Disclaimer & Notes: So, I haven't written a single thing in... a year? More? So, I whipped this out in a little over two hours, and I feel rusty as all hell. Please read and review, especially with constructive criticism as I desperately need to... un-rust? The Bright Side: I do have a plot sketched out. Huzzah! Direction! B.J. being cheesy and smutty, all at the same time!!!
P.S. NOT MY SHOW, NOT MY CHARACTERS.
Chapter Two: In Which Margaret Experiences Something Rather Queer
"Come on, Margaret, for old time's sake?"
"Oh go blow, Pierce, I'm tired, famished, and as always, totally disinterested."
"Says you... to the tall dark and handsome stranger armed with the knowledge that you probably haven't had a properly satisfying man's man this-man's-army divide-and-conquer twelve-gun-salute bomb-dropping earth-shattering caisson-rolling male encounter since your gloriously mustachioed Aunt Lois kissed you farewell at the airport-"
Houlihan rolled her eyes.
"- and I have eleven magic fingers."
"Where's the eleve- oh, you're disgusting. There are ladies present!"
"'And this lady doth prote-'"
"Finish that sentence and I'll have your guts for garters."
"'-methinks.' Maaar-gret," he whined, "don't be such a party pooper. Alright, let's close here. How about yielding to temptation, for once? Who knows if it'll pass your way again!"
"I'd me most grateful if it didn't!" she ground out. "And will you shut up?" All heads snapped towards Charles, who had started whistling 'As Time Goes By'.
"Oh, do play it again, Sam," breathed Hawkeye, fluttering his eyelashes.
"Why don't you just put your lips together and blow, motor-mouth?"
"Nobody save nobody is going to be blowing anything until these boys are safe and sound in post-op, is that clear?"
"Of course Colonel. So blows the horn of age and wisdom."
"That's the horn of rank, Pierce, and you'd better mind it if you know what's what." Potter sighed and turned to leave. "That's it, I'm pooped. Night, boys."
The door swung behind him.
"Well, I for one have never minded any sort of horn: rank, pooped, or otherwise."
B.J. choked.
"Ahem," Charles coughed pointedly. "ye-as, well, my work is done here. Esteemed colleagues," he drawled, shucking off his gloves and dropping them blithely over his shoulder. He glided smugly out of the operating room.
"Dammit," B.J. muttered, boggling at the possibility of a walk itself being smug. "Yeah, I'm done here too, Hawk."
"See you in the Swamp, Beej?" Two orderlies carried the closed patient from the table.
"Not if you get lucky with the Queen Muskrat," he replied halfheartedly.
"Nah, no worries; 'A bachelor enjoys the chase but never eats the game,'" he declared, met by an inarticulate cry from Margaret as she stormed from the operating room.
Hawkeye smirked. "Especially when it's gone off."
------*_*_*_*------
Crickets pierced the sweltering darkness.
She paused to lean her head towards the knock.
"If that's you, Pierce, you can go suck an egg."
"Tweedledee's gone back to the Swamp, Major. It's just your friendly neighborhood sidekick."
Margaret resumed ferociously raking the brush through her hair.
"If you've come to serve up a second serving of irritation, beat it. I'm full."
"How about an apologetic aperatif?" The candlelight caught B.J.'s eyes peeking through the cracked door.
She huffed.
"That would have been before the main course."
"Discomfited digestif? Conciliatory cocktail?"
Lips pursed, Margaret swiveled in her seat.
"What is it, Hunnicutt? And stop hovering outside like a nervous nelly, people will talk!"
He took his minor triumph with shoulders slumped. Closing the door gently behind him, he perched on the edge of the bed cover. Pulling a pink throw pillow onto his lap, he wrung his hands in the ruffles. His toe tapped. Margaret twitched her eyebrows with impatience.
"Margaret, I just wanted to apologize for my insensitive lackey's lack of... sensitivity."
Margaret gaped, then took a moment to reprocess his words, then gaped further.
"Is that all? Will you force me to listen to this again tomorrow when he, I don't know, compares my complexion to the two-day-old porridge, my eyes to the runny eggs? When I complain about the cold and he offers to warm my sleeping bag, or I complain about the heat and he leers and calls it 'glandular fever'? Or menopause? What do you really want Hunnicutt?"
"Woah, woah there, I just wanted to..." B.J. paused and reconsidered. "Be that as it may, have you ever... stopped... to wonder... to contemplate his motives?" he offered weakly, and winced.
"Motives? Besides amusing himself? Pandering to his inner child? Hunnicutt, get out." Her hairbrush was a blur in her hand as she turned back toward her makeshift vanity.
"An inner child who is... scared."
Margaret paused, and B.J. seized the opportunity to plough onwards.
"Frightened, lashing out in terror at the things he is afraid to lose... the people he... cares about. Those he loves." He stood and began to pace. "Afraid to have the beautiful things in his life taken from him, breaking his favorite toys-" here Margaret made a noise of protest, "- before his parents take them away. Margaret, it's been so long since he's loved!"
Margaret had put her hands to her lips.
"Oh B.J., the poor boy."
B.J. stood still. "... really?"
"He's a lout because he... thinks I'm pretty?"
B.J. shrugged. He wasn't sure that this was precisely the point he was trying to get across, but wasn't one to upset such tenuous leverage.
"Ye-es... Yes. Exactly! Margaret, he's such a kind soul, generous and fearful, charming and handsome, in his own way..."
Margaret hummed, eyebrows beetled in thought. B.J. moved to stand behind her, tasting victory.
"When you let him in, let him get close, his every frown casts a shadow on your day," hands on her shoulders, "but his every smile," pause for effect, "embraces you in a ray of the warmest sunlight."
The arm holding the hairbrush dropped to her lap. B.J. could feel the tension draining from her body. The candle on her dresser burned hotly in the suddenly still room.
"His eyes, you can drown in them, get lost in their beautiful pain, sink to the foundation," he bent to whisper in her ear, "of his soul, be consumed by his smouldering passions as his sensual fingers dance a trail of fire across your... body."
B.J. straightened himself suddenly, acutely aware of his own sweat as the gauzy fabric of Margaret's nightdress clung to his fingers. Her chest heaved, her breathing deep, her lips parted...
Margaret's eyes startled open with the racket of the door clattering in B.J.'s wake.
Breathless, she patted her hair and smoothed out her robe, righted the cushion on her bed and blew out her candle.
Her hair was matting slightly; there were ten sticky points on her robe.
Of all her war experiences...
The past minutes jolted through her consciousness.
... this was indeed the queerest.
She shot an incredulous look at the night outside her door. Perhaps B.J. was drunk? Margaret lay down, determined to dream of absolutely nothing, not of temptingly romantic drivel, of sensitive men, especially not of long fingers and dark wings of hair and sunshine smiles and the quickness of B.J.'s moist breath on her neck.
In the darkness, she heard the hiss and pop of an army shower spluttering to life.
.
.
.
To be continued...