Hawkeye's nearly asleep when he hears a sniffle, then another; a harsh exhale, and he can sense from the strangled sounds the way the other surgeon's squeezing, fighting to hold it in as tightly as he can, keeping his sorrows as silent as possible.
Five weeks you've been here, Hawkeye thinks. Good on you. I wept after one.
He doesn't want to hear BJ stifle sobs over missing home and hearth, fearing the future or anything else.
He wants, achingly and wholeheartedly, to go comfort him.
But he knows feigning sleep and obliviousness has always been the most polite route.
"Oh, hey! There's a picture of that Bingo guy in the paper."
"It's Ringo!" Erin insisted with exasperation as she ran into the living room. "Gimme, gimme?"
"When I'm done reading," BJ promised, hiding a smirk behind the flimsy pages.
"Is it just Ringo?" she bounced impatiently on her heels.
"Umm..." He flipped the page back. "Yeah, sorry, none of the cute one or the Soviet one."
"Dad! I've told you, it's spelled different!"
Peg laughed softly as she dusted, hearing Erin stomp back into the kitchen. "Don't wind her up, darling..."
"I know, but she makes it so easy..."
The first time Hawkeye visited, the guest room was being redone; his being 'fine with a motel' fell on deaf ears.
He and BJ slept on the two sofas all three nights, heads on respective cushions a foot apart.
The first night, Peggy figured their few but strong drinks had been the reason.
The second, she chalked it up to stronger ones.
The third... well, she might do the same if a former roommate stayed over. Like a sleepover. It was cute.
BJ thought it more a gesture of respect, of an unnameable reverence he couldn't explain if he tried.
After Korea, Hawkeye didn't unpack immediately.
Many days passed before he put himself to the daunting task, so many that he lost count.
The lightest things felt surprisingly heavy in his hands.
The biggest surprise, popping out bright amidst so much olive drab, was the sudden shock of pink.
When had Beej tucked that into his bag? Why?
No note of jokey explanation.
He hung it with care - at the farthest end of the closet.
Someday he'd take it out, hold it, smell it.
Sleep in it.
He knew that about himself.
But he couldn't really look at it yet.
"Shut the hell up, Beej!"
BJ and Father Mulcahy turned only to see the post-op door swing shut behind Hawkeye.
"...was it something I said?" BJ quipped after a long pause.
"Well, you... you must admit, it's not very nice asking someone precisely how many screws they have loose," Mulcahy pointed out.
BJ waved dismissively. "Ah, he makes jokes like that all the time..."
The chaplain, still gently, stayed the course. "Perhaps they... sound different, coming from you."
It dawned easily upon BJ that the padre was probably right.
Rather than glare at a priest, he shrugged and looked away.
They'd gotten the movie at last. Worth the effort, although BJ saw the problem in the plan once Potter had gotten up. Absent social and physical buffer, there was Hawk, tellingly enthralled with certain scenes but amused and wired otherwise, pressed too close to his side, too inclined to touch him randomly, sweaty leg occasionally stuck to his own.
It made him... restless.
Hawkeye fumbled the popcorn and leaned down to collect it, bracing himself with a hand three inches above BJ's bare knee, blunt nails digging in a little as he shifted, not noticing the hitch in BJ's breath.