Interlude
A few days later, after handing my patients over to Trapper's capable hands and leaving my shift in Post-Op, I wound up having a late dinner with Drew in the aptly-named mess tent.
Frank and Margaret had slunk off separately about ten and fifteen minutes prior, respectively, in what I'm sure they thought was a surreptitious manner, and I knew they'd be in Margaret's tent playing doctor for quite a while yet. I couldn't begrudge Frank the opportunity, as it was probably the closest thing the man would ever get to the real thing; God knew that his surgical skills didn't qualify him.
The nurses I'd seen previously welcoming Drew to their table, taken in by his charm and his boyish good looks, were nowhere to be found, likely having already eaten when Igor had started dishing out the kitchen's hazardous materials over an hour ago. So when I arrived at the mess tent and found Drew just taking a seat at the end of a table all by his lonesome I suspected it was likely that he'd checked the shift schedule and knew that I'd be arriving late for dinner (or what passed for it in Korea). He was nothing if not thorough... when it suited his interests.
I'd noticed that Drew seemed a bit standoffish toward his fellow enlisted men – no doubt because he viewed himself as superior to them regardless of how many stripes their jackets boasted. However, that evening I observed a few particularly venomous looks being sent our way, and after poking at some sort of breaded mystery meat for a few minutes I turned to him suspiciously.
"Is there something I'm missing?"
He gave me one of his most innocent smiles. Anyone who didn't know him would likely fall for the adorable, earnest-looking expression. To me, it just confirmed my misgivings. And, okay, yeah, it was still adorable.
"What do you mean?"
I flicked my eyes toward the table that the majority of glares were emanating from. "Did you do something especially endearing lately, or are you just that popular?"
Drew looked over at them with a disdainful snort. "They're just bent out of shape because I kept wiping the floor with them at craps. I hustled about four paychecks' worth of earnings before they kicked me out of the game."
"Craps?" I asked skeptically before it clicked. Craps... oh, crap. I dropped my head onto the hand not holding my fork for a moment, covering my eyes. "Tell me you didn't bring your loaded dice to Korea."
Drew smirked unrepentantly. "How else am I supposed to afford any decent scotch?"
I lifted my head and rolled my eyes in exasperation. "Wow. You sure do know how to make friends."
He shrugged. "They'll get over it."
My brow furrowed as I admonished him: "You need to stop fucking people over." And since it was Drew I was speaking to I knew I needed to add extra incentive, because 'It's the right thing to do' wasn't a strong selling point. "This is a small camp, and you're not doing yourself any favors by pissing off your coworkers and bunkmates." After a moment's thought I added, "Not exactly helping me out, either." I didn't need him dragging my name through the dirt with him. By then the entire camp had at least the vague impression that we were old college friends.
Drew scowled at me, suddenly irritated. "Is that an order, sir?"
I blinked at him, taken aback. That had come from out of the blue. I'd been giving him advice, not an order, of course – I'd yet to pull rank on him – but his mocking, challenging tone caused me to want to make it one. That or smack him upside the head. "Does it have to be?" I asked, frustrated.
As he'd become more accustomed to life in the Army it had clearly begun irking him that his ex-boyfriend outranked him, and I'd been on the receiving end of a few snarky comments from him in the past weeks, though admittedly he'd also been amused by it in turns. I got the idea that since our relationship (whatever that might be) was also technically fraternization Drew felt that he was thumbing his nose at the Army even further every minute we spent together – including the dinner in progress. I certainly understood the satisfaction behind that sentiment, but at that moment it seemed to be more of an undesirable source of contention.
"I don't need you to tell me how to talk to people," he growled. "I'm a grown man, and if you or the camp or the damn Army doesn't like what I have to say then you can all kiss my ass."
Oh yeah. Those certainly sounded like the words of a mature adult. I set that point aside, however, recognizing at once that it would be a futile argument.
"Drew, this isn't Androscoggin," I snapped irritably instead, overcome by a sense of déjà vu as soon as the words left my mouth. "You can't just drop out and go home if you refuse to play well with others. The Army doesn't work like that, and if you need that spelled out for you then I give great rates on lobotomies. I mean, why carry all that extra weight around if you're not using it?" Looking down at my untouched tray with disgust, I abruptly came to the conclusion that I wasn't hungry. The mystery meat wasn't all that appetizing in the first place, the succotash was unpleasantly mushy, and at that moment the company left a bit (a lot) to be desired. Additionally, there was something satisfying about getting the last word in before parting ways. Standing, I swept out of the mess tent and dumped my tray on the way out to the compound. Pausing by the trash cans, I stood for a minute and scanned the camp, trying to decide where to go to occupy myself for the rest of the night. I'd have the Swamp to myself, but a night of utter boredom alone in my tent wasn't sounding incredibly appealing at the moment.
A loud clatter behind me jolted me from my thoughts and I jumped in alarm. I looked back reproachfully to see Drew sporting an apologetic expression.
"Sorry. I honestly didn't mean to slam that."
I pursed my lips. "It's fine," I muttered stiffly.
He frowned, averting his eyes. "Look, Hawk, I'm sorry, okay? I'm trying here. I really am." What was sad was how much I wanted to believe him.
"Yeah, well... try harder." I looked around the compound for inspiration – or possibly an excuse to extricate myself from the conversation. "I'm gonna go take a walk."
"Hawk, I—" he began.
I turned back to him, exasperated, and cut him off. "Dismissed, Corporal," I said coldly, striding away without waiting for his reaction.
·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·:·
I spent about an hour meandering around and then away from camp. I wound up sitting on a grassy hill where I'd occasionally take a nurse for some alone time on warmer summer days, watching as the sun dipped lower and a chill set in. Wishing I'd thought to bring an extra layer of clothing, I was still loathe to return to camp. Moments of peace like this were few and far between in Korea, and I wanted to appreciate it for as long as I could, cold be damned.
I was disappointed to hear the crunch of combat boots on the dried grass coming from the direction of the camp. Granted, I would have quite likely been in serious trouble if the steps were coming from a different direction, but I was still less than thrilled at being disturbed before I even got to watch the sun sink behind the mountains.
"So this is where you disappeared to," Drew said as he reached me.
"Yep," I replied flatly, not bothering to raise my eyes from the horizon. He'd given me the time and distance to cool off from our earlier tiff, but that didn't mean I was happy to relinquish my moment of tranquility.
"Nice spot. I like it," he commented mildly before falling silent. Uninvited but undaunted, he took a seat about a foot away from me and gazed westward, a serene expression on his face, apparently content to share the peaceful atmosphere. We sat placidly for a while as the sky lit up in brilliant shades of pink and orange, and I found myself warming to his company.
"Beautiful," he whispered some time later when the sun had finally dipped below the horizon, leaving the sky beyond the mountains a kaleidoscope of purples as the moon and the stars became visible overhead. I glanced over at him with a slight smile to indicate my agreement, only to find him looking at me. He leaned towards me, raising a hand and softly brushing his fingers along the bottom of my jaw, tantalizingly light, just barely touching, ending with his thumb caressing my lips gently. Pausing with his hand cupping my face, he shared a sweet smile with me, his dark doe eyes piercing mine as if he could read my very soul in the fading light before glancing back at the horizon. "The sunset was, too."
I snorted at that, but couldn't stop my smile from growing. "Smooth operator," I teased him fondly, our earlier disagreement seeming like years-old history.
"You know it," he replied softly before closing the distance between us. After a chaste, incredibly gentle kiss he ran his hand from my jaw to the soft spot under my ear, making me shiver, and around to the back of my neck to support my head as he slowly lowered me to the ground.
What followed was probably one of the most tender hours of intimacy that I'd ever shared with the man. I honestly would have had to describe it as making love if I had been asked to put it into words. And apparently Drew felt the same.
We were still lying in the grass, gazing blissfully up at the stars in the crisp, clear night when a deep inhale from Drew made my head rise where it rested against his chest. I looked up at him curiously and waited to hear what was on his mind.
"I…." He hesitated, fumbling uncharacteristically for words. Drew only did that when he was actually addressing emotions. I'd say that it happened once in a blue moon, but blue moons are actually a lot more common than whoever coined that phrase seemed to think, and Drew speaking about emotions was incredibly rare. He was just so unfamiliar with them. It'd be like me trying to describe the surface and climate of Mars. To a Martian.
"Hawk." He tried again. "I… I love you. You know that, right?" He sounded so vulnerable. So earnest. So sincere. It was a far cry from the Drew that I'd loved and despised in turn.
Resisting the urge to make a joke ("Who are you and what have you done with my Andrew?" sprang to mind), I nodded, my stubbled cheek rasping almost silently against his shirt. I wasn't sure that Drew was actually capable of love in the traditional sense, but I knew that he cared more deeply for me more than he did most people. If he thought that was love then I wasn't going to start an argument.
"Yeah. I know," I conceded. He seemed to be waiting for something more, and I knew what that something was. I fumbled blindly for his hand, then finally grasped it, squeezing it and lacing my fingers through his. "I love you too," I said quietly, gravely.
And, God help me, I did.
