Work Text:
Five letters down, ‘sent chargeless.’
Sidney was pretty sure it was "frank" and wouldn’t that be a coincidence of all things, but then again, the grid itself showed four boxes—when the phone rang.
"Freedman? It’s Potter up at the Four-oh-seven seven. Can you talk?"
Sidney grinned. "I’m doing a crossword, Sherman, not performing surgery. What brings me the pleasure?”
"I need you to come out here."
"What’s happening? Get a direct artillery strike to the still?"
“It’s not the still.”
Sidney set the crossword face-down, which would have been a snap to attention on a career man. "Then what is it? Hawkeye sipping through his last straw? Winchester discover humility and require emergency treatment for the shock?"
"Nobody’s cracked, that I know of." A solid, deliberative pause; fitting from such a solid, deliberative man. "It's complicated."
"Complicated is my specialty, Sherman. That's why they pay me the chump change. Talk to me."
"We picked up two fellas a few weeks back. Found 'em by the side of the road. Darndest uniforms I've ever seen, nothing I could place. Said they got separated from their unit during some kind of accident." Sidney could practically see Potter shaking his head. "One of ‘em’s an engineer. Solid fellow. Gets on fine with anyone who doesn’t put on airs."
"And the other?"
"The other one's a doctor. He’s... something."
Sidney waited. There was always more.
"Something," he solicited, when nothing else came.
"I don't know how else to put it, Sidney. He's got the whole darn camp in a state."
"What kind of state? Malaria? Mutiny?"
"Sid, he’s got everyone aflutter."
Sidney’s lips pursed, eyebrows raised. "Aflutter."
"Aflutter. Moon-eyed! Pierce won't leave him alone, which, fine, Pierce won't leave a fence post alone if it holds still long enough. But Winchester's playing chess with the man every single night. Houlihan’s smiling at him like he’s got stars pinned on his shoulders. Hunnicutt’s gone strange, and you know Hunnicutt doesn't go strange over anything that isn't Peg. And the nurses, Sidney… the nurses! You know what those women think of doctors who turn on the charm. Sharpest eyes in this army! Every one of them's gone soft as a May morning."
"Sherman, you're describing a popular young man, not a psychiatric emergency. Half my colleagues back home would kill to be that unwell."
"There's more to it."
"Then by all means, go on."
The deep breath caught in the line told Sidney Potter was working up to the part of the conversation he'd actually called about.
"We're keeping the two of 'em here while someone comes to fetch them. Mostly they've earned their keep. One’s a fine surgeon, the other can fix anything with a bolt in it. But you know this camp. Canvas walls. Everybody hears everything, whether they mean to or not."
"And what has everybody heard?"
"The two of 'em talking about getting home, but it doesn’t sound like theUnited Kingdom’s on the itinerary. Newfangled words that I can’t make heads or tails of." Potter dropped his voice, and Sidney supposed this was the part he'd rather not have on the record. "I'm not saying there's anything wrong with either one. I just want somebody to look them over. Make sure being cut off from their own people isn't doing something to them we can't see."
And there was the alert, the joke stopping being just a joke.
"You think one of them's a danger to himself."
"I don't think anything yet. That's why I called a psychiatrist and not the MPs." Potter exhaled. "They seem fine, Sidney. Better than fine. That's what's bothering me: I’d hate for me to think it’s all peaches and cream here, and next thing you know one of them’s cracked and is getting themselves an AWOL."
"You want them evaluated?"
“I’d like you to sit down and talk to them, see if there’s something I’m missing.”
Sidney looked at his crossword. An engineer and a doctor who'd apparently hypnotized an entire MASH unit without lifting a finger? That wasn't a house call. That was a vacation.
"I'll be there tomorrow." A beat, because a straight line deserved it. "And Sherman… try not to go aflutter yourself before I get there. I'd like at least one witness who can still spell his own name when I arrive."
"Very funny."
"I'm not joking. If this young man's got your whole outfit swooning, I want somebody upright. Now, when I arrive, I should be looking out for a…?”
“Doctor Bashir and Sergent O’Brien.”
Sidney jotted down the names below the misleading crossword. Probably a misprint. “Got it.”
“Think you can head up quickly?”
“Tomorrow, Sherman. And try to keep everybody's clothes on till then."
He hung up mid- ‘Horsefeathers!’ and grinned at the names he just wrote. Whatever this turned out to be, it beat a Stars and Stripes crossword.
The jeep rattled onto the MASH a little past noon. Sidney debated whether to report to Potter first, but ultimately settled on wandering around a bit first. Announced arrivals gave people the chance to hide anything interesting.
There wasn’t anything worthwhile by the supply tent, nor the mess or the OR.
Thankfully, the motor pool was a different story.
Two men stood over the open hood of a jeep like surgeons on their own right.
"Ninety-thousandths on the points. Dead level, every time." Zale took a deep draw from his cigarette and coughed, every word taking a nice southern sauter down a gravel road. "That's how my daddy taught me to gap 'em, and the Army manual happens to agree with him, and it’s how I’m gunna teach my little Billy Bubba how to do it, thank you kindly, Sergent O’Brien."
"Your daddy," O'Brien said, and the man must have been a father himself, for all the patience he summoned, "probably never had to run an engine on these Korean roads! Open it point-two wider or she'll foul again in a week."
Zale spat. "You know, for a fella who walked in the door three weeks back, you sure talk like you've been doing this longer than the Army."
"I've fixed bigger than a jeep with worse tools than you."
Things were reaching the crux Sidney recognized from a hundred crammed-packed-in-this-place arguments about baseball, mags, God, or hell, which place stateside made the best milkshakes: not quite a fight yet, but warming up nicely for one. Time to jump in.
"Excuse me. Sergent O'Brien?"
Both men turned. O'Brien gave him a once-over.
"That's right," He said, not unfriendly, but not exactly rolling out a welcome mat either. "Something I can help you with?"
"Sidney Freedman. Just passing through, thought I'd introduce myself around." Sidney kept it easy, unofficial; no sense leading with psychiatrist and watching the shutters come down before he'd even gotten a foot in the door. "Heard you're new to the unit."
"News travels."
"Small camp. Everything travels."
"You're right about that." O'Brien set his clipboard down, wiped his hands on his trousers. "Are you with one of the press outfits? I heard the MASH those sometimes."
"No, nothing like that. I float between units. Bit of everything, really."
"I know what you mean."
Zale, sensing the conversation had drifted somewhere that didn't require him, mumbled something about checking a delivery and wandered off with his clipboard.
"Try the meatloaf yet?" Sidney asked, nodding toward the mess tent.
"Once. Didn't repeat the experiment."
"Wise man. The powdered eggs are a similar one-time experience."
"I'll take your word for it."
They settled into the easy, padded rhythm of small talk, which was all right with Sidney; he knew well enough how to use it to test out the creaky floorboards of a psyche. Eventually, assuredly, the conversation did veer to a helpful place.
"Must be a change of pace from home."
"Suppose it is." O'Brien's voice didn't change, but something in the way he stood did. Bingo.
"And where is that, exactly? Potter mentioned you and your friend arrived fairly sudden."
"Did he, now?" O'Brien looked around, and, well. Some men were built for duplicity. Others weren’t, and they compensated just fine by going quiet. Sidney waited.
"We got separated from our… unit. Bit of bad luck, that's all. Could happen to anyone."
“Your unit, British? Potter said the uniforms were a darn sight.”
O’Brien did a weird thing with his face. "Joint operation. All sorts mixed in.”
Sidney let the silence sit. Soldiers, doctors, the odd shell-shocked corpsman; Sidney had sat with plenty, and they all eventually handed him a thread to pull.
O’Brien didn’t rush it. Seemed to even prefer the silence.
“You’re rather taciturn with your words, O’Brien.”
“Call me Miles,” he said, which was both not an answer, and an answer unto its own right.
“Fair enough. Dr. Sidney Freedman.”
That got a snort. “Doctor. I end up here, and it’s nothing but bloody doctors. Julian’s having a field day.”
“Julian, your friend?”
“My co—yeah, my friend.” A bit of a reluctant admission to the words, than an idea. “You’re going to be around tonight?”
“If something keeps me around.”
“There’s a card game going in the supply tent, tonight. Eight o'clock, assuming casualties cooperate." A real smile crossed Miles’s face for the first time. "You play?"
“Occasionally, and usually badly. Pierce will testify to that.”
“Why don’t you come on, then? You can meet Julian.”
“That’d be lovely. Colonel Potter hasn’t said much about him.” Both technically true things.
"You'll get an earful tonight, then. Whether you want one or not." Another smile. "Eight o'clock, Doctor. Bring money you don't mind losing."
"I'll keep that in mind."
O’Brien gave him a short nod, not unfriendly, just finished, and headed off. Sidney watched him go.
No cracks. He didn’t seem like the kind of fellow he left cracks to be tripped over. He hadn't lied, either; just declined to share. He didn’t seem like much of a sharer in general.
Sidney rather liked him.
He checked his watch. Hours yet. Plenty of time to find Potter, get the lay of the land, and prepare himself.
The card game started promptly at eight, Radar shuffling and only dropping a few cards, Father Mulcahy setting out a bowl something, determined to be hospitable, and O’Brien leaning back in his chair looking a good deal more at home than he had that afternoon.
"Doctor." O’Brien nodded him toward an empty seat. "Glad you made it."
"I’d never leave without a chance to take Pierce’s money. Wouldn't be sporting." Sidney sat, took the cards Radar dealt, and settled in.
Three hands later, Sidney already down a respectable sum, mostly to Father Mulcahy, who had the unnervingly serene face of a man touched by God—or simply an excellent bluffer—the door banged open with hyenic laughter.
Hawkeye spotted Sidney first and beamed. "Sidney! You are here! Potter call you? Tell me you’re here for something good."
"Nobody’s cracked yet." Sidney returned the embrace he hadn't exactly consented to. "I'm just here to observe the local wildlife."
"We're delightful wildlife," BJ said, shaking his hand and dropping into the next seat. "Wait till you get a chance to talk to the rest of the menagerie."
That was when Sidney noticed him.
Bashir came in trailing the pack, teasing Major Houlihan. Good bones, dark hair, the sort of face that photographed well for a unit newsletter. Nothing remarkable.
Then he laughed at Houlihan’s attempt to swat the back of his head, and the laugh took his whole face with it, and— ah.
There it was. Magnetic. A word Potter had spent an entire phone call failing to provide. Sidney understood now why he'd failed. It wasn't a word someone arrived at right away; they got there a few seconds late, only after they discovered they’d been staring.
Sidney cleared his throat and reminded himself he was there in a professional capacity.
"Dr. Bashir, I presume," he said, as the young man dropped into the chair across the table.
"You presume correctly." The handshake was firm, the smile practically unfair. "But you’ve got me at a disadvantage."
"Dr. Sidney Freedman."
"Doctor! Another surgeon?”
“Psychiatrist, actually.”
Bashir beamed at that, waggled his eyebrows. “Well, then! I’ll avoid drinking too much. Don’t want a loose tongue around you.”
"We're drinking Pierce’s gin," Winchester scowled as he slowly lowered himself into a chair. " I doubt it'll loosen any tongues so much as corrode them."
"Don't listen to Winchester," Houlihan said, taking the seat beside Bashir, and even then scootching it a few inches closer. "Two glasses in, even Charles starts using contractions."
"A vicious slander."
New hands were dealt, and the game progressed. Sidney played, and watched, and couldn't help but pay attention.
They had their own shorthand, Bashir and O’Brien. After a bad hand, Bashir mumbled something that sounded like "like Risa all over again," and O'Brien groaned with a "don't remind me," and neither of them explained it. Smile and scowl, tall and short, Irish and English: they were mismatched, but there was no doubt the friendship went well past the card table.
So much the better, as neither had much of poker hand nor face, and within the hour they didn’t have two nickels between them. They'd arrived, as Potter said, with nothing but the uniforms on their backs, and Sidney didn’t doubt what little scrip they'd scraped together since went fast under Mulcahy’s bluffing and Pierce’s judgement-eroding gin.
"I'm out," O'Brien admitted, turning his pockets inside out. "Should've folded two hands back."
"Story of your life," Bashir said, and then, as if noticing his own lack of funds for the first time, added, "Though… I believe I am also, regrettably, out."
"Well, we can't just throw you two out of the game," Houlihan said, three magnanimous gins into the evening. "No fun in that. We'll do slips."
"Slips?”
"Playing on credit." Margaret tore some strips off an old notepad and slid them over, pleased with her own invention. "Eevery slip of yours that ends up in someone else's hand by the end of the night, you owe a secret."
Oh, Margaret! Could have been a fine psychiatrist on her own right, the sneak.
"I object, on Miles's behalf!" But Bashir was already reaching for his slips, ill-advised delight breaking through. "Though I suppose we've got very little standing to negotiate terms if we want to keep laying."
"None whatsoever," Winchester grinned. "The rest of us risk currency, you risk dignity. A fair trade all around."
Smirks and token protests, and one useless plea to Father Mulcahey later, the game resumed. Sidney settled back. Liquor? Cards? A captive audience, and literal bets on truth? He couldn’t have engineered a better elicitation technique with a research grant.
The slips changed hands fast through the next hour of play, until Radar yawned a time too many, and Father Mulcahy made his second mention of the late hour and exhaustion leading to wicked thoughts.
“Come on, then! Can’t call it quits! Another hand, at least!” O’Brien protested, and it only took a cursory look at the table to see exactly why he wanted a chance to recoup some losses.
"Not on your life," Margaret grinned, "I’m up fifteen dollars, and you’re five dollars in the hole of secrets. Think hard, they’d better be good."
Sidney’d have said she looked delighted, but that had nothing on the duel mischievous grins of Hunnicutt and Pierce, and couldn’t hold a candle to Julian’s joy.
O'Brien grumbled, the universal sounds of resignment. "Fine. Once, when I was an ensign, I mixed up a repair and knocked out environmental controls on a… ship… for six hours. Lied and told my CO it was a… er… wave."
Silence.
"That's it?" Pierce scoffed. "That's the big confession? You broke the air conditioning and lied about it?"
"It was a big deal at the time!"
"I’d think the lie was the greater sin..." Mulcahy unhelpfully supplied
"Hey! Julian hasn’t paid up, yet!"
A flimsy excuse, but one the group took to with excitement.
“That’s seven dollars’ worth!” Pierce rifled through the bets scattered across the table.
“Means you need something good,” Hunnicutt added. “No weaseling out of things with a letdown like O’Brien.”
O’Brien frowned but didn’t protest, knowing the risks of drawing attention to himself.
“All right…” Bashir tilted his head, stared off into space to summon the memory. “A secret…”
Radar leaned in. Even Father Mulcahy looked intrigued. The tent waited with baited breath…
“Come on, then!” Pierce encouraged
"I'm getting there!" Bashir grinned, gleam in his eye suggesting he was rather enjoying the anticipation. "Let me think."
“Doctor!” Houlihan finally growled, capturing the group sentiments.
"Fine! I once had a threesome," Bashir said.
"Julian!" O'Brien yelped, cut off by a delighted burst of laughter from Hawkeye and scandalized oh my! from Mulcahy.
"As in three people?"
"That's generally what it means, yes," Bashir said, flushing, but not retreating.
"Details!" Houlihan demanded, clapping once. "How were the lovely ladies?"
Bashir's grin turned wicked. "One man, one woman. Good friends of mine." A ripple of delighted scandal went around the table. "It just happened, one night. After a lot of Sau—a lot of brandy, and a lot of looks, and probably not nearly enough talking." He paused, ostensibly thinking back. "It was nice."
That prompted a disbelieving, half-offended scoff from O’Brien. “Nice.”
"Yes, nice." Bashir leveled him with a look. "It's a perfectly positive word."
"Come on, Bashir," Pierce pressed, leaning so far across the table Sidney half expected him to topple head-over-heels. "You can't just say 'I had a threesome' and stop there. How did it start? Who made the first move? We need details."
Bashir, already unwizened with gin, took on a glint that Sidney, ever the professional, recognized as what he would clinically call trouble.
"You wanna know how it started?"
"Yes!"
"All right." Bashir stood, swaying just enough to cause slight worry, and walked around the table. "Like this."
He kissed him.
It was not a peck. Pierce started off with a startle that very quickly resolved into a pleased hum, and for roughly five full seconds, the entire table—Sidney included, he was forced to admit—forgot how to breathe.
And then Bashir pulled back, entirely too pleased with himself. "That's how it started. Any other questions?"
Chaos erupted. Radar had gone the color of a tomato and was staring fixedly at his shoes and not a lick higher. Father Mulcahy's himself appeared torn between scandal and something deeper that a priest really ought not to examine. Pierce himself simply sat there, blinking, a man who'd hit by a truck who rather enjoyed the experience.
"I—" Hawkeye attempted, and then gave up in lieu of smiling.
"Pretty good, right?" Bashir said, returning to his seat with a swagger. "Makes sense, given how it started."
Houlihan, eyes bright, leaned forward. "Can't have been that good. Threesomes don't just happen from one kiss."
It was, to Sidney's professional eye, blatant bait. Bashir, three sheets to the wind, did not register it as such.
And so proceeded to kiss Houlihan instead.
When he pulled back, Houlihan looked considerably more dazed than Pierce.
"Okay," she acquiesced. "I understand the threesome now. I would absolutely have a threesome with you."
"Margaret!" Hawkeye protested. "That's my threesome you're poaching!"
"There’s no threesome!" Bashir insisted. "Demonstration kisses only."
Father Mulcahy rose somewhat abruptly. "I think I'll… just step outside for a moment. Get some air." He left quickly. Bashir watched him go, looking, briefly, sheepish.
"I've made things weird, haven't I."
"So weird," O'Brien agreed.
"But also fantastic?" BJ offered, grinning. "I don't think we've ever had a better poker night."
Conversation continued on after that, punctuated by considerably more laughter than poker night usually garnered. Sidney was, in fact, considering calling it a night when the door burst open, admitting Klinger, breathless, dress askew, hair in disarray, and missing a shoe.
"Am I too late?"
Houlihan frowned. "For?”
"A kiss! I heard Dr. Bashir was giving out kisses! Father Mulcahy said so, and I ran the whole way from the motor pool! Did I miss it?"
This garnered exchanged glances, though Sidney noted, none of particular surprise.
"It was just a demonstration," Bashir finally, weakly, insisted.
"Well, demonstrate again! I'm just saying, some people—not naming names—have been on duty this whole time and missed everything."
"You mean you."
"I mean me!" Klinger agreed. “Discrimination against enlisted, that’s what it is!”
Pierce shook his head. "Klinger, you don't know what you want."
"I know exactly what I want, Doc, and he’s currently sitting at that table staring at me with his stupid, perfect face. It’s the first time in this whole war I’ve wanted something other than a Section Eight!"
Bashir laughed, helpless. "My stupid perfect face?"
"Don't go fishing for compliments. You know exactly what you look like."
"Fine." Bashir stood, resigned the oddities of the night. "Klinger. Come here."
Klinger lit up. "Really?"
"Really."
"Wonderful! But I want the real deal. Not some peck."
"The real deal it is." Bashir held out a hand, and Klinger took it, sweeping toward him with surprising grace for a man missing a shoe.
What followed was, by any standard, cinematic: Bashir dipping Klinger with a flourish that would've done a matinee proud, missing shoe and all, and kissing him soundly.
The table erupted into applause. Sidney, even to his own surprise, clapped along.
When Bashir straightened him back up, Klinger was thoroughly transported. "Oh my God."
"Satisfied?"
"That was like being in a picture." Klinger pressed his fingers to his lips, reverent. "Laverne is going to be so jealous."
"Please don't tell Laverne."
Klinger didn't answer, already wandering back toward the door, murmuring "wow" to himself on repeat, one hand still pressed to his mouth, missing shoe apparently forgotten entirely.
The evening rolled on after that looser and correct. Potter hadn’t been exaggerating, Sidney decided, listening to Houlihan howl with laughter and noticing Pierce touch his own mouth again, checking to see if the night was real. If anything, he'd undersold it.
Aflutter, indeed.
Potter's office still held the chill of a long Korean night when Sidney let himself in the next morning. Potter looked up from a stack of requisition forms, immediately accepting Sidney was there with a verdict.
"Well?"
"Well." Sidney settled into the chair across from the desk, taking his time about it. "I played poker with them, talked to O'Brien, even got to see Doctor Bashir play the Casanova for an evening. Hell, I’d says I managed to watch your entire camp fall over itself for a few hours."
"And?"
"And I think you can stop worrying, Sherman. At least about the thing you called me out here for."
Potter set down his pen. "They're not cracking up."
"They're not cracking up." Sidney considered how to put it. "Look: O'Brien's careful, but not the kind of evasion I'd flag as dangerous."
"And Bashir?"
"Bashir's not evasive at all." Sidney allowed himself a small smile. "Your aflutter problem, by the way, is entirely accurate. I sat across a poker table from that young man for four hours and I'd have signed away my pension if he'd asked nicely."
Potter snorted. "Welcome to the club."
"It's not magic, Sherman, much as it might look it. He’s got a way about him, makes people feel like the only person in the room. Some people just have it naturally. Far as I can throw, he just likes people, and in a place like this? People respond to that like flowers to the sun."
"So that's it? One fella private, the other a people person? I called you all the way out here for nothing?"
"I didn't say nothing." Sidney leaned back. "Look, do they have things they're not telling us? Obviously. But Sherman, who in this camp doesn't? This far into the war, every man and woman in this getup has secrets they'd die before sharing."
Potter considered the point.
"My professional opinion," Sidney went on, "is that whatever those two are sitting on, it's not eating them alive. If anything, they seem remarkably well-adjusted for two men cut off from their outfit, and frankly, that camp of yours is better for it."
"So I should just let it lie."
"I think you should let it lie." Sidney stood, stretching out his back. "But if anything else turns topsy-turvy around here, you call me, understand?"
"You think something's going to turn topsy-turvy?"
"I think a camp that picked up two men ought to keep my number handy. Call it professional curiosity." He opened the door. "Now then, I promised myself a drink before I get back on that road, and I hear Pierce has been saving the dregs of a limited edition batch for me. Think I'll go find it."
"Good gravy, Sidney, the Easter batch? At this point that’ll knock you out."
"Then it'll match the scintillating brass I've been keeping company with over in Tokyo."
Sidney tipped his hat and let the screen door bang shut behind him, already whistling a tuneless and self-satisfied melody.
He had a war crime’s worth of swamp gin to collect on before the long drive home.