Fandom: M*A*S*H.
Author: Epigone.
Pairing: Peg/BJ.
Rating: Dark PG.
Warnings: Depressing subject matter.
Archivists: Ask first.
Summary: You don't have to be have been to Korea to know death.
Date Written: February 21, 2003.
Author's Notes: Written in response to Raven's 2/20/03 five-minute challenge, "During the night--." Written in under ten minutes (still my personal record!) The title is a reference to the Stephen Sondheim song quoted below.
Feedback: Can be sent to kmaru1701 [AT] hotmail [DOT] com, and is much appreciated.
A Little Death
Every day a little sting
(Every day a little dies)
In the heart and in the head
(In the looks and in the lies).
Every move and every breath --
And you hardly feel a thing --
Brings a perfect little death.
--Stephen Sondheim,
"Every Day a Little Death"
During the night, Peg Hunnicutt courted Death.
Sometimes, lying under the sheets with BJ warm and cold beside her, she thought of other nights, stars, trees murmuring against the eaves; the little white front step and the trellis through which the dark wisteria lazily twined, pretty as a picture, circumscribed by small-town streets. On the screened porch, where the heady scent of flowers drifted wild and thrilling, BJ courted Peggy Hayden.
Now he lay still beside her, and when she put her head on his chest, she could hear his heart thrumming, but like the crash of bombs, not so much a sound as an echo within his ribcage. He stroked her hair, but his fingers were cold, and she never knew for certain if he was even awake.
She saw the stars wink out one by one through the blurry window over their bed, and she knew the feeling.
During the night, Peg Hunnicutt courted Death -- and every night, she knew a little more of it.
~Fin~
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