hawkeye’s shoulders, spinning him so that they’re practically nose to nose. “Listen, Hawk, you think we’re going to let it happen?”
“You may not have a choice.”
“I’m not going to let them punish one of the best surgeons – if not the best – that I’ve ever known over something he didn’t do. You got that?”
“And just… what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know,” BJ admits, letting go of him. “I don’t know, but I… I have to try.”
He looks so lost, so confused, that for a second Hawkeye’s own worries fall away. BJ looks exactly like he did – God, was that only a month or two ago? – the day they met.
“You have to try,” he repeats, and feels a smile spreading across his face. He claps BJ on the shoulder. “Always gotta be John Wayne, huh?”
“Something like that,” BJ admits.
“It’s one of the things I like best about you.”
BJ smiles, and as they start walking again, Hawkeye loosens his tie, feeling as though it’s a noose around his neck already.
“Frank doesn’t have a prayer,” BJ says at last, once they’ve gone a few more steps. “You know that, right?”
“Maybe, but it’s a hell of a wake-up call.”
“Huh?”
“Well think about it, Beej. I’ve probably done a hundred things Frank could’ve nailed me for – he only got me this time-”
“Because of sheer dumb luck!” BJ says, and Hawk is touched at how angry he sounds. “ And a healthy dose of perjury!”
“Beej, you’re letting him get in your head – and I doubt Peg wants to share.”
BJ snorts, shaking his head. “Peg has nothing to worry about. And neither do you.”
“I don’t?”
“If they want you, they’ll have to come through me,” BJ says simply, and although he’s smiling, Hawkeye can hear the truth in his voice.
“Why?”
“Because you’re my best friend, idiot. Besides, Peg will be so disappointed if she never gets to meet the infamous Hawkeye Pierce.”
“And you’d hate to disappoint your wife?”
“Exactly.”
“Well I guess I owe it to Peg then,” Hawkeye says weakly. “To not die. Least I can do, since I stole her husband.”
“Stole?”
“Like a thief in the night.”
This makes BJ laugh harder, tapping his temple with glittering eyes and a mischievous grin. “I think you share the space. Or at least, as the landlord up here, I’m qualified to say that your case will be reviewed.”
“I always knew I was a headcase.”
They lapse back into a more comfortable silence, and it feels like the day they met – BJ calm and collected, Hawkeye a disheveled mess.
“How come you’re so calm about this?” he asks.
BJ shrugs easily. “Faith, I guess. And the knowledge that this place is so desperate for surgeons, they hired Frank Burns away from his private malpractice to drop balms.”
Hawk smiles to himself at the pun. “Yeah?”
“Frank doesn’t have a case, for one thing, and for another, that colonel seems reasonable.”
“He knows how to get down to brass tacks.”
BJ ignores the pun, dismissing it with nothing so much as an eyeroll. “Nobody except Frank wants you to go away, and that’s because in medical parlance, he’s got a big boo-boo on his pride. Okay?”
“… Okay.” Hawkeye glances longingly towards the courtyard exit. “You think they’ll miss us yet?”
“We probably have another minute or two before they send out a search party. Why?”
“Because,” Hawkeye says, feeling a lot calmer, an idea popping into his head as he looks at BJ. “I have something of a last request.”
BJ laughs. “A last request?”
“Well… you never know. I could be going to the gallows.”
“Hawk, you’re not-”
“Humour me, I’ll have you charged with obsecration of a corpse!”
BJ laughs again, and God, he’s beautiful. “You’re crazy.”
“Please, Beej.”
BJ nods, at last. “Sure. Anything.”
“Iwantyoutokissme.”
BJ blinks. “Could you say that again, but slower… and in a language I speak?”
Hawkeye takes a deep, shaky breath, his heart pounding. “I want you to kiss me.”
BJ’s mouth falls open, his eyebrows creeping up his forehead, and Hawkeye still thinks he’s beautiful. “Hawk…”
“I just… you mean a lot to me, Beej,” Hawkeye mumbles, suddenly unable to meet his eye, before forcing himself to grin. “And hey, there aren’t any nurses around.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I know. But just…” he flutters his eyelashes, still trying to make a joke out of what is very much not a joke. “C’mon Beej, one kiss… to take with me to the gallows?”
“You’re absolutely nuts.”
“Is that a no?”
BJ rolls his eyes, and then steps closer to Hawkeye, making him almost step back out of instinct as BJ looms up close to him, close enough that Hawk can see how blue his eyes are, and the tiny nick on the side of his chin from where he cut himself shaving this morning.
“Beej?” he squeaks.
“Do you ever stop talking?” BJ asks, amused.
He’s still so close to Hawkeye, so close that it’s hard for Hawkeye to breathe, any and all bravado gone. BJ had to have been joking earlier about wanting Hawkeye’s virginity – never mind being about twelve years too late – because he is BJ and married, and happy.
And all Hawkeye is really expecting from his clean-cut, apple pie and hot dog best friend is a kiss on the cheek.
Instead, BJ gently cups Hawkeye’s face in his hands, leans down, and kisses him.
Gently at first, and then passionately, in a way that makes Hawkeye’s head spin, his mouth open against BJ’s, a helpless little noise escaping as he clutches the back of BJ’s jacket.
And that, of course, is when it clicks:
This is no mere infatuation brought on by living in a warzone.
Hawkeye is very badly in love with him.
He kisses BJ back, knowing it’s a bad idea, knowing that it will never amount to anything – but if it’s only this one kiss, he wants to remember it.
But finally he has to break away, panting and breathless, dizzy with want as BJ pulls him into a hug.
BJ cradles the back of his head, and if Hawkeye closes his eyes, if he forgets where they are and who they are, he can almost feel at peace.
“What was that for?” Hawkeye asks, his voice muffled in BJ’s shoulder when he remembers how to speak.
BJ’s voice is soft. “Who am I to ignore the last request of my best friend?”
It hurts, but it’s also a relief.
Hawkeye pulls back, looking up at him. “Thanks, Beej.”
“You’re welcome, Hawk.”
Hawkeye steps back, and the two of them keep walking, his lips still burning from the kiss.
“Beej?” he asks, after a minute.
“Yeah?”
“Peg’s a lucky lady.”
BJ starts laughing, the sudden tension between them broken like the first crack of thunder in a summer storm as he claps a hand on Hawkeye’s shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yeah… are we okay?”
“Hawk,” BJ says softly, and Hawkeye has to keep his eyes on the path, unable to look BJ in the eye. “We’re so okay like you wouldn’t believe.”
“But-”
“You needed me,” BJ says.
“But why did you do it?”
Hawk can hear the smile in his voice. “Because from the first day I’ve got here, you’ve always been here when I needed you. Figured the least I could do is return the favour.”
“Oh.”
“Now c’mon, we’d better get back inside, or they’ll start thinking we’ve gone over the fence.”
“It’s not too late,” Hawkeye says hopefully. “We can still run for the border.”
“Let’s go, Hawk.”
Hawkeye is preoccupied as they head back inside, even though he should be focused on the continued assassination of his character. Instead, he’s thinking about the kiss.
He can’t make a joke out of his feelings, not around BJ, not about this.
And, he thinks wryly, that’s the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
So help him God.