Fandom: M*A*S*H.
Author: Epigone.
Pairing: Hawkeye/BJ, mention of Caryle/Hawkeye and Trapper/Hawkeye.
Rating: PG-13.
Warnings: Sexuality, mild language, and heavy angst.
Archivists: Ask first.
Summary: BJ and Hawkeye finally succumb.
Date Written: January 2003.
Feedback: Can be sent to kmaru1701 [AT] hotmail [DOT] com, and is much appreciated.
Casualties of War
Two glassfuls of Scotch were sloshing in BJ's stomach when he turned in to the Swamp for the night. He had spent a few idle hours at Rosie's, drinking when he remembered the liquid in front of him, watching the furtive movements of gossiping nurses and enlisted men. He knew that some of those heads were bent over fragmented talk of him and Hawkeye -- it's Hunnicutt drinking alone; don't see that every day; tentmate squabble, you think? -- but still he let the evening drift over him as he forgot himself against the coolness of the counter.
Outside, at the door to their tent, he loosened his collar in the humidity that even the darkness couldn't drive away. He felt slightly feverish, and the buzz of cicadas in a nearby field was loud, too loud, invasive, what do you think they could possibly be arguing about those two are joined at the hip and if I didn't know better
He drowned it out in the creak of hinges, the thump of boots on the floor.
The lights were all out, and for a moment he entertained the idea that maybe he could have a night alone to get over this. Then he swiped at the overhead lamp and lit Hawkeye white on his cot.
"Jesus!" gasped BJ, falling back a step but feeling as though even this shock was secondary, coming to him from a great distance, from underground. It was so bright, Hawkeye so large and still and near, superimposed upon the sheer walls. "Don't sit there like a ghoul waiting for people to trip over you."
"You're the only people who comes in here," Hawkeye said, in a dully petulant tone. BJ had to silently concede the point; Frank was on leave in Tokyo, and everyone else had some leisure activity to pursue during lulls.
BJ knew what was going on the moment he turned on the lights. This never happened when there was work to be done. It never happened when BJ was on leave, or when Potter came by to chew the fat, or when Frank sprawled across his bunk to do whatever it was that Frank did. It only happened at a certain point in the night, in the long gray glazed-over night when the crickets started to sound frantic, and only when it was just BJ. Hawkeye sat up motionlessly, his head canted downward, didn't speak, couldn't move, stared at the dusty floor and drew corpselike into himself. BJ didn't know what to do when he got like this; and, oddly enough, Hawkeye managed to pull out of it only when the jeeps came squealing and the smell of blood was harsh in the air. If Hawkeye could just get his hands on a punctured lung or a perforated intestine, he wouldn't have to think about being who he was, where he was.
BJ felt the hairs on his neck tingle, gooseflesh chafing his hot skin. It was not an altogether unpleasant sensation, but he turned away and rummaged through the junk on a nearby table.
"Here," he said, coming up with two dingy glasses and leaning over to deposit one in Hawkeye's lap. "I'll buy you a drink."
Hawkeye gave him a fleeting look, his eyes so dark and distant that BJ could see right through them, all the way through the hard irises like set stones and out the back of his head to the unvarying green of the tent wall behind. BJ glanced away and busied himself with the still. The gin splashed in his glass.
"Come on," he said, wheedling, sweating. "If I wanted to get you drunk and take advantage of you, don't you think I'd have done it before now?" His hand was trembling on the stem of his glass. "Get a drink." (Stupid, BJ, stupid, transparent, stop cracking jokes.)
Hawkeye made a noise under his breath, a thin, helpless noise, but didn't move again.
"What?" demanded BJ, moving closer, his voice rising. "What? What was that? Speak up, pal; I don't have all night." He wasn't drunk, he knew, but it was oppressive and dark and damn loud out there in between the silences of the camp, loud with shrill pipings of white-hot voices -- when opportunity comes knocking at your door, welcome him in and bed him; joined at the hip, if you know what I mean; and the first casualty of war is -- and something hard and ugly was rising in his throat. He hadn't asked for any of this. He didn't want to be the only witness in the twilight.
Hawkeye raised his head, his face drawn and gaunt, looked up with an expression that BJ recognized from an old workhorse he'd seen once on Floyd's farm, a horse on the way to the glue factory even before it fell away from the arc of the ax's blunt edge, the eyes still wide and straining against their sockets, blank and blue-white and waiting to comprehend the fact of death. BJ had never seen that expression on anything still alive, and for a moment his chest tightened and he thought Hawkeye would topple out into his arms, his pulse flaring desperately into nothingness. But Hawkeye didn't fall, and didn't fall, and finally dropped his head, his shoulders caving, and BJ hated him blindingly for accepting the anger so humbly. As if it were his due.
Not BJ's responsibility. Nothing here, nothing could mean anything. Only Peg and Erin at home, waiting in the clean, bright living room. No nighttime confidences here. No rolling up in the sheets breathing frantically to keep himself from leaping across the room. No hot nights, no dark, secret spaces between them.
He set his glass down shakily.
"Dammit, Hawkeye," he said. "Dammit, Hawkeye, dammit, what am I supposed to do?"
Hawkeye wouldn't look at him, but he flinched a little at every "dammit," his shadow moving skittishly on the tent flaps.
"I hate - " BJ didn't know what. "No, I want - I just want... I just wish that. That you would... something. No, I - I gotta," -- he could taste it now, metallic, could feel it in his pores, the moist air clinging in his throat -- "I gotta go out. I'm going for a walk. Just drink your drink. Have a party. Slit your wrists. I don't care."
He charged headlong through the door and went flying across the compound. He hadn't run in such a long time, but his legs drove out in perfect rhythm and his lean frame slashed through the rising dust like a jackknife. There was a swift rush of wind, cooling his eyelids, streamlining the contours of his face, and he thought with wild amusement that he could just run like this to Tokyo, hijack a plane, throw a merry wave to Frank eating sushi and glistening in the harsh glare of a restaurant, and find himself, in a few short hours, gliding in among the glittering towers of the Golden Gate Bridge, effortlessly, the bay breezes guiding him down. It would be so easy.
Then one knee gave out, though he should have known that such a pounding sprint would be hard on tight muscles, and he went down, the steaming dark collapsing over him. He hit the packed dirt and rolled, breaking the fall with a shoulder, and lay there for a moment. It hadn't even hurt. It had been no more than a small prick, and then complete surrender. A little warning twinge, and the bottom falls out.
He spat dust, but was glad for the overwhelming stale taste of it, the chance to forget the tingle of desire like blood on his tongue. But it was so hot again, and God, he was sorry, he hadn't meant it, no one could be expected to stay completely sane in this place, and why should he hurt Hawkeye when he loved Hawkeye?
That was wrong; he had meant Peg. Peg. He loved Peg. Of course he loved Peg. Hopelessly, unquestioningly.
He wanted to go back to the Swamp. To the possibility of cool sheets. The muted clink of gin glasses. The light playing in the blue of Hawkeye's eyes.
But he wanted to go home, because of course he loved Peg. And home was -- home was --
Home, Peg, the States blurred with the heat. Of course he loved. Of course he loved. Of course he
His hip, joined at his hip, you brush it so casually as you pass him in post-op. He wilts in the heat and looks at you as if he's forgotten he's already dead. He wants you to tell him he's still alive. And the first casualty of war is
He loved Peg, but he didn't have Peg here. He didn't have anything here. Why shouldn't he have something here?
He picked himself up, fingers scrabbling at the dirt, little stones slicing him with exquisite sharpness. It was like that; Hawkeye was like that: brief flashes of lighted sensation in the darkness, the clarity of pain. It hurt enough that he could feel it.
His throat closed up, and he turned toward the Swamp.
And the first casualty
Hawkeye was still sitting up. B.J. could see the silhouette from across the compound, could make out the gleam of a face through the mesh.
And the first casualty of war
It was so hot. He felt his scrubs slide on the light coating of sweat on his skin as he made his way back. He moved loose and fluid in that skin, BJ's skin, but he could not be BJ now, because BJ lived in California and loved a woman with a face grayed by distance and didn't, didn't even think
And the first casualty of war is always what you thought you knew.
He went home to Hawkeye.
* * * * * * * * *
BJ came in subdued, his eyes downcast. He limped slightly on one leg, so that his lean frame swayed in the glow of the lamps and made sketchy gray movement on the walls. Hawkeye watched, registering only details, never the whole concept of BJ, and pinned his trembling elbows between his knees.
BJ sat heavily on his cot, mere feet away. It rustled beneath him as he settled himself, and then he peered at Hawkeye.
"Um. I - um - " He reached over abruptly and took the glass from where it sat in Hawkeye's lap. "I - you don't... have a drink."
Hawkeye just looked back.
BJ filled the glass slowly, biting his lip. When he finished, he offered it to Hawkeye, who made no move to take it.
"Hawk," said BJ, "Hawk, you know I didn't really mean..."
Hawkeye began to turn away, the weight of the darkness gathering in his chest. Impulsively, BJ caught him by the arm and pulled him back around.
"Don't. Don't do that. I want to help."
Hawkeye laughed then, briefly, chokingly.
"No, you don't," he insisted. "No one does. No ones really does."
"I do. Hawk, I didn't mean what I said, I never mean what I say, it's just Korea and--"
"It doesn't matter."
"Yes, it does," said BJ softly. "I wouldn't have come back if it didn't." Hawkeye didn't respond to that, and after a moment BJ pressed the glass into his hand. "Have a drink."
Hawkeye raised his eyes and glanced at the liquid, then at BJ He put the glass aside and folded his arms across his chest. Finally, he swallowed and muttered something inaudible.
"What?" BJ murmured, bending closer. His breath was hot in the still air, his soft scent of soap and dust enveloping. Hawkeye tilted his head up a fraction and blinked at him, his breath static in his throat.
"Beej, I'm... we, uh... I'm sort of afraid that something's going to happen here, um, if there's alcohol." He could hear his teeth chattering against the end of each word.
BJ reached out and touched his shoulder tentatively.
"And I'm afraid that something's going to happen here if there isn't alcohol."
A muscle moved in Hawkeye's face, just under his eye. BJ's hand was warm against his scrubs. Hawkeye ducked away from the contact and lay down on his cot, facing the wall.
"I only said it first," murmured BJ, watching the shallow movement of Hawkeye's sides. "That's all." Hawkeye closed his eyes and wished they hadn't dragged their beds so close that one night after they lost a particularly tough case, or at least that the beds weren't still -- oh, so casually -- sitting in those same positions four months later.
BJ stood suddenly. He put both hands on Hawkeye's mattress, palms down, and leaned his full weight upon it. Hawkeye felt the dip, the heat of BJ's body filling the space behind him, the throb of blood in his temples, but he clenched his eyes tighter and curled away.
"Look," said BJ, "I - I didn't mean - I'm not really afraid of something happening. Not anymore. I said it first, but, uh, it's been there... a long time." Hawkeye could hear the thick noise of BJ swallowing. "What's the point of two beds tonight?"
Hawkeye considered his options for a moment; then he rolled over. BJ was much closer than he had expected: Hawkeye could move his arm slightly and brush the skin of BJ's chin and neck, illuminated by bleeding yellow light, tanned and smooth. BJ still shaved every day.
BJ broke into a slow smile as they looked at each other. It was that fatal smile. That smile that Hawkeye would wake aching of on cold, harsh mornings in years to come, as he found his limbs curved over the sterile whiteness of his sheets, alone. Now, though, it was just BJ smiling, BJ who was undeniably near. Hawkeye didn't move again until BJ stooped farther and said, quite steadily, "I love you."
And that was it.
No one had ever said it like that. It had always been muffled, clandestine, hoarse, while someone scrabbled fiercely against him or lay spent beside him. It had always been cautious, prefixed with "I think," or drawn out, a lengthy pause before the second word so that the speaker was distanced from the feeling. Even Trapper, even Trapper
They're draped over each other in the narrow cot, trying to get comfortable, and Trapper, still breathing heavily, says, "Damn, Hawk, I love you." Sharp, staccato little jabs of syllables, his fingers driving the point home. Silence. "Hawk. I said I love you. Usually, you're supposed to respond to that." Hawkeye, looking at the play of shadows across their arms, at the lazy fly dangling in the air above them, but never at Trapper, never at the other body, says, "I didn't know there was a script."
Even Trapper needed reassurance; even Trapper had to say it through the darkness. The only person who had ever exposed those words to the full light was Carlye, soft hair and knowing eyes, who needed him to need her even though she didn't know what need was. Carlye, who in the end could give him nothing but advice:
The third casualty of war, she said, the third casualty of war has to be fidelity. (Third now, and moving up fast. Fidelity moving up fast on the inside track, passing Sobriety, -- martini glasses forgotten together on the grimy floor -- breaking past Truth in a desperate lunge as BJ says with his eyes, Really, no lie, love.)
And no one, not even Carlye, had ever said it before lying with him. BJ bent over, smiling openly, lit by the single stark lamp. No equivocation. No favors asked.
He didn't have to say it again; they both knew that. But Hawkeye, with a trace of the old flippancy, remarked, "I thought you said you never mean what you say."
BJ exhaled, slid closer, and kissed him. When, at length, they pulled apart, he grinned again, his face earnest and inches from Hawkeye's, and said, "I didn't mean that."
Hawkeye moved over to make space for BJ, gladly accepting whatever casualties he was letting himself in for.
~Fin~
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