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“Hawkeye Pierce is alive and well and living at Battalion Aid! He left his fingerprints all over this guy. Who else but Hawkeye sews vertical mattress stitches with white cotton sutures?”
The noise in the OR can best be described as an explosion. An eruption of joy and relief to drown out the sound of shelling and artillery fire they’ve all been listening to inside their heads since that first bus arrived.
I even heard a doctor bought it.
BJ floats through the rest of his surgeries. He’d be whistling if he could purse his lips under his mask. “All right, let’s close. Next!” he calls, and his head must really be in the clouds because it takes a minute for him to register the lack of response. “I said I’m ready, who’s next?”
Across the room Potter answers without looking up. “Sorry about that, Hunnicutt, looks like I took the last one without asking.”
“Privileges of rank,” BJ tosses back, already stripping off his gloves.
He’s checking on the last of his boys in post-op when Klinger sticks his head through the door. “Oh hey, Captain, I was just going to look for you! The phones are back up at battalion aid, they’re sending up a replacement surgeon so Hawkeye should be on his way home any minute now.”
BJ feels his shoulders sag. If he’d been floating before, now he’s a puppet with its strings cut. Sutures are sutures but hearing the words out loud makes it real. Klinger claps him on the back and then laughs as BJ stumbles sideways under his arm. “You’d better get some rest, sir. I’ll go and tell the others.”
It’s all BJ can do to get out of his boots and under his blanket. He passes out trying to do the math on how long it’ll be before Hawkeye walks through that door, and wakes again at the sound of a quiet shuffle alongside his cot.
“Hey,” he says to the only good thing to come out of this war. “When I wake up, remind me to give you a kiss.”
“You’re dreaming,” is what he’s told for his troubles, and that might not be wrong. No better way to describe the sense of peace he feels, the complete absence of fear. The certainty. He thinks he sees Hawkeye reaching for him but his eyes have closed again and he falls into the deepest sleep he’s had in months, in years.
Hawk is holding Erin, beaming down into her wrinkled little face, bouncing her in his arms, eyes almost disappearing with his grin as she babbles at him, reaches her chubby little hands up to his face. The memory is infused with golden light and floods BJ with a weightless warmth like submerging into a perfect bath at the end of a long day and he sighs, content, but there’s niggling awareness at the edge of his brain, it’s eating at him, contentment vanishing like morning mist before he realizes what it is, what’s wrong with the memory, the fact that it isn’t a memory at all, that this never happened and Hawkeye isn’t — Hawkeye is — Hawk—
BJ struggles to surface from his dream like a drowning man clawing his way through the water. He gulps in a deep breath when his head breaks free of a tangle of blankets. It’s early, but dawn’s first light is just beginning to creep into the swamp. Everything is limned with a pale yellow glow, the only time of day the place looks anything other than dismal. His eyes are already fixed on Hawkeye when he blinks them open. Hawkeye, who is there, in the flesh, sound asleep with his mouth wide open and one foot sticking off the side of his cot. BJ props himself up on one elbow, feels tears in his eyes in the same moment he realizes he’s grinning from ear to ear.
He flops back down on his pillow, still gazing at Hawkeye. That feeling from the night before is back, and it’s even better now that he’s fully awake to appreciate it. Peace, calm, clarity. He’s looking right at Hawkeye with his eyes wide open and his heart overflowing and he’s not afraid.
Seems like he’s spent most of his life being afraid. From the night of his thirteenth birthday party when it was Jimmy Spencer’s turn to spin the bottle and it came to rest pointing right at BJ and he was just a little too slow to make the requisite grossed-out face and nudge it along to land on the girl next to him. There’s always something to be afraid of.
Not too long ago and a whole lifetime ago there was the first time he heard the sound of mortars screaming overhead, the first time he saw a boy breathe his last with terror in his eyes, covered in blood and muck but lo and behold, that was the same day an angel calling himself Hawkeye dropped into BJ’s life to hold him, to comfort and protect him, to needle and annoy and frustrate him and, soon enough, to drive him crazy with wonder and want.
Because BJ didn’t fall for straight men. He just didn’t. There had to be something there, something for him to pin his hopes on, and with Hawkeye...
‘So, San Francisco,’ he’d said over their first game of chess, those impossible blue eyes sparkling up through his dirty black hair. ‘Never been myself, but my friends like it there. Lotta strange bedfellows in a city like that.’
‘Well,’ BJ had dropped his eyes to his bishop, dragging out the word as he captured a pawn. ‘One man’s strange bedfellow is another man’s fellow traveler.’
He’d looked up at last to catch Hawkeye beaming at him. He lost the game a couple of moves later.
By the end of his first week in the swamp, BJ would have fallen into Hawkeye’s bed if privacy was a word that had any meaning around here, and he’s quite sure that would have ended in disaster. He’d found himself giving grudging thanks for Frank’s presence more than once; Ferret Face was more effective than saltpeter.
A week after the chess game they were playing poker in the O club using whatever they had in their pockets for chips. BJ was drinking off the patient he’d lost in the OR that morning and Hawkeye was just drinking. Frowning down at his cards he’d felt a foot against his own, just a brush at first and then a deliberate press, the toe of a boot against his ankle. ‘Don’t frown like that,’ Hawk had said, murmured really, leaning right up to say it in his ear like there was nothing queer about it at all. ‘You’ll spoil your good looks.’ And then he’d winked and tossed a hairpin into the betting pool, ‘Raise you,’ his foot still flush with BJ’s.
When he remembered that night months later he would laugh until his sides ached — a hairpin, he had dropped a literal hairpin! Only Hawkeye, Jesus Christ, only Hawkeye — but that night all the whiskey in his veins suddenly hopped the track from fire to ice and all he could hear were sirens in his ears, danger, danger, don’t let him see you. He didn’t know Hawk very well yet, was blinded by his own crush and scared. Not without reason, either, he’d lost friends to entrapment schemes back in the city and there was a good reason he and Peg had done what they’d done, after all. But later, after he’d seen the man flirt with a psychiatrist and a catholic priest among many, many others, the thought that he’d once been scared of Hawkeye’s intentions will be the source of endless amusement.
By the end of that first month, though, BJ found a new philosophy, more effective than Frank, to comfort him every night that he went to bed alone: this thing that was building between him and his new bunkie, it was more unexpected and more precious than finding a lover in the middle of a war would have been. It was friendship, in the purest, rawest form that BJ had ever known. It was devotion. It was adoration. It edged, at times, into fanaticism. For every time BJ allowed himself to think about what it would be like to follow Hawkeye into the supply room, or throw him in a Jeep and drive him out to the middle of nowhere, he can think of a dozen times that Hawk was the reason he got through the day. The only thing keeping him going, getting him out of bed in the morning and getting from the greens to the whites and back without screaming.
He paints the camp red for the guy.
Now, BJ has had his share of lovers but he’s never actually been in love before. He’s been hurt by an affair coming to a rocky end, but it’s never lasted long. And now, here he is, awake at the crack of dawn staring at Hawkeye with stars in his eyes and an extra beat in his heart because Hawkeye is here, alive alive alive when for a few hours yesterday he had been gone, lost, vanished.
All this time BJ has been telling himself, believing himself, that it’s better to live with the heartache of only having half of what he wants than to risk losing everything he has. It’s a truth that’s got them this far without combusting, without stepping them over that line in the sand that could ruin both their lives. But sometime between yesterday and today it’s become a lie. A lie that he can’t live with anymore. He won’t.
He should let Hawkeye sleep, he knows he should leave him to his well-deserved rest, but he’s out of bed and moving towards him anyway, pulled like a magnet — and then he’s stumbling to the side, catching himself on the stove and swearing under his breath. Charles mutters and turns over in his sleep. Hawkeye doesn’t move. BJ squints through the low light at what tripped him up. It’s Hawkeye’s bag, left open on the floor between their beds. A sheaf of papers has slid half-out along with Hawk’s flask and a roll of gauze. He bends down to shove it all back into place but his gaze is arrested by the words he reads at the top of the first sheet of paper.
I, Benjamin Franklin Pierce, being of sound mind and endangered body, hereby decree this to be my last will and testament.
BJ blinks. Blinks again. The words don’t shift into focus or reorder themselves into something more sensible. His brain feels like a broken-down engine, grinding its gears, and he scans the page for anything that will tell him what this means.
Halfway down a line is smudged. It was written, erased, and written over. Charles’s name is printed there now. BJ can just make out the lines of his own beneath it. He turns the page over; it’s written on the back of an unused patient chart from Battalion Aid.
BJ sits down heavily on his own bed, staring. And then he reads. He reads every page from Charles to Klinger. And then he reads every name from Private Samuel T Aaron to Sergeant Robert M Zelnick.
- - -
Hawkeye begins to stir when BJ sits down on his bed. The sun is just cresting the hill to the east and a pale beam of light falls across Hawk’s face. His nose twitches and he rubs his cheek against his pillow, eyes blinking open slow and sticky while BJ stays very still, just watching him wake.
“Hey,” Hawkeye mumbles, then presses the heel of one hand over his eye. He’s quiet for a long moment before he looks up at BJ again, gaze growing keen as he searches BJ’s face. “I was supposed to remind you to give me something.”
BJ blinks, then nods. “That’s right.”
Hawkeye huffs softly, yawns, and pushes himself up on one elbow, knees knocking into BJ’s hip. “Was I dreaming?”
“Only if I was dreaming too.” Slow and steady, like Hawk’s a wild animal that BJ’s trying not to startle even though he’s the one whose heart is hammering like a scared rabbit, BJ brings a hand up to rest on Hawkeye’s knee.
“I’m not dreaming now am I?” Hawkeye speaks to BJ’s hand, like it’s got a mind of its own and might answer for him, so BJ pinches him through the blanket. As expected, Hawkeye gives a theatrical squawk and shoots him a glare that melts off his face as soon as their eyes meet. BJ watches, entranced, as Hawk’s Adam’s apple bobs and he licks his lips. When he speaks again his voice is hushed. “Did you mean it, Beej?”
BJ purses his lips like he’s got to give it some thought. It doesn’t last longer than a breath and then he’s nodding.
“All right,” Hawk says, pushing himself all the way up to sitting at the head of his bed, patting the sliver of empty space beside him. “Come here. You heard me! My bed, my rules. Come up here.”
Hawkeye waits while BJ relocates, while BJ gingerly settles himself right next to Hawk, close enough to touch, but Hawkeye’s hands are folded in his lap, long fingers elegantly interlaced. An artist’s dream, those hands, and BJ is slow to lift his eyes to Hawkeye’s face. When he does, he sees the same sunny smile that’s greeted him on so many dismal mornings, pulled him through so many impossible days.
“BJ?”
It sounds like a question so BJ says, hoarse, “Yeah?”
“Give me a kiss.”
BJ ducks his head in a shallow nod, pulls in a deep breath through his nose, and leans in to press a slow, careful kiss to Hawkeye’s lips.
Finally.
He either says it out loud or he and Hawk are reading each other’s minds again because Hawkeye laughs against his mouth and pulls him in close, arms around his shoulders as he whispers in his ear, “If I knew this was what it would take I’d have almost-died much sooner.”
An involuntary shudder wracks BJ’s entire body and Hawkeye pulls back, leaving a hand on each arm like he thinks BJ might be about to run. “What?”
BJ looks away, passes a hand over his mouth. “I thought you were dead.”
Hawkeye gives a quiet, “Huh.”
BJ nods, still looking at the door. “First patient off the first bus from Battalian Aid. Told us a doctor had died.”
“Oh.” It’s all Hawk says for a moment, then his grip on BJ’s arms turns painful. “Oh, god. Oh, Beej, I’m sorry.”
His throat too tight to speak, BJ just shakes his head. There’s a soft touch against his cheek and he leans into it as Hawkeye tenderly cups his face in his palm and swipes his thumb beneath BJ’s eye, catching the tear before it can fall.
“I thought I was dead, too. I mean, I think that every day but last night I really…really thought that was it.”
“I know. I read your will. Sorry,” BJ adds quickly, flushing under Hawkeye’s keen gaze. “I didn’t mean to, it fell out of your bag. I… Thank you. For what you said to Erin.”
Hawkeye nods, lips parted, as somber as BJ has ever seen him. “You know, I spent that whole time trying to think of what I could leave to you, something that would…that would mean something.” Hawk’s eyes fall closed, he looks like he’s in pain as he gives a shudder like someone’s just walked over his grave. But then his eyes are open again, unerring blue like the summer sky over Mill Valley, a precious reminder that there is a world outside of all of this. “Boy, I sure am glad I made it back. What kind of a shmuck up and dies without mentioning his best guy in his will?”
The breath stutters in BJ’s chest and then Hawkeye is kissing him again.
The sound Hawk makes when BJ begins to return the kiss in earnest, a low keening deep in his throat when BJ slides his tongue along Hawkeye’s bottom lip, it hits BJ like a blow to the solar plexus and he’s left gasping, scrabbling for purchase, his own heartbeat pounding so loud in his ears that for a moment it drowns out everything else.
Hawk’s got his hand shoved up under the back of his shirt and BJ’s holding him with his fingers buried in that shaggy black mop of his when they finally break for breath. Hawkeye sags forward, dropping his forehead on BJ’s shoulder and letting out a breath that sounds suspiciously like a laugh and that’s it, BJ is gone, a mad fit of the giggles like some dumb punk who’s over the moon after his very first kiss.
Hawkeye’s laughing too, the whole cot shaking with it as they clutch each other, and every time they start to settle down, make any attempt to speak or hold eye contact, they’re off again like children.
“You better understand one thing, Hawkeye Piece,” BJ gets out at last, pitching his voice high and offended. “I’m no one’s one night stand!”
Hawkeye guffaws. “Oh believe me, darling,” he says, probably going for John Wayne, landing closer to Fred Astaire. “There’s too much I want to do with you to throw you out after one night.”
BJ snorts and swats at the side of his head. Hawk catches his wrist and presses a kiss to the center of his palm, eyes locked with BJ’s, fierce and clear and unblinking.
Charles’s voice from across the tent makes them both jump about a mile, springing apart like they’ve been hit with a defibrillator.
“Now that the two of you have at long last cut to the chase, would you please be so kind as to take it to the supply room — or, better yet, Montmartre!”
Charles is sitting up in bed, his sleep mask flipped up above his eyes and a look of such supreme smugness on his face that it’s shocking, even for Charles.
“Oh, please,” Charles raises a hand and his voice to be heard above their stammering denials. “A blind man could have seen the courtship dance you two buffoons have been enacting over the past year. And a deaf man could hear the southward rush of blood whenever you are in the room together!” Chuckling to himself as though he’s said something extremely clever, Charles readjusts his sleep mask and lies down once more, tucking his blankets up under his chin.
BJ stares at him, waiting for the other shoe to fall, then turns to Hawkeye and they gape at each other in stunned silence.
“Maybe we should, uh,” Hawk mumbles, and reaches down to snag his pants off the floor.
“Yeah, yeah,” BJ agrees faintly, and they get dressed in record time and practically fall out the door.
“Oh my god,” Hawkeye crows in his ear, leaning against him and almost falling over with laughter the way he has so many times before, but BJ doesn’t think he’s ever felt so warm against his side, so vital and alive. “Oh my god, Charles — did you know?”
“No!” BJ twists to look over his shoulder, and then lowers his voice. “No. Did you?”
Hawkeye’s answer is another full-body laugh and a hand on BJ’s shoulder, steering him towards the mess tent. “Come on, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee. And then…what do you say we see Potter about a couple of three-day passes to Tokyo?”
“Hawkeye Pierce, you are a gentleman and a scholar.”
“Thank you, thank you.” Hawkeye gives an elaborate bow, but his hand is right back on his shoulder before BJ has a chance to miss its warmth, and he starts up whistling a familiar tune. It takes Hawkeye a few bars to catch it but when he does, he joins in, belting out the words and ignoring the calls of ‘Put a sock in it!’ coming from the corpsmen’s tent.
“The turn in the weather will keep us together, so I can honestly say that as far as I'm concerned, it's a lovely day.”
And everything’s okay.