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Better get Sidney Freedman on the horn.
It’s a catchphrase, at this point.
That’s the joke BJ makes. Not one of them laughs.
“Look,” he waffles, gesturing vaguely. Clawing the air for something thin to say. “We— we all crack up. We all have our days. I mean, it wasn’t too long ago I put my hand through your liquor cabinet, Colonel.”
Potter flares his nostrils in a pretty good imitation of the pictures on his wall. Uh-oh; BJ’s in trouble. Potter’s hands clasp behind his back. Uh-oh, double trouble. Potter’s spine goes straight as an arrow. Oh—
“No one cracks like Pierce cracks.”
BJ’s grin fails completely. He shrugs his shoulders, more cowering than casual. Is it Charles’ sad eyes, or Margaret’s crossed arms that make this feel worse? It's likely Klinger's silence. “I— I’m not saying I’m not worried.”
He’s terrified. He’s terrified that one of these long nights, Sidney will wrap Hawk in white ribbons and take him away forever.
“Son,” says Potter. “If you haven’t hung a mirror lately, it’s not Pierce with a light out this time. And that is one donkey-kick of a shiner.”
“That’s— this is different.”
“I agree.”
“He didn’t know it was me!”
“And that is precisely why I’m calling in Freedman! Klinger—”
“Yes, sir,” Klinger complies, sounding all wrong in tone. This is supposed to be a mockery. Where’s the false salute? That one pair of blue sequined shoes?
Something’s happening, and it’s not the hole that Radar’s left. It’s not the one he filled at SFO. It’s the giant pit of this place, and someday soon the dirt will fill BJ’s mouth till he can’t breathe anymore.
It’s blood, Hawkeye had insisted. He’d stumbled into the Swamp and gazed in horror at his boots, had nearly fallen over trying to scrape one foot with the other. BJ caught him, clutched him at the wrists.
It’s just mud, Hawk.
No, no no no, they— they put it in there. It’s in there. We can’t see it, but they put it in there.
What? Who put what, in where?
In there! Hawkeye cried with the frustration of a child who has few words. They put the dirt in the blood, and now it’s mud!
He looked up from where he pointed. The picture of despair.
Why’d you put it there?
And so, BJ had gotten a black eye.
When the proper lines are untied, the Majors turn in. Margaret gives BJ a quick quirk of her lips, but Charles seems entirely lost. It’s a relief when they leave.
“I’ll wait with him,” BJ says curtly.
Potter purses. He nods once and gazes at the floor: an offering of privacy. It feels like an accusation. BJ can’t quite put his finger on it. It makes him bristle.
He might push through the double doors a little too hard. He doesn’t even know who he’s mad at.
Once BJ’s walked the seven seconds home, he finds Hawkeye perched on his bunk, as if the tangled and sweaty sheets of Hawk’s own are unbearable. He wonders where Charles went, if he and Margaret are trading whispers in her tent.
“Something’s happening,” says a small voice. Just a murmur. A graying man reduced to eyes that don’t see. Not for the first time.
“I know.”
“Beej, what’s happening?”
“I don’t know.”
Hawk’s hands hang limply. The weakness of his arms rests on the stiffness of his knees.
“Can you promise me something?” asks BJ.
There’s a surgeon somewhere in there who can hear him. BJ waits till Hawkeye has lifted his head and shut his jaw. He swallows. “Anything.”
That makes BJ’s face do something funny. He can’t control it. It’s a swell of feeling in his chest that shoots up his neck and makes his mouth do this odd thing. It’s not happy, it’s not exactly sad. His eyes prick.
“We leave here together. Okay? I’m not going alone. Even if those papers come in tonight, by some miracle, I’m not stepping on a chopper without you.”
BJ will let himself decide what that means later.
Hawk finally meets his eyes. “I can’t promise that, Beej.”
Dammit. Don’t cry. Do anything but cry. “Just try. Please.”
“What if it’s me?”
BJ shakes his head. “It won’t be you. No way. So long as I’m here, you’re not going anywhere.”
All that gets him is a wan smile. “That’s very sweet.”
“Sweet? Hell, it’s nothing to do with ‘sweet’. You’re my—” here he chokes up. Damn. Whatever sprung from his core is trying to fight past his lips. Vagus nerve, he thinks. God he hates the clinical.
Hawkeye stares at him expectantly, abruptly lucid. He shrugs with his terrible posture, offers a palm to the low heavens of the tent. “Your what?”
You’re. You’re just— mine.
That's all.
Pretty quickly, Hawk finds the still more interesting.
BJ clears his throat and instead says, voice sort of wet, “Potter’s going to feel pretty silly when Sidney gets here, and you’re back to popping olives and kerosene.”
“Sidney?”
“Mmm-hm.” BJ shoves his hands inside his pockets and rocks on the balls of his feet. Sniffs and blinks. Stupid. Looks at his shoes. Hey, imagine that — they’ve got mud on them, too.
“What do you mean, Sidney?” Hawkeye puts the empty glass down and advances on BJ with his back bent and his head cocked. “What did I do?”
“Oh, you know. You did you.”
“What— why are you mad?”
“I’m not mad.”
“Then why are you—” Hawkeye stops short; he’ll be able to see the bruise and the blood, in this light.
Another word. But not a term. More apt: Beloved. Don’t wilt like that. Don’t hand me guilt.
“Beej… what did I do?”
“Just promise me.”
Hawkeye does nothing but look utterly confused. Already forgotten. And it’s not that BJ’s angry with Hawk — not with Potter, not with Sidney — not with their CO’s swinging doors. Certainly not with fucking Radar — it’s this goddamn, fucking war. As if it needs saying.
“Forget it.”
BJ fills Hawk in on only what he needs to know. He refuses the apologies, because there’s nothing they’re good for. He says as much as they talk on the edge of the bunk. BJ rubs circles into the back of a burgundy robe while this fragile thing holds his face in his hands and runs fingers through his hair.
It’s very early morning when Sidney enters the Swamp more gentle than a knock. He smiles in his acutely lazy way.
“How’re we doing, boys?”
The sun won’t be up for a while. They sit in silence. Comfortable for Sid, torturous for them. That's not how it usually is. The sound of distant summer bugs and frogs stitch into minutes.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Hawkeye inhales deeply, straightening out of his slouch. “Not particularly, no.”
Sidney nods and crosses an elegant leg. After a moment, he inclines his head towards the little table. “Would you like to play a different game?”
“I, uh— hah. I think they’re sending you here to get paid, not to lose your change.”
“You seem pretty confident for a man at the edge of a cliff.”
Hawkeye perks up and smiles genuinely but softly for the first time in days.
BJ feels left out. Like he’s not catching on to something obvious and important. Sometimes there are things other than Korean that need translating. He studies Hawk’s profile and tries to navigate the sea change. It’s getting harder and harder these days.
Sidney raises an eyebrow. “You won't tell if I don't tell?”
And the small smile radiates to the rest of Hawk’s face. He turns and catches BJ’s gaze:
“Promise.”
But BJ's face, well -- his is blank.