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“You know, Hawk — I’m not a schoolgirl.”
Hawkeye’s been so engrossed in tying the frayed ends of his shoelaces into little knots that it takes him a moment to process what Beej has said. They’d been sitting a comfortable silence for twenty minutes or so. The kind that comes easy and natural with a bond more real than show.
“Wha-?” Hawkeye squints at BJ, lost. He’s aware his jaw is hanging loose. Exaggerates it, maybe.
BJ smiles, eyes peeking over his magazine. Glossy pages to do with boats. No nudies, no, never those. Despite his apparent prowess.
“Sometimes it seems you worry more about making me blush than you do the good Father.”
Hawkeye blinks. He closes one mouth and opens another:
“Nahhh, you’re— you’re too easy. Where’s the fun? Where’s the sport? I already got all your blushes out, first week.”
BJ grins his handsome underbite and shakes his head once, cocking it. “I don’t blush.”
It’s true.
Not even when they’re drinking. Hunnicutt. Hunnicutt. What is that, anyway? It’s English. Gotta be. Half Hawkeye’s roots got severed somewhere in County Mayo, and it shows. He goes pale to pink to red whether he’s sipping swill or gulping grenadine. Whether he’s laughing or crying. When he’s angry. When he’s been hunched over guts too long. The days the sun cooks the rounded tip of his nose.
Hawk doesn’t care what anyone says, any average Limey can drink a Mick under the table, if he wants -- Hawkeye had been to Yorkshire, once. The pubs open at eight, a ruddy-faced line -- sorry, queue -- snakes around the corner, drooling for the door to unlock. So what’s with this new guy’s perfect complexion?
He takes in a sharp and dramatic inhale:
“It’s annoying, by the way. Your entire—” he claws a hand before his own face and gestures vaguely in a wide circle. “—your whole, thing. It’s infuriating.”
BJ raises a brow. He places a hand over his heart, as if to say, moi? Hawkeye has already changed him.
So annoying.
“Wasn’t it you who called me all hotdogs and apple pie?”
“Exactly. Far more grating than a face-full of ferret. You’re way too pleasant.” Hawkeye studies BJ’s face exaggeratedly from his cot, shaking his head incrementally and then rapidly, as though coming to a very medical conclusion. “Naaaah, nah, no. No, I don’t like it.”
Beej shrugs one shoulder, serene. He returns to a dream of the Bay. “Whatever you say.”