Chapter Text
BJ fell back into bed.
It was days since they’d last seen each other, him and his cot. It hadn’t changed a bit, but he felt like he’d aged a few years at least.
A fresh batch of orphans had come through the camp, all needing checkups and bandaids and respite. The usual. Also per usual bringing in a sense of levity and joy that kids always brought to things like this. Despite everything, they still played, still giggled, still got up to mischief, and still trusted people enough to fall asleep in your arms at bedtime. It was always undercut with this horrible sense that parents should be the ones doing things for these children, that they were here because the worst thing humans could do to each other was where they had to grow up-
But you know. Small graces. Take them where you can get them.
He was thinking now about how the youngest had reached out and tugged on his mustache. It didn’t feel great, yeah, but it was the best thing that had happened to him in a while: a little uncoordinated fist grabbing what it could and a baby giggling at the funny face he made. Maybe Erin would do the same if she was here instead, she had never seen him with a mustache- not that he’d ever want Erin to be here! This was no place for any children, and as much as he wanted to be with his family, them being here would be even worse than them being away in the States. It was comforting to think about, sometimes, playing movies in his head of little Erin in a frilly swimsuit, sat under an umbrella with Peg, watching the waves...
He picked up the book he’d snagged from Charles’s trunk that he never bothered to take back and lazily grazed on some of the words. It had California in it, so just holding it seemed to bring him a little closer to home. ‘ Cannery Row ’... very vague memories floated by of eating there with his family once, as a kid. They’d gone to see the bay and stopped in to look at all the fishing places. The food was decent. People were friendly, if downtrodden. It was just… normal. Wasn’t great, wasn’t terrible, wasn’t anything special. Right now, though, it sounded like heaven, seeing any place that was nothing special in the normal sense. A line of nothing but canneries sounded like a place he could die happy in. Maybe they’d can him.
It was a while before he noticed that Hawkeye had already been in the tent when BJ crumpled into bed, he just hadn’t made any noise. Probably too tired. He pulled his eyes off the page with some effort and gazed at him. He’d showered, finally, that was clear; his hair was still wet, but not greasy, and he’d at least half-heartedly run his fingers through it so the part was even. Hadn’t shaved, but that wasn’t surprising, he only did that when he had cause to want aftershave. He’d put underwear on, but refused to change out of a robe and into a shirt.
Definitely too tired for much banter.
And he was knitting. Finally. They’d balled up so much yarn together, it was beginning to seep into his dreams. He almost started accusing Hawkeye of pulling all the yarn back out just so he could make BJ sit there for an hour to rewind it. Someone did that in a play once, he thought. Something about waiting for her husband to come home from war, weaving and re-weaving the same tapestry. He’d do that with Hawk, anything to kill the boredom.
What he was knitting was unclear. He’d just started, and it was about 8 inches wide so far. Could be a potholder, a scarf, a sweater, a blanket; only thing that would limit him was his imagination. It was a wonder, watching his hands work; they deftly weaved together whatever the hell it was going to be, dancing very practiced steps round and round, measured pulls and slacks.
It was the only semi-decent thing about having a kid so bad that they had to play doubles. He loved watching Hawkeye work, something was so elegant about it. It was different from Colonel Potter’s wisened and steady stitching, from Winchester’s perfectionist and confident crocheting of flesh. Instead, it was like watching a conductor at the orchestra; Hawkeye moved with rhythm. Everything was deliberate, everything was on-pace. It was resolute. It was amazing. It was something too beautiful to be here in this corner of war, this little backwoods clinic where the most common cause of illness was lead poisoning pumped into former children.
Maybe that’s why it was so nice to see Hawkeye knit. The same grace, same delicate ballet of fingers, but it was lazy, and casual, and he was making something soft. Something warm, something that wouldn’t hurt anyone or bleed if you pulled wrong or ask you why you even bothered knitting it together if you were just going to send it back out to be unspun. Something you could find at home. Something he had found at home. Something to come home to.
He was making a song out of yarn. He was a deeply musical person, even if he never said it. He'd sing in the showers, in the mess tent, in the OR, anywhere he could open his mouth without catching a bug, he'd make music. It was in his bones.
It was red. Like… roses. More orange in this red, though, like poppies. Poppies, not blood, and not like the one they had fields of in California, either, but the cousin of it, the one they made painkillers from, the ones people would plant for soldiers. The little gold cups back home grew just to grow, they didn't grow because someone died. He wondered if the red ones grew in Maine.
Maine sounded nice. Anywhere sounded good, but the way Hawkeye always talked about it made it sound like… Nirvana. Or El Dorado. Or something else clever BJ was too sleepy to put into the right words. A place that only existed in storybooks, you could only get there by remembering what it was like to be a kid. Creeks you’d get wet shoes in trying to catch mud bugs. White winters with white Christmases and toasting marshmallows in the fireplace. Long-necked birds calling on summer nights, merging with the song of frogs and cicadas and the rustle of fir trees to make symphonies in the dark.
A place from a postcard. That’s where Hawkeye was from.
Sometimes, they’d both lay awake and tell each other about it all. It drove Charles mad, but he’d tell them all about Boston sometimes, as a sort of one-up. It sounded nice too. Busier than anywhere either of the other two had been before all this, but the good kind of busy. The kind with traffic and pickpockets and newspapers, sewer grates and taxis and smog. And when he’d talk about the river there, and the harbor, they could almost smell the stink of the docks. He never said it, but it made Charles feel better, just a little bit. BJ knew.
Charles, speaking of, was busy in post-op. They didn’t have any wounded at the time, really, just a few people with sprained wrists or food poisoning, but he insisted on checking them anyway. BJ theorized that it was his way of shifting back into ‘doctor mode’. Despite his best attempt to hide it, Charles was very good with the kids. More than that, he liked being around them. He, too, was prey to the joy of shrieking children that played tag in the yard.
The needles glinted in the dim light, caught his eye as Hawk picked thread, looped it over, and tucked it again. A little magic trick where he suddenly had this bolt of knitted cloth. A miracle of human ingenuity, and boredom. BJ’s heart was light, and his eyelids heavy.
“Beej, I didn’t have you pegged as much of a birdwatcher.” He’d been staring at for a while now, whoops. How long had Hawk been staring back?
“Caught me without my binoculars.” He offered a smile. Hawk went back to knitting, too tired to be unsatisfied with that response. BJ’s mind shifted back into daydreaming, welcoming it openly now, wanting to get right back into the picture book.
But he didn't. Now with the sounds of the kids on the basketball court fading from memory, and the thoughts of Boston, of California, of Maine sliding away, he felt colder. His blanket of happy fantasy was pulled off of him too early in the morning, and he was left with a rock in his chest. It had rolled up from his stomach, probably got in there during today’s masquerade of ‘dinner’ and was suddenly in his throat, crushing his heart along the way. It was knocking on his teeth, pleading to come out in a deluge of bile. It made his eyes water.
Maybe he was tired. Maybe he just needed some sleep. Or maybe he was just tired of this . Living like this, where thinking about any place other than here was a welcome relief, even if it smelled like rotting fish, or was flooded with mosquitos, or was five-thousand miles away in a home with people he loved before he got sent here to get shot at pulling shrapnel out of kids not even old enough to buy cigarettes. They weren't supposed to be here - he wasn't supposed to be here. He belonged in San Francisco, in Mill Valley, anywhere but here.
What if he hadn't been a doctor? What if he'd gotten drafted and he was one of the new fish the choppers would bring in? What if he was anyway? They got shelled sometimes, what if one struck them? What if Erin grew up with a mother and a story instead of a father? She wouldn't even be old enough to remember him. All it would take was one sniper, or one artillery strike, or one grenade under his bunk, and he'd be gone.
All of this, but death wasn't even the only bad outcome. What if he came home, but didn't? What if Erin grew up taking trips to visit dad in some sanitarium? What if he cracked?
He didn’t even realize he was crying until Hawk said something. He’d looked up from his yarn, probably to remind him he was still staring, and saw the wetness on his face.
“Beej?” He blinked slowly, rousing from his sleep-knitting. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Not the truth, but not a lie, really. He didn’t know exactly what the matter was, at the core, but it was something. He just couldn't put it in words. He didn’t know an excuse to give for what put tears in his eye, so he turned over onto his side, back facing Hawkeye. What he did know was if he kept looking at him, with that look on his face, it would all come out right then. The thought hit him with strong dread. Whatever it was needed to stay put.
He wiped his nose on his sleeve and hugged the little book he hadn’t been reading to his chest, his face uncomfortably hot with tears and embarrassment. His heart was beating too fast, too loud in the too quiet tent, pushing on his eardrums- Hawk must be able to hear it . He sniffed once, and then decided not to do that anymore; that was worse than the silence.
Something was swallowing him up now, suddenly the cloud he had been floating on since the kids got here rained itself out and he was plummeting down, down, down into cold water. His heartbeat was playing the role of the pitter-patter of the storm, too fast, too fast, the snot in his nose starring as the puddle he was face-down in.
He heard Hawkeye move behind him, a soft click as he put the needles together and set them aside. There was the soft shifting of fabric as he pulled his legs out of his cot, then silence, then a weight pressing down on the bed behind him. A hand perched on his shoulder. The cot was shaking.
“Beej.” It just barely rose above a whisper. “Look at me, will you?”
He was bad at turning down requests from the great Captain Pierce on account of him being so damn annoying if you did. He took a deep breath and rolled a bit to see him. He looked… gaunt, sitting there. Tired. Older than he should be. Thin, and wiry. The robe helped give him a little more body, but it was threadbare too, so there wasn’t much to go around. There was enough for Hawkeye to reach out and wipe a tear that had fallen sideways to start tickling the bridge of BJ’s nose, though. BJ’s lip started quivering despite his attempt to keep them both pursed and sturdy. Then Hawkeye gave his shoulder a tiny squeeze, and it was over.
He grabbed Hawk’s steady hand in his clammy one and pressed it against his cheek, sobbing as silently as he could manage (which wasn’t very). Everything fell away, all he could do was keep Hawkeye’s hand on his face and hold on. He wasn’t in a puddle anymore, he’d been dropped into the bay, waves sucking him out into the depths. He was cold, and he was seeing spots, and he was nearly choking on each breath. His chest felt tight. The world was too bright, and too dark, and he was freezing but sweating, everything was wet and heavy and too dense and too loose and too tight--
Someone was rolling him onto his side now, a million miles away. Unknown hands took his book and pulled his arm over a warm body, and cupped his head. All he could make out for certain was Hawkeye’s steady hand on his cheek, he knew what that was. Each breath hitched in, rough and gasping, with a little whine, and blew out as a half-baked sob, barely getting out before the next desperate claw for air. I’m dying , he figured. I’m gonna die right here in this damn stinking tent, and I must be dying because someone’s reached inside me and shook my skeleton around, and not-dying people don’t feel like that. He barely felt the rumbling of the chest he was resting on; it was talking to him, but God only knew what it was saying. It was somewhere he couldn’t be right then. His head was full of water, he was drowning in it and he just needed to stay there with this hand pressed on his face or he’d go under.
Everything ached.
Everything froze.
After what felt like hours, he became dimly aware of the rough cot under him. His head felt so light now- he was glad he was lying down. His breathing was still fast, but slowing. His eyes closed and opened again, fuzzy, stinging, but the spots were gone. He heard, in one ear, the steady thump-thump of a heart-- though it wasn’t his own anymore, now it was matched by the smooth drag of healthy lungs. Down below was a stomach quietly gurgling, making its commentary of the owner’s gin dinner known. In the other ear, he heard pages flapping, and looked unsteadily at the book being used as a fan to cool him off. Someone was also blowing air on his face. His cheek still had a hand pressed against it, but gentler now. His own hand unhooked from the waist he had grabbed and pulled dog tags out from under his head as he unclenched his jaw and sniffled.
“There he is.” His head buzzed from the vibration of speech; relief was thick in Hawkeye’s voice. “Thought you were gonna croak for a minute there.” He laughed dryly. He’d been worried, really worried, even if he was trying to hide it now. They lapsed back into silence as Hawkeye moved his hand to BJ’s forehead instead of his cheek, still fanning with the other. It was clear now; he had put BJ’s arm over himself, pulling him close. Now BJ was worried that he’d managed to bruise his hip with how hard he must have been grabbing him. Whatever BJ looked like, Hawkeye had decided the best medicine was to be up on each other and wait out the storm.
Turns out he was right. A palm against his forehead, thumb gently rubbing on his scalp, his scruffy cheek against a bony but decently warm chest, arm thrown across someone that cared about him (that he cared about)... that cooled him off. He felt twice as tired as when he was not-reading, all the spirit gone out of him. More than that, it was the most exhausted he’d felt since he got to Korea.
“You caught me without my falsies, I don’t make a good pillow on my own.”
That one worked. BJ chuckled, cracking, and he smiled a little. The spell broke. He’d rolled out of the tide and back into the Swamp. There was air in him now, his head was draining…
…right out onto Hawkeye’s chest. Because he was pressed all up on him with his head on his ribs and he was snotting everywhere. He mustered what energy he could to crane up to look at him, scratching up his chest with the sandpaper of his cheek.
Beej’d never seen him from this angle, he was always the one looking down at Hawkeye. His eyes were hooded, lids glossy with sleep, brow relaxed and plain. It was all dark in there, shadowed by his defined frame. They still shone a bit, though, catching light. The corners of his mouth were pulled in, closer to his teeth, making his lips terse, pensive. He tilted his head a little as he scanned BJ’s face.
“You look like you tried to kiss a hagfish.”
“You look like you hugged one.”
“Touché. And after I just showered, too. I oughta make better decisions on who I put my arms around.” They held each other’s gaze for a while. BJ was searching for what Hawkeye would do next, and for a while, the answer was ‘check to see if he was going to start shaking again’. “Should I-”
He tensed. “No, ah, no.” BJ felt like it was cue for him to sit up, break this embrace, reassure Hawkeye that he definitely didn’t need a check-over, not from him and certainly not from Sidney, but he couldn’t muster the will to move. “I’m okay.”
“Well, you’re the doctor,” was both sarcastic and unconvinced.
“I am.”
“What’s the treatment then, o wise one?”
“Bedrest.”
“Oh, we’re almost out of that, I’m afraid. Let me see if I can requisition some.” Hawkeye gave him two pats on the head, and then slid away. BJ just needed to sleep, so back to his own bunk he shall go.
Sea water came back up to his neck. Threatening to spill out all over the bed again. He urgently, desperately grabbed out at the lifeboat, catching his wrist. He could feel Hawkeye's tendons abruptly slacken as he dropped the book from the force of the grip. “Wait-”
A beat.
“Bedrest… and company.” He didn’t say it as a question, but it was. Really, it was pleading. One look at his face - lips pale, eyes round, teeth grinding - was enough. With a glance to the door, to beyond that - post-op, the mess tent, the whole camp, and all the way back to his own bed, Hawkeye acquiesced. They settled back down.
“Fine, but I have to charge you. And no kissing on the mouth.”
“Hawk.”
“Alright alright, but no tongue.”
“Goodnight, Hawk.”
“G’night, Beej.”
“...Beej?”
“Yeah?”
“You still have your shoes on. And you’re kicking me.”
“Oh.” Thunk-unk.
“Better, thanks.”
“Sorry.”
“What are we sorry for now?”
“All that.”
“Well I’m sorry for not putting a shirt on before you did it, but it's over now, and it's fine.”
“Okay.”
“Good.”
“Thanks.”
“Yeah.”
“Is this weird?”
“What’s weird is you waking me again.”
“I just… what if someone sees?”
“Then...” Sigh. “I… I had a little heart murmur you were checking on, because you’re such a good doctor, and you got sleepy, and well, I’m just such a gentleman that I let you stay.”
“But it’s my bunk.”
“We’ll workshop it. I'm tired."
"And I'm not using a stethoscope. And there's a mess, your chest-"
"We'll workshop it."
"Okay."
“Thanks.”
“Yeah-yeah.”
“Really, I-”
“Beej, I mean this with all the tenderness and love in my heart, if you scare the sandman away one more time, I’ll sew everything on your face shut. Bedrest means rest."
“...”
“Good man.”
The weight of BJ’s head on Hawkeye's chest was different, but comfortable. They laid there as Hawk’s breathing deepened, his heart slowing as he drifted away. Hearing sleep come to him so easily reassured BJ all the more, and he soon found himself entering a world with soft grass and a field of poppies, red and yellow, as far as he could see. Korea drifted further and further from memory as he lay down in a soft pasture. The sun was warm and kind on his skin, a knit blanket under his body.
~~~
Winchester came back to the Swamp, feeling altogether normal again, which faltered when he saw that captains Pierce and Hunnicutt had foregone the use of two cots and were crowded together on the latter’s bunk. One of them was in a state of undress, and the other looked ghastly. Both were asleep.
That book he’d noticed Hunnicutt take and never give back was on the floor, splayed open, next to his precious sneakers. He raked his eyes back over the scene before plucking the poor book from the dirt, dusting it off, and setting it on the table by BJ’s cot. He then set the sneakers upright, neat, laces tucked in, underneath Hunnicutt’s bed. Lastly, he pulled up the thin canvas blanket that was kicked almost completely off the bunk and draped it over the two. Whatever this was, He certainly wasn't going to deal with their attitude if things were in a state of disarray from this night.
That was a lie, he knew it. He was just taking advantage of the situation to force them to be tidier, but he had been trying to reframe selfishness as selflessness lately, because really, a lot of the things he did had overlap. Regardless, this wasn’t something he felt inclined to deal with now, and so, having done his part, he turned in for bed.
Let the sleeping dogs lie, he thought with an amused honk. At least until Reveille.