BJ Hunnicut was fine - oh sure, he'd called his commanding officer "Ferret Face," been shot at and nearly blown up, and appeared to have been personally recruited by the resident lunatic. But he was fine, just fine - coping well and feeling no pain.
That is, until the sun went down. When he sobered up. When all those inconvenient, little truths suddenly became a whole hell of a lot harder to ignore.
Every little noise of the camp became somehow ominous - the rustle of the tent flap was now a sniper hiding in the bushes; the backfire of a Jeep, an abandoned land mine exploding; even the friendly chatter of doctors and nurses outside his tent metamorphosed into the hostile whispers of the enemy.
Even the air soon proved itself a member of the conspiracy, and it took him several tries to choke down a breath. When he had the audacity to try for another, the choke became a sob, followed by a second, at which point the tears were simply a formality.
With his vision severely compromised by unwanted streams of salt-water, BJ didn't notice Hawkeye's entrance until he was sinking down onto the cot beside him.
Hand flying up instinctively to wipe away the evidence - futilely, he was sure - BJ managed only a, "Hey, I was, um, just..." before Hawkeye cut him off.
"Taking a localized shower?" The knowing look Hawkeye was sending him reminded BJ uncannily of high school history teacher - it was a look that demanded confessions, but with the promise of mercy.
"Something like that." Cheeks flushing, he gave his eyes another pass with the back of his hand. Hawkeye didn't seem the judgmental type, but he had hoped to make it more than one day before proving himself unsuitable for the field.
"All right, soldier, spill," Hawkeye commanded, positioning himself in a way that made it clear he wasn't leaving anytime soon. "Guts on the floor. Doctor's orders."
For a few moments, BJ simply stared. It was the strangest feeling - he'd known this man for less than a day, yet there was something almost...intimate there. They'd laughed together, drank together, saved lives together - each other's included. So when Hawkeye said, 'Spill,' it was barely a choice.
"I...I was lying here," he began, skirting the more dangerous ground, "feeling like a kicked puppy, and all I wanted in the world was some empanadas. Back in Mill Valley, there's this little Mexican place down the way that makes 'em fresh, every day. Best you'll ever taste in your life."
"They must be, if you're crying over them." There was a little laughter in Hawkeye's voice, but no mockery. "Last time food made me want to cry was when Radar swapped out cumin for cinnamon in the apple crumble."
BJ laughed tearily. Those long nights in San Antonio, it didn't seem like he'd be laughing much for a long while. Meanwhile, one day spent with Hawkeye, and he was back in the schoolyard, playing marbles.
"See? Not all bad out here. You squint hard enough at those trees, I bet they'll look almost one of those redwood forests you California types have classing up the place."
"When you say it, I almost believe. Then I think about those empanadas..." Fear boiled once more in the pit of his stomach. "Peg's pancakes, the Stanford Herald - all of it just...gone. Makes me want to run out into that jungle and not stop until I hit the sea."
BJ shivered, curling in on himself. The springs on the bunk squeaked ominously in rhythm, and it took him a full minute to realize it because his whole body was shaking.
"Hey,"was all Hawkeye said. Just hey, as the hand rubbing his shoulder moved methodically downward until it was wrapped tightly around his waist.
A what are you doing? echoed hollow in the back of his brain, but somehow never traveled any further. Even as Hawkeye stretched and curled around him, BJ couldn't find it in himself to do anything other than take the comfort being given, and damn gratefully too.
"My first night, I got so damn drunk I stumbled into the barracks and tried on three of Klinger's dresses." He said it matter-of-factly, no pride, no shame. "Blake found me passed out on the operating table, scalpel in one hand, tube of lipstick in the other."
"Did he ask what a nice girl like you was doing in a place like this?" God, was it hitting him, too - the manic glee that seemed to seep through the walls in this place?
"Well, maybe if I'd have gone with the blue chiffon." BJ would've sworn he could hear the smile in Hawkeye's voice. "I'm afraid the effect of the beige silk was quite risque."
BJ laughed again - a slightly unhinged sound, but under the circumstances, he'd settle for it gladly.
"No, he simply took me into his office, poured me a whiskey, and said, 'Son, war is hell. You'd better get used to it.' Just that - he wasn't precisely the prize student in Rousing Speeches 101 at general school."
"And did you?" BJ wasn't sure he wanted the answer, but asked anyway. "Get used to it?"
"No." All of a sudden, Hawkeye wasn't joking anymore - that scared him more than anything he'd seen yet. "Not like you think you will. But you find ways of coping - laughter for the light stuff, booze for the heavy. The occasional wild binge of hope does wonders, but you gotta be careful; overdose of that stuff'll kill you sooner than any bullet wound."
"Most of all..." Hawkeye slid a hand over BJ's and squeezed. "You can't do it alone. None of this 'physician, heal thyself' malarky. Whole passel of doctors here - the correct zoological classification, mind you - ready to tend your wounds, and you'd be a fool not to let them. You'll find that out soon enough."
"Let me guess - this is the crash course?" The warm weight of Hawkeye resting against him made BJ feel strangely...safe. He remembered reading somewhere in medical school about the healing properties of physical contact, but had always been skeptical. After all, he'd thought, how could simply touching someone make them feel better? Now he was trying unsuccessfully to tell that to his levelling heart rate.
"What else? Now pay close attention - there'll be a test first thing tomorrow." Hawkeye shifted a little, resting his head in the crook of BJ's neck. BJ, meanwhile moved to shift his leg, only to find it tangled between Hawkeye's.
"Hawk..." He knew if he didn't say anything in the next three seconds, he was in danger of letting the strangeness of a strange country get the better of him in strange ways. "I...I've got a wife. Waiting for me back home."
"Really?" Hawkeye yawned and snuggled closer. "I've got a guinea pig. Well, to each his own."
"Isn't there anything you take seriously?" BJ was hellbent enough on getting Hawkeye to give him a straight answer that he didn't think of the consequences of turning around to face him until it was too late.
Hawkeye smiled gently, placed a light kiss to the tip of BJ's nose, and announced, "Not when I can help it. I'd suggest you do the same."
BJ could only stare in utter wonder at the man in front of him. He'd been in Korea less than twenty-four hours, and already nothing made any sense. Up was down, left was right, black was white...and God help him if he could think of somewhere he'd rather be in that moment than right where he was.
"The rules are different here, aren't they?" Not that Hawkeye needed telling, but it seemed a safer thing to say than some others that were running through his mind.
"I wouldn't worry too much about it," Hawkeye observed wryly, running an errant hand through BJ's hair. "From what I've seen today, you're a quick study. You'll be just fine."
"But only if you shut those baby blues of yours and get some shut-eye." Hawkeye shifted a little, as if to withdraw, then stopped - probably because BJ's hand had reacted faster than his mind and wrapped itself around Hawkeye's wrist.
Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. "Would Major Burns court martial us if he found you here in the morning?" BJ was pretty sure he didn't care.
"Probably," Hawkeye mused. He didn't move. "But I'm willing to chance it if you are - on one condition."
"Name it." BJ knew for a fact he shouldn't be agreeing to this blind. Clearly the rational thinking part of his brain had disconnected itself from his tongue for the evening.
"You acquiesce to a more vertical position." Hawkeye flattened his back against the cot and extended the arm beneath BJ in invitation. "The architects of these monstrosities did not engineer them for mutual habitation, so a guy's gotta get creative."
BJ shifted Hawkeye's dog tags a few inches to the right and rested his head tentatively on his chest. Any strangeness lasted only a few seconds before the strain of the day had him struggling to keep his eyes open. "Hawkeye?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Hawkeye mumbled sleepily. His fingers drummed a haphazard tattoo on BJ's back. "Where have I been all your life? I'll tell you in the morning, but be warned - some parts are not suitable for children."
"Just...thanks." BJ felt himself drifting off, but couldn't until he got this out. "Don't know...what I ...would've...done." It was the truth, God help him. He did not want to think about what would've happened if Hawkeye hadn't been there as the driver of the world's craziest welcome wagon.
The last thing he registered before drifting off into darkness was lips resting against his hair and a softly murmured, "That makes two of us."