A/N: Thank you thank you thank you for the helpful feedback! It may lead to a rearrangement of things to happen in this story—but for now, it helped me get this next chapter out very fast! Sorry about the relative shortness of this chapter compared to the last few—this story is going to be a long haul but it shouldn't get boring!
CHAPTER 6 – SWAMP BARBS
Maybe Margaret just wanted to talk, Winchester reasoned, as he stood in the center of the compound with hands in his pockets, trying to figure out what to do. Was it not possible, now that she was sober, for her to simply share her thoughts with him across a table like a civilized human being?
He glanced up at the sky, which was packed with white clouds, their gray shadows giving them some texture. Not only was the sun was nowhere to be seen, but the temperature was downright frigid. The winds whipping across the mountains were enough to chill him to the bone. He decided to retire to the Officers Club for something to warm his innards.
Upon entering the Officers Club, Winchester was met with the sight of Pierce, Hunnicutt and Potter sitting together at one of the jeep-tire tables. Was there no place in this hellhole he could truly unwind?
"You missed lunch, Charles," Hunnicutt commented. "What's eating you?"
"I would argue that it was us," Pierce replied. "They were serving petrified pork today."
"That wasn't pork," Igor interrupted, from behind the bar. "That was rice."
"Sounds like I missed out on quite the banquet," Charles deadpanned as he took his seat two tables away from the group. "Igor, make it a cognac—a double, if you will."
Potter was the one to speak up with his gruff voice.
"You better not get too tipsy yet, Major. Lots of shelling going on all around us. I wouldn't be surprised if we got another wagon of wounded. You need to be ready to work at the drop of a hat."
"Igor, make that a double standard," Winchester called to the bartender. Colonel Potter shot Winchester an evil eye as Igor approached Winchester's table, handing him his glass of cognac.
"With all due respect, Colonel, I doubt anybody else will come in tonight," Igor cut in. "Heard there's a big snow coming in, with freezing rain following. The roads will be shut down for sure."
"I heard we were getting three inches of snow overnight, which isn't nearly enough to shut down the roads," Potter replied. "Didn't hear anything about freezing rain either."
"Don't worry about him, Colonel," Pierce said. "If he's as good with predicting weather as he is at satisfying our hunger, you can expect to see the truck of wounded pulling up anytime."
"I'm just saying—I have it under a very reputable source," Igor explained. "He's five for five, you know. You know that downpour we had last week? He called it, even though it was predicted we'd only get a drizzle."
"And who would this weatherman be?" Potter asked, his face stern.
"Sergeant Rizzo."
"The head of the motor pool?" Winchester replied with a scoff of disbelief. "He's nothing but a fraud, a classic swindler."
"That may be so, but the man knows his weather. Go and ask him. He'll tell you three days' weather—for a price."
"Aha. There's the catch," Charles said with a chortle. "I will not condescend to speak with that clown of a con artist."
Winchester sipped his cognac, savoring the sweet heat it produced in his throat. The drink was exactly what he'd needed to stave off the cold.
"If it's true, how do you think he knows?" Hunnicutt asked the men sitting with him. "Some kind of bayou voodoo?"
"Maybe he's a modern Kekulé, and it's revealed to him in his dreams," Pierce said.
Frowning deeply, Winchester muttered a reply under his breath.
"He certainly allocates enough time to those."
Upon entering the Swamp, Pierce almost walked into Winchester's flannel blanket, which was hung on a line strung across the entirety of the room. A running fan was aimed at it, but the fan hadn't made much progress drying the thick fabric.
"What the heck is this?" he said, pushing the offending object out of his face. Winchester's soaked flannel blanket had made quite the sizable puddle in the center of the room. With a scoff of irritation, Pierce sat down on his cot, staring at the wet object.
Winchester soon followed Pierce into the room. He did not so much as blink at the sight of his blanket, taking a seat on his bed and idly thumbing through his record collection.
"What's the deal with your blanket, Charles?" Pierce grumbled, gesturing to the oversize blanket and the puddle below. "The Swamp is bad enough as it is, and now you go and turn it into an actual swamp."
"You should feel right at home then," Charles replied smugly without looking up from his record search.
"Ha ha," Pierce retorted. "That was almost a good one."
"Don't say that," Charles hissed, glaring up from his task. "I do not wish for my humor to descend to the level of you heathens."
"It already passed us on its way down," Pierce replied. "Probably bored a hole through the bottom of your little pond by now."
Winchester had nothing more to say and instead removed the Tchaikovsky record from his phonograph, placing on it instead Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. As soon as the stylus made contact with the record, Pierce stood up, disappointment on his face.
"It's amazing—for a second there it was almost like you were normal, and then you go and do something like this," he said, gesturing to the phonograph.
"It's Rachmaninoff," Winchester merely replied. He sighed heavily. "I cannot blame you for your inability to derive enjoyment from it. The subtleties and complexities of it are absent to your amateur ear."
"Ever hear the phrase 'ignorance is bliss?'"
"That's inapplicable in this instance. This is the kind of music that will be around for eternity. It will never die."
"Nah, it only feels like eternity. And your second claim is completely wrong. This music has already died. Rachmaninoff will never compose again; in fact, he's decomposing as we speak."
Winchester rolled his eyes dramatically at the quip.
"I pity you, Pierce, for all that you have been forgoing."
"You and Rachmaninoff have convinced me, Charles. Now I'm all for going!" Pierce stood by the door, looking back at his bunkmate, at the puddle, then back at him again. "If Rizzo's forecast is right, I might even be bedding down elsewhere. The nurses' bunks are much less drafty."
Winchester scoffed. "As if you would know."
"What about you? You gonna suffer through the snowy night under a damp blanket?"
"It is well on its way to drying," Charles assured him. At the sight of the flannel blanket, he knew it was a blatant lie. He hadn't even considered the thought that he'd be sleeping sans blanket in the frigid Korean winter. Suddenly the thought struck him—his 10 pm rendezvous with Margaret. The timing of it all was impeccable, as if she'd been planning it all along. He barely managed to stifle a smile.
"You gotta be kidding me. That thing is closer to freezing solid than it is to drying out," Pierce remarked. He opened the door to a gust of frigid air filling the tent. "I better go warn B.J. that he's gonna have to listen to your teeth chattering all night. Then again, compared to your actual voice, your teeth merely chattering would be a welcome change."
"Ha. Not if I can help it, they won't," Winchester retorted flatly, a pleased little grin appearing on his face. Though Pierce had been actively leaving the tent, the dark-haired doctor stopped in place, suspicion in his eyes. Winchester bit his tongue a moment too late.
"Don't even think about borrowing my blanket," Pierce shot.
"I wouldn't dream of sleeping in such tatters," Winchester replied, his smile remaining. "And I certainly wouldn't want to deprive the bedbugs of their acquired taste for platelet du Pierce."
"Then why do you look so damn pleased with yourself?" Pierce's eyes were narrowed as he glared down his pompous bunkmate. Winchester's smile grew at his question.
"Because I am," Winchester retorted.
"Nah, it's more than that. I can tell. Look at you; you're blushing."
Winchester reached down and picked up a record. Saying nothing, he removed the Rachmaninoff record and replaced it with his earlier Tchaikovsky record. Pierce stood in place as Winchester moved the arm to the first groove. Without so much as looking in Pierce's direction again, Winchester shut his eyes and clasped his hands in his lap.
"You can't even sit still," Pierce cried, shaking his finger at the reclining man. "You've changed that record three times in ten minutes. That's a record for records."
Winchester shot Pierce an innocent little grin.
"So?"
"I'm gonna find out what you're up to; mark my words."
The balding major let out an amused chuckle.
"I fail to perceive how my marking your words will aid in your learning my evening itinerary."
So Winchester had an itinerary. This was new. Pierce took a step into the tent, his voice a mere murmur as he put a hand to the side of his mouth.
"Are you telling me that that cologne of yours actually did the trick?"
Charles's smile was positively mischievous.
"Yes, and quite effectively, I might add."
"Really." Pierce was doubtful.
"Course, Pierce. I could spare a spritz or two, if you'd like to try your luck."
"You mean, there's still some left after today?"
Winchester rolled his eyes. Pierce was not finished. He narrowed his eyes at his bunkmate.
"How do I know you're not lying? I haven't seen anyone lingering around here for you."
Charles stood up, adjusting the collar of his coat with care.
"That's because discretion is the better part of valor. I wouldn't expect a loquacious lothario such as yourself to understand such a novel concept."
"Damn—four years of medical school and I still failed to catch your meaning, Charles."
"Videre videnda, my uneducated colleague," Winchester stated with a satisfied little smile.
"If that language wasn't dead already, you just killed it, Charles. Now could you repeat that in plain English?"
"Certainly not. All I can advise in the case of your failing to catch my meaning is the use of a bigger net, preferably one constructed of well-read dictionaries and classical literature."
"Yeah. And better yet, I can use it to catch the mosquitoes your little swamp will draw!"
"Mosquitoes, in winter? An exceedingly rare phenomenon, if ever it has occurred."
"Then what bit me on my back last night?"
"That would be the precise reason that you will never have to worry about me borrowing your blanket."
A/N: Opinions on dialogue? Characterization? Et cetera?