Howdy, y'all! I've been wanting to write for this show for a long time, and so I figured I would finally get around to doing so, being as it's my favorite TV series ever and my third favorite canon ever. I love the relationships between all the members of the M*A*S*H unit, and I think it's one of the most infinitely powerful shows in the universe. There's a ton of material to write for, and I have a lot of stories that I hope to be showing to everyone progressively soon. But for now, I'm starting with this. These are stories which, in my head, focus mostly on one overarching theme of the camaraderie everyone shared, as that was personally one of my favorite aspects of the show. Each chapter in here is unconnected outside of that theme, and they will range from drabbles to character studies to actual stories, depending on what I come up with. Either way, I hope you will enjoy these stories as much as I enjoy writing them and watching this show, and I hope you all are doing very well. I'll try to be back later on this week with more. Until then, in the immortal words of the finale, goodbye, farewell, and amen.
Since he's come to Korea, BJ has long since forgotten exactly what normal hours are supposed to be.
Considering the fact that whenever he's up at half past one in the morning feeling as bright as anyone ever can in this place, someone else is always around too, he supposes that it might be a common affliction. Not that anyone can be held accountable for it. Odd sleep schedules are merely a side effect of the chaos, after all. The parades of wounded are unpredictable, and shifts in the OR can range from a few hours to a few lifetimes, depending on how enraged the sides of the war are with each other. With that in consideration, there's no way for any of them to sleep at normal times. Shut-eye is a blessing stolen in the moments between the nightmare's peaks, even if it only brings a more restful continuation of the horror.
So when he finds himself awake at two o'clock and hankering for a stiff drink to bleach out the dead soldier that just drew his last breath for a second time in his head, BJ is thankful that everyone else is just as crazy. He's glad Hawkeye is there to remind him that he's not the only poor soul who got marooned over here, not the only one taking a rain-check on normalcy. When he looks over at Hawk, just as groggy and just as confused as to if the clock is off or if it's only him, he feels some sort of awkward comfort. Whenever they get back home, if they ever get back, he's relieved that Peg won't be the only one wondering why her husband's in the kitchen at half past midnight with the light on for a few weeks straight after returning. Across the country in Maine, there will be a kind widower with a small medical practice who will be asking the same question about his son.
But in the meantime, they're still here and Korea is still waiting to swallow them up if they give it a chance. BJ counts it as another blessing that the other crazy people in the camp are no more willing to give in than he is, and that they're just as willing to be awake at odd hours for a few dozen games of poker to chase away the war. He's grateful that he doesn't ever have to walk anywhere in this hellhole alone or spend every waking hour in solitude trying to escape his own mind. If considering eleven o'clock at night until three the next morning a completely valid happy hour makes him insane, then at least he's in good company.
He knows that when he gets home, he'll probably never be entirely fixed. He knows it will be a month before he settles back into anything normal and gets used to waking up at five and going to sleep somewhere around ten, knows that it might take more than a month. He knows that he'll probably spend a month's worth of days annually being awake at two o'clock and throwing back a beer to make himself forget for a long time, maybe even the rest of his life. He knows that he's never going to forget this place and it sure as hell won't forget him, and that when he gets back, this ability to be singing bad opera parodies at some ungodly hour won't be considered much of a skill or a commodity.
But for now, it's only crazy, not abnormal, and the others are just as bad.
For now, the end of the war is a long way off, it's two o'clock on a Thursday morning, and he tells Sidney to deal him in for another round.