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Hawkeye lets BJ cry until he can’t anymore. He holds BJ against his shoulder, and he listens to BJ list his frustrations (surprised that the still is among them), and for once, Hawkeye doesn’t utter a single word because nothing he can say will make any of this okay.
They sit on the ground of Potter’s office for an indeterminate amount of time. The saddle holder digs into Hawkeye’s back. The floor is unforgiving against his tailbone. And, BJ’s hand is steadily bleeding onto his pink shirt. It isn’t enough to make Hawkeye panic, but it still makes him cringe. A couple stitches might be necessary.
“Alright, come on, big guy,” Hawkeye groans while struggling to his feet. “We need to do something about that hand.”
“My hand?” BJ blinks up at Hawkeye with puffy, bloodshot eyes. “What’s wrong with—oh.” Apparently he hadn’t noticed before. “Shit.”
Hawkeye extends his own hand to help him up, bracing himself for the way BJ will, without a doubt, stumble right into him, and yep, all 6-foot-whatever knocks against Hawkeye, forcing a short ‘umf’ from his throat.
“Sorry,” BJ huffs, “having a hard time making my feet work right now.” He sounds mostly sober, but the coordination definitely needs work.
“Yeah, well,” Hawkeye wraps an arm around BJ’s torso to support him as they begin to walk out of Potter’s office, “that’s what happens when you drink the entire camp dry.”
BJ’s responding laugh is nothing more than self-deprecating. He keeps his right hand close to his chest, and Hawkeye can tell that BJ is trying to stay upright and move in a straight line, but he keeps tripping over his huge feet, keeps dropping more and more weight into Hawkeye’s side, keeps apologizing over and over and over.
“Beej, it’s fine, just…” Hawkeye walks them both through pre-op then into the empty OR where he motions for BJ to sit on one of the tables. “Stay right here while I scrub.”
“You gonna cut me open, doc?” BJ snorts, tall enough to sit on the steel platform without issue then lying down completely.
And, Hawkeye really doesn’t have it in himself to joke. His face fucking hurts, and he just spent the last however long listening to his best friend spill his guts, and somehow everything feels worse than it did before.
The war is worse. The camp is worse. The Swamp is worse. BJ is worse—a man once fresh-faced and frightened is now hopeless and angry. BJ is so angry.
Hawkeye understands; he’s angry too. Sometimes he thinks he might crack his teeth from gritting them so hard. Sometimes he thinks he’ll drive a scalpel through his jugular out of spite.
Hawkeye is allowed to be angry, though, but BJ… BJ was never supposed to be. Hawkeye had tried to do everything he could to keep things light, keep BJ laughing, make him feel like it would all eventually end.
He was naive to ever think he had a chance in preserving BJ’s—innocence isn’t the right word. Purity? Hope?
All Hawkeye got was a front row seat to the change taking place, more light leaving BJ’s eyes with each passing day, the realization hitting that BJ won’t be the same man that he was when he left California.
Hawkeye wishes he could take that pain and make it his own, would do anything to be able to give that hope back to BJ. He’d do anything for BJ, period. It’s why he’s gathering sterile supplies now, preparing to stitch up the same hand he’d been struck with just hours ago.
Anything. Hawkeye would do anything. Forgive anything. If it’s within his power, he’ll do whatever it takes to make BJ happy.
Because that’s what you do when you love somebody.
When Hawkeye steps back into the OR, BJ is right where Hawkeye left him. With his eyes closed, Hawkeye thinks he might have fallen asleep, but as soon as he steps up to the table, those blue eyes crack open, and BJ releases a heavy sigh.
“You don’t have to do this, Hawk,” he mumbles.
Hawkeye pulls on a pair of gloves then drapes one of the instrument tables to set out his supplies.
“Oh, are you so talented that you’re able to stitch yourself up one-handed? Left-handed?”
“That’s not what I meant,” BJ shakes his head, blond hair messy and full of static against the steel.
“So, you’re not God’s gift to surgery.”
“Never said I was,” BJ huffs. “How could I be when the title already belongs to one Charles Emerson Winchester the third,” adopting that annoying, high-class tone.
Hawkeye snorts and picks up the syringe of lidocaine.
“Really, though, you shouldn’t—I don’t deserve you,” BJ tells him, shutting his eyes, which Hawkeye is thankful for as it means BJ doesn’t see the way Hawkeye’s widen.
“Beej,” Hawkeye starts to argue, but his voice cracks, forcing him to clear his throat before continuing, “you had a bad day. You blew up. I just happened to be standing in the line of fire.”
“I punched you,” BJ sits up suddenly.
Hawkeye flinches backwards on instinct, and God, he wishes he hadn’t because, once again, he bears witness to another heartbreak, has to watch as BJ sets his jaw, clenches his fists, forcing fresh blood from the cuts on his hand and wrist.
Hawkeye knows exactly what he’s thinking—that he’s scared of BJ, waiting for another fist to fly, and while that isn’t outside of the realm of possibility, it’s also patently false.
“Oh, no,” Hawkeye steps forward again. “No, no. You’re not adding this to your collection of ‘things to stew over’. You’ve already got enough baggage to fill a closet, and I am not about to be put on a shelf between an old shoebox and Radar O’Reilly.”
He expects BJ to scowl. Maybe lash out all over again, but he does neither. Instead, BJ’s expression relaxes entirely. Not in relief but in defeat. His shoulders slump, he looks down at where his feet hang just above the floor, and he grumbles exactly what Hawkeye doesn’t want to hear: “just leave me alone. I can take care of my hand with a bandage.”
“Hoping for an infection? I guess getting an arm amputated is one way to get a ticket home.”
“It would not—” BJ scoffs only to cut himself off and redirect, “just go, Hawk.”
Hawkeye makes a show of planting his feet. “No.”
“Why not?” BJ’s eyes are narrow, jaw sliding forward to show off some of the teeth that Hawkeye has been moderately obsessed with since meeting the bastard.
There are several reasons he’s refusing to leave, but at the very top of the list is the fact that he simply doesn’t trust BJ not to do something stupid like get into the cabinet of curare and pentathol. It’s out of character for him, but then, so is trashing the Swamp.
Of course, Hawkeye isn’t about to tell him that.
“Because friends don’t let friends bleed all over their favorite shirt.”
“Yeah, well friends don’t hit each other either.”
“Jesus Christ, would you can it with the right hook?” Hawkeye snaps, voice beginning to raise. “I forgive you, okay? I forgave you as soon as my ass hit the ground!”
“Why?” BJ slides off the table, but Hawkeye doesn’t flinch this time, stays steady, stays grounded, stays… a little breathless, if he’s being honest because BJ is suddenly very, very close. “Why would you forgive me?”
“‘Cause you’re the only thing that’s kept me sane here! You’re my best friend, you moron!” —friend friend friend, nothing more than a friend, can’t be more than a friend— “one bad day isn’t gonna change that. I wouldn’t survive without you.”
BJ blinks, actually looks taken off guard. Stupid. He should know by now that Hawkeye is incapable of tearing off the heart he’d sewn onto his sleeve as a little boy.
“I’m the same way. That’s why…” BJ stops and swallows. “Why do you think I feel so bad about this?”
“Because if there’s one thing you’re better at than surgery, it’s making mountains out of molehills,” Hawkeye tuts while trying to lighten the atmosphere. “It’s impressive, actually. I’d be curious to see what you could do with an excavator.”
Waving his bloody hand, BJ follows Hawkeye’s lead into more casual territory. “I wouldn’t know what to do with all those knobs and levers.”
Hawkeye has to literally bite his tongue to keep any innuendo from tumbling out of his mouth, but judging by the poorly hidden smirk on BJ’s face, there’s no real use. BJ knows him too well.
“Nevermind your knobs,” Hawkeye motions to the OR table again. “Upsy-daisy.”
The shot of lidocaine makes BJ hiss (it makes everyone hiss), but it takes effect quickly, allowing Hawkeye to pick out all the tiny shards of glass that had embedded themselves in BJ’s soft skin.
His hands are huge, veins and tendons prominent. Strong. Warm. Hawkeye has always wondered what it might feel like to have BJ touch his face (sans knuckles, preferably), run his fingers through Hawkeye’s hair.
It’s a line of thinking Hawkeye does his best to avoid, but sometimes it just isn’t possible.
It’s hard not to be curious when they spend all their time together—spend their time pressed together—in the Swamp, in the mess, in Potter’s office, in the OR. Attached at the hip. May as well be sitting in each other’s laps sometimes.
And, it’s hard not to be curious when they’re always looking at each other. Eyes meeting from across the room, sometimes to share a thought, a private joke. Other times, it feels like it’s for no other reason than to stare. Watch. In Hawkeye’s case, to admire.
And, it’s hard not to be curious when they make each other laugh, when they bicker like a married couple, when they know one another better than they know themselves. It’s hard not to be curious when BJ paints the camp for Hawkeye and when Hawkeye organizes BJ’s party for him, and when they celebrate successes by hugging and holding and—
“Hawk?” BJ speaks, pulling Hawkeye from his spiral, the kind he often falls into when he’s doing anything that has him working off muscle memory alone. “You know I love you, right?”
The stitching stops, that so-called muscle memory dissipating at once.
Hawkeye refuses to look up, doesn’t want BJ to see the spark of hope in his eyes because it shouldn’t be there in the first place. BJ doesn’t mean it the way Hawkeye wishes he did. They can be curious all they want. They can toe lines, raise suspicions, be closer than what others may view as appropriate. It’s not like it means anything, though. Not to BJ.
Hawkeye does everything he can to keep his, “yeah, I love you too, pal,” from sounding like a confession, but it makes the sentiment come off as flat—disingenuous, even.
It doesn’t escape BJ’s notice. Hawkeye can tell by the way he goes still, might even be holding his breath, a schoolboy preparing himself to be reprimanded or sent to the corner.
God, he’s really gonna make me say it. He’s gonna make me say it and mean it, and then all that shit about being best friends won’t mean a god damned thing.
“I do, Beej, I promise,” he tries. “I’m just kind of in the middle of sewing your hand up.”
“Yeah.”
Hawkeye rolls his eyes before finally looking up to meet BJ’s openly worried gaze, and honestly, fuck him for—for this. For raving about his wife and kid and going on a drunken rampage, for breaking down and trusting Hawkeye enough to hold him through it, for telling Hawkeye that he loves him then looking like a kicked dog when Hawkeye doesn’t—what? Say it back the way he wants? Fuck BJ, and fuck him for making Hawkeye wonder ‘what if’ and ‘why not’.
“If I ask you something, can you promise to be honest?” Hawkeye poses, finding the rhythm in his suturing again.
BJ doesn’t answer immediately, and his “sure” isn’t particularly reassuring.
“I mean it,” Hawkeye tells him. “No jokes, no laughing.”
“Well, now I’m scared,” BJ lets out a nervous chuckle.
Hawkeye ties off the last stitch, snips off the excess silk, then makes quick work of wrapping a couple layers of gauze around BJ’s palm.
“In Potter’s office, what’d you mean when you said you hated Trapper? Not just ‘cause he got to go home, but because—”
“He built the still with you,” BJ finishes, and there’s something off about his voice. He doesn’t sound upset. Doesn’t sound embarrassed or performative. Completely neutral, even when he elaborates—admits, more accurately, “I’m jealous of that.”
Jaw dropping, eyebrows raising, Hawkeye can’t hide his shock. “You’re jealous of Trap because we built the still together?”
BJ glances to the ceiling, trilling his lips for a few seconds before exhaling all at once. “My feelings about that guy are complicated.”
Hawkeye snorts, “join the club,” while scooping up the instruments that need to be sterilized.
He doesn’t even make it one step before BJ stops him. “And, that’s it—that’s why. Right there.”
“What are you talking about?”
BJ’s getting that look in his eyes. Not the fury Hawkeye had seen earlier in the night. No, this is the wide-eyed exasperation. Desperation. The look that comes right before BJ spirals into unfounded insecurity.
“He was here first,” BJ elaborates.
“Ahh,” Hawkeye nods, under the (false) impression that he understands. “This is about you being his replacement, isn’t it?”
“No,” BJ says quickly. “I don’t care that I replaced him. I care that I came second. I came in after him.”
Now Hawkeye is confused. Turning his back to throw away the no-longer sterile drape, Hawkeye laughs, “what’s the difference?”
“He had you first.”
BJ’s sneakers squeak as they hit the floor, and Hawkeye spins around in time to see BJ take two long strides toward him, hands on Hawkeye’s biceps (because who gives a damn about fresh stitches?).
“Don’t you—fuck, Hawkeye, don’t you get it?”
BJ gives Hawkeye a little shake. Not hard enough to make his neck snap, but definitely enough to alarm him.
“He knew you before I could. You built the still together and played pranks and went through hell and cared about each other. It doesn’t bother me that I replaced him as a surgeon, but I hate that I replaced him as your friend.”
“Oh, for Chri—you are such a dumb shit!” Hawkeye growls, pulling his arms free from BJ’s grip.
And, BJ looks hurt. Not offended, not angry, just hurt.
Hawkeye is hurt too, though. How could BJ ever think—? Of course Hawkeye cared for Trapper. He was Hawkeye’s best friend. It was devastating to be left without even a note, and it would be a lie to say Hawkeye doesn’t miss him to this day.
But, BJ… oh, BJ.
He has no idea.
Hawkeye had loved Trapper, sure. He’d had feelings for him from the start. Affection, lust, yearning. But, they never came close to the feelings he has for BJ.
There’s a difference between loving and being in love.
BJ’s back thuds against the wall when Hawkeye shoves him against it, teeth bared, words over enunciated when he tells BJ, “you are so god damn oblivious, it drives me insane.”
Then, Hawkeye kisses him.
Lips firmly pressed together. A harsh breath exhaled through his nose. He kisses him.
And, there’s a moment of panic, fear that Hawkeye read this all wrong. He’s seen BJ jealous and territorial, but it’s always been over Peggy.
(Then again, BJ acted a little off whenever Scully came around, so maybe Hawkeye has seen BJ get territorial over him, and he’d just waved it off.)
This thing about Trapper, though… well, how else is Hawkeye supposed to interpret it? On top of all the staring and touching and general inability to do anything without one another, BJ is jealous of Trapper and the time he got with Hawkeye?
It has to mean something more. Hawkeye has to mean something more.
BJ’s mouth begins to move with Hawkeye’s, and fingers find their way into Hawkeye’s hair, and one of them groans or maybe both of them do, and something about them fits. Their mouths and their noses and their bodies. They fit.
Hawkeye feels BJ’s tongue at the seam of his lips and gladly parts them, hips bucking involuntarily at the sensation and the fact that this is BJ. Hawkeye is kissing BJ, and BJ is kissing back. Enthusiastically. Holding Hawkeye by the head and by the hip and breathing heavily like he’s getting worked up and—
The taste of alcohol on BJ’s tongue finally registers in Hawkeye’s brain, and he immediately pulls away with a quick shake of his head.
“You—you’re still drunk right now,” Hawkeye mutters.
When he tries to step back, BJ doesn’t let him, “I am not.”
Hawkeye scoffs, “do you have any idea how much you drank tonight? There’s no way in hell you’re completely sober right now.”
“When’s the last time either of us were completely sober?” BJ argues, and it’s a pretty good point, but that doesn’t mean— “I know exactly what I’m doing,” BJ tries again, and when Hawkeye doesn’t budge, BJ tacks on a quiet, “please, Hawk,” brushing his thumb over the bruise he’d left on Hawkeye’s cheek.
It almost breaks him. Almost.
But, Hawkeye has some standards. Not many, but some.
It’s nothing short of a miracle that Hawkeye is able to disentangle himself from BJ. His heart rebels in his chest, and every wanting nerve ending cries out, but he still manages to take a few steps back.
“We should get some sleep,” Hawkeye says, voice strained and sad. “It’s late.”
BJ moves toward him, “Hawk,” but stops when he realizes that for every step he takes forward, Hawkeye takes one step back.
He doesn’t want to. Hawkeye really, really doesn’t want to, wishes he could throw away his doubts and morals and fling himself at BJ all over again, but he can’t. Not right now, possibly not ever again.
“If you still wanna talk about it when you’re sober, we can, but right now?” Hawkeye scratches the back of his neck and sighs. “You’ve had a rough day.”
“I’m not some toddler cranky from missing naptime,” BJ says with a glare, and that’s more like it.
Hawkeye grins, mischievous and shit-eating and entirely deflective. “Does that mean you don’t want a bedtime story? A warm glass of powdered milk?”
BJ doesn’t look even a little amused. Good.
If Hawkeye can keep him distracted or angry, he can keep his own heart in tact.
“Seriously.” Hawkeye makes a show of stretching, fakes a yawn that ends up turning into a real one. “I’m beat. Searching through all of Uijeongbu for your best friend takes a lot out of a guy.”
“You did not search through all of Uijeongbu,” BJ clicks his tongue, following Hawkeye into the scrub room.
“How would you know? You were drunk.”
The two of them walk out of the hospital side by side, matching strides, bickering in a way that’s so natural, it’s almost enough to forget what just happened in the OR.
Hawkeye kissed BJ.
BJ kissed back.
Charles is on post-op duty, so the Swamp is empty when they get to it. The nonsense argument carries on (Hawkeye kissed BJ), and they change out of their fatigues (BJ kissed back), and they stand too close while brushing their teeth, take turns spitting into someone’s helmet—Hawkeye isn’t sure whose.
At last, Hawkeye is able to throw himself back on his cot, hands behind his head, ready to close his eyes and fantasize about everything he’s not letting himself have.
A shadow falls over him, fingers at his jaw, and BJ kisses him. Soft but sure. Short but sweet. Pulls away and states, “this isn’t going away, Hawk. We’re gonna talk about it.”
BJ’s expression is serious, but his eyes are tired. Most of the fight has drained out of him.
“Sure,” Hawkeye nods, giving BJ’s wrist a light squeeze. “Whatever you say.”
Gaze flicking to Hawkeye’s mouth, Hawkeye thinks BJ might kiss him again, is both relieved and disappointed when he lets go of Hawkeye’s face and straightens.
BJ makes his way over to his own cot, pulls the chain to turn off the lamp, then lays down and rolls onto his side.
Neither of them sleep. They stay still and silent in the dark tent until the sound of chopper blades gives them an excuse to get back out of bed, and then they triage together like they always do, operate pressed back to back like they always do, and after 14 hours of meatball surgery, they collapse on the bench outside of the OR like they always do.
Covered in blood from his collar to his shoes, BJ shuts his eyes and mutters quietly, “still gonna talk about it,” then drops his head to Hawkeye’s shoulder and falls asleep.