Night and Day
Colonel Sherman T. Potter knows the men under his command. Point of pride. Know your men, know your resources.
He knows exactly who B. J. Hunnicutt and B. F. Pierce are. They're cutters, good cutters, the best. They're soldiers, terrible soldiers, without an ounce of military discipline between them. They're friends, willing to go up to the line then jump right on over it for each other. They're idiots; jokers and pranksters and mischievous little boys at heart. They're smart and loyal and stupid and selfish and every other contradiction in the book.
He thought he knew everything about them.
Then he wakes up one morning with a tentful of surgeon after a long, long night, turns on the light, and discovers his two best doctors nestled up to each other like a couple of chicks in a nest.
"That's new."
He watches for a while. They look peaceful and comfortable; Pierce has his nose pressed up against Hunnicutt's throat, and Hunnicutt's cheek is resting against Pierce's hair as if he's a father comforting a child. Their arms are wrapped tightly around one another like vines, and judging by the tangle of feet poking out the bottom of the blanket, the same is true of their legs.
(Sherm's relieved to see they're both still fully dressed.)
They're smiling in their sleep. If it weren't so goshdarned unexpected, it would be sort of sweet.
Sherm is not a stupid man. He knew they were close, he's known from the start that they were thick as thieves. It has always been obvious that they are each the other's better angel and worst influence, sometimes all at the same time. But he thought he would've noticed if they were... what they seem to be.
(Not that it matters to him if they are... that way inclined. He might be an old fashioned sort himself, not to mention regular army, but he's not a bigot, no sir. He can see that some rules are simply stupid and deserve to be broken.)
What he really doesn't understand and what does bother him is that Hunnicutt is married - happily married, like he and Mildred are married. And that Pierce is still, as he always has been, gleefully working his way through the nurses.
That might be a little too modern for Sherm's tastes, if he were to be entirely honest about the thing. He's a fan of loyalty and fidelity; while he's aware those qualities are often casualties of war, the folks in this cot are not the type to fall foul of such a stereotype, or so he thought.
But boy, they sure look peaceful.
He all but forgets the situation in the camp until the door flies open and Radar appears.
"Colonel Potter, sir, I'm to tell you that the patients in the Swamp are doing well, and we're not expecting any more wounded today, and-" Radar stops mid-sentence when he sees them, then he starts to babble, voice rising in both pitch and volume as words pour out of his mouth.
Sherm doesn't bother to listen to the actual words - he gets the gist. Even more bemusement than he felt himself along with a lot of questions and a lot more justifications and excuses, because Radar loves them at least as much as Sherm does, and wouldn't want to see them hurt because of... whatever this is.
His first instinct is to shush Radar. These boys need sleep, everyone here always does, and it's rare enough that anyone ever gets a proper rest like these two are so obviously finding in one another's arms, let alone after the day and night they had. "You'll wake them up!"
Radar frowns at him, that forehead-creasing, baffled frown he gets when he really doesn't understand a thing, and Sherm remembers they're part of a MASH unit bare miles from the front; 'they look so peaceful' is not a good enough reason to let two of his finest surgeons sleep the day away.
He brushes right past the faux pas. At least Radar isn't the type to follow up on it. "Who's deejaying?"
"Corporal Klinger, sir. I told him to play Sentimental Journey again."
Sherm isn't quite ready to admit he's getting a little sick of that song. "Good choice."
He looks down at Pierce and Hunnicutt, all squirrelled up together and looking so cosy, and part of him honestly envies the two of them. It's been much too long since he last played spoons with Mildred. While he can't completely approve of whatever is going on here, he can't find it in himself to condemn it either. And nerts, if it doesn't make him a little jealous.
Still, they can't stay there. That's not how war works, sadly for everyone involved. Besides, their cots are flush with his bed, even if they're currently only using one between them. Not having woken them up stumbling about in the dark is more or less a miracle, and none of them can sleep in, so he might as well get it over with.
"Hawkeye! BJ!" He kicks the foot of the cot they both ended up in. (Really, who knew one of those cots was even big enough for two grown men?)
Pierce grumbles and buries his face deeper into Hunnicutt's neck, and Hunnicutt responds by tugging Pierce in even tighter.
"Get up, you lazy apes." Sherm kicks the cot again.
Hunnicutt wakes first, looking confused as all get out, squinting at Sherm and then down at Pierce, at which point his eyes get wide as saucers. "Hawk," he says urgently, "Hawkeye."
"Ten more minutes," Pierce whines, sounding more like a teenaged boy than a commissioned officer and a surgeon.
"Hawkeye."
Pierce peels his eyes open one at a time, then looks up blearily. His face creases with bewilderment. "Beej, what're you doing in my bed?"
Hmmm. Interesting.
"I'm not in your bed," says Hunnicutt, halfway between exasperated and mortified. (He's not wrong. The cot they've ended up curled into definitely started out as his.)
They look at each other, then down at themselves, then untangle in an untidy flail of limbs. If it weren't for the cramped conditions, one of 'em would've definitely ended up on the floor. As it is, they barely avoid taking a tumble.
It's tempting to laugh at their obvious embarrassment and the plain undignified way they cast about for a handhold that isn't on each other. But someone has to maintain their dignity in front of an enlisted man, in the complete absence of same that Hunnicutt and Pierce are displaying - even when the enlisted man is Radar and unlikely to be unduly influenced by said lack. As the only uncompromised officer in the room, it falls on Sherm to set the good example. (He'll have a good laugh about it later. He's CO, but he's only human.)
Eventually they manage to sit their butts down, each on their own cot, and neither of them can seem to look directly at the other one.
Radar is still gaping like he can't believe what he just saw.
"Son?"
He blinks and finally peels his eyes away and back to Sherm. "Sir?"
"Go relieve Klinger. We're going to need all the corpsmen we can get."
"Yes, sir."
Radar scrams, looking mighty relieved to be given an order. He can be trusted not to gossip about this, so Sherm concentrates on his officers.
Said officers are still looking sheepish, and at anything except each other.
"You know," Sherm remarks conversationally, once Radar has fled, "the pair of you looked awful comfortable just now."
Hunnicutt's ears go red; Pierce looks like he wants the ground to swallow him whole.
"That's not- we're not- we didn't-"
It doesn't seem like Hunnicutt's in danger of finishing a sentence any time soon, so Sherm takes pity on the poor guy. "I'm not making assumptions. I'm just saying you look... well rested this morning. Especially for two doctors who were up half the night again." He replays the sentence in his brain, coughs, then clarifies, "Up half the night doctoring."
Hunnicutt's cheeks are turning the same colour as his ears, but Pierce is now wearing one of those thoughtful, intelligent expressions that usually mean he's either about to do something utterly unexpected and brilliant, or to launch a madcap scheme that'll make Sherm want to clobber him.
"No judgement from me, boys. You do what you have to do to get through the war. Just making an observation." Sherm allows himself one small grin at their faces. It's not too often Hunnicutt gets truly discombobulated, and it's even rarer to see it in Pierce. You take your entertainment where you can find it in this man's army. "Peaceful night's sleep isn't something to take for granted," he points out. It's Korea. These things happen. If they're not knocking boots - well. It's not really his business if all the cots get slept in every night, is it? "Just something to think about."
The pair of them finally turn to each other and share a long look. Sherm has no idea what the look says, but he recognises the non-verbal communication of two people who are so in tune with one another that words are superfluous, and revises his opinion once again. They're obviously not knocking boots, but...
But Hunnicutt is too devoted to his family, and Pierce is too devoted to his friend (and his nurses), for either of them to risk Hunnicutt's marriage, so Sherm makes the executive decision to keep a weather eye on them but otherwise to stay well out of it. Discretion is the better part of valour and all that, and it was already clear that these two needed each other before Sherm ever saw... what he saw.
Anyway, this isn't the moment. There's no rest for the wicked and they have things to do. "What're you still sittin' around for?" he barks. "Get your lazy butts up and go back to work."
They share another look as they get up, then Pierce grins one of his blinding grins, bounces over the cots, slings an arm over Hunnicutt's shoulders, and their laughter as they swing out of the tent leaves Sherm chuckling quietly to himself. They will be okay. He has an idea those two will always be okay as long as they still have each other; if they can get over waking up like they did, then he reckons they should be able to get over most anything.
As for Sherm, well, he knows his guys a little better than he did yesterday, and has the urge to write his wife to say how much he misses her just as soon as they get this camp back to what passes for normal around here.
Time enough to ponder the rest later. Night is over; another day begins.
- fin -