satai

With the AO3 outages, I thought I'd catch up on cross-posting my fics on here. This was my fic for the 2023 Hurt/Comfort Exchange, written for bbjkrss. Content note: contains BSDM, including erotic asphyxiation.

Summary: Hawkeye, deep in the throes of unrequited love, finds an unusual new coping mechanism. BJ makes some assumptions.

Another familiar type of love song is the passionate or fiery variety

Usually in tango tempo

In which the singer exhorts his partner

To haunt him and taunt him, and

If at all possible, to consume him with a kiss of fire.

- Tom Lehrer, The Masochism Tango

Self-loathing was not a new emotion for Hawkeye Pierce. He’d spent much of his time in varying degrees of anger since being drafted; it was only natural that some of that anger was directed inwards, sometimes. As a general rule, Hawkeye thought that he was fairly good at dealing with his anger, turning the bulk of it into humor. But that didn't mean it was any less miserable to spend so much of his time being mad. Mad at the army, mad at the war, mad at the constant senseless violence.

And this time: mad at himself, for falling in love with a married man. Stupid. Inevitable, but stupid. It was one of his few rules when it came to sex. He had taken pride in it, as pathetic as it sounded, to be proud of not – or at least rarely – violating what people generally agreed was a sacred covenant or at the very least a binding contract. He had intentionally slept with a married man once, during his residency. The man had been older, had been the one to first make overtures towards Hawkeye, leading him to believe in good faith that his marriage was dead in the water or a sham. Hawkeye had even begun to think that he would be doing the wife a favor, helping to accelerate the end of her dead-end union. (This had been not long after Carlye had left.) Mere minutes after they had finished making love, Hawkeye luxuriating in the hotel's high thread count sheets, the man had burst into tears, bawling about how he had betrayed his wife and destroyed his family and so on. Hawkeye had first been shocked by the suddenness, then angry to have the afterglow ruined, then… ashamed, for the part he had played.

Since then, he had sworn off married women entirely and tried to stick to other confirmed bachelors when it came to men, or at least men who didn’t wear rings and carry photos of their sweethearts in their wallets. Less complicated, emotionally speaking. He did make exceptions, though. Things were different between men. There were, of course, the classic dyed-in-the-wool homosexuals, men whose preferences were less flexible than Hawkeye’s own. Men who couldn’t be happy with their wives, or with any woman. That was different. And Trapper… well, Trapper had been one of the other exceptions. He had privately confided in Hawkeye early on in their friendship, over martinis as dry as the Sahara desert, that he and Louise were only sticking together for appearances. “Makes things easier,” he had slurred, “y’know, with th’ girls an' all. S’why we got married in the first place, anyhow. Don't have to give 'em up. An' Louise would never go for a divorce anyway.” More to the point, they had both been lonely and homesick and, frequently, drunk.

But BJ was none of these. Even when he was lonely and homesick and drunk, he was happily, deliriously in love with his wife. His beautiful wife, with whom he had a beautiful baby daughter and a newly purchased plot of land upon which they would build a beautiful house with a porch swing and a white picket fence and a perfectly mown green yard where Erin and her future siblings could run around without being afraid of stepping on landmines.

The worst part was that the same things that made it so hard to love BJ vis-à-vis his marriage were also the things that Hawkeye loved about him; his loyalty, his love, his dedication. If he'd been willing to step out on that perfect, beautiful family, Hawkeye probably would have liked him a whole lot less. Even his reaction to what had happened with Carrie Donovan, his guilt, his shame, had made Hawkeye love him more as it solidified his decision to never broach the boundaries of his friendship.

And so he stood next to BJ in the line at the mess tent and whispered with him during movies and sat on their makeshift front porch, swilling barely-potable gin, all the time laughing and talking about everything and nothing. And if Hawkeye took a particular joy in the warmth of BJ's shoulder next to his when they slumped together on the scrub room bench after eighteen hours in surgery, if his eyes followed him for a little too long when he walked away, if, when he heard rustling coming from the next cot in the night, he wished that he was the one coaxing out the quiet noises and bitten-off groans… well, that was okay.

He could deal with it. He was fine. As fine as could be expected, anyway, when he had been dragged across the world against his will and forced to sew dying children back together so they could go and try to kill some other children the government had decided were a threat to American democracy. Really, it was a wonder he wasn’t more cracked up. Compared to being wrist-deep in the steaming chest cavity of a practically pre-pubescent draftee, pining after a married man was nothing. Nothing at all. Except that of course it was still something, when some nights he looked at the figure slumbering practically within arm’s reach and thought his heart would burst from longing. On those nights, it felt like everything. He had never been able to inure himself to love’s sting, no matter how hard he tried. Telling himself that it would pass, as Carlye and Trapper and Kyung-Soon had passed, only ever made him feel worse. When things got really rough, it was less about fixing and more about patching up. Staving off the lowest lows.

There was always the still, the semi-reliable dispenser of blissfully numbing rat poison, but of course alcohol had its downsides, one of which was that at a certain level of intoxication Hawkeye found it harder to deal with his unrequited love without climbing into BJ’s lap and kissing him within an inch of his life. The hangover from that kind of decision was better not even contemplated. Nurses were another good distraction, but there came a paradox; when Hawkeye found himself in one of his blacker moods, as he often did when dwelling too long on BJ, he was rarely good enough company to attract any feminine company of his own. As luck would have it, that was where Ray came in.

“Ray” was Raymond Ghazarian, an MP stationed near the 4077th. He had thick, dark brown hair with an unruly wave, and eyes so dark they looked black. His dark, heavy brows gave him a brooding appearance, one that Ray himself freely admitted could be off-putting from a man of his size. (It was one reason, he said, that he liked to wear his glasses; he felt that they made him look less intimidating. They were too small for his round face and made him look both younger and older, which, while not totally flattering, did help to make him look less intense.) He had a tendency to stare off into space when he was thinking, and the way in which his face settled when he did this made him look like he was simmering with barely-repressed anger. But once you shook him out of whatever cloud he was lost in, he would turn to you with a smile and a how-do-you-do, polite as you please. Almost a jarring turnaround.

That glare-that-wasn’t-a-glare was, in fact, how they’d met; they’d briefly made eye contact at Rosie’s one night, and a particularly prickly (and slightly tipsy) Hawkeye had taken it as a challenge. Ray had apologized and offered to buy him a drink, and Hawkeye hadn’t turned him down. One drink had turned into two, two had turned into three, and three had turned into Hawkeye on his knees for Ray behind the bar, jerking himself off into the dirt as Ray buried himself in his throat. Afterwards, as he’d wiped his mouth and smiled up at Ray, the man had looked astonished. “Goddamn. They don’t make ‘em like you where I’m from.” Hawkeye had smiled wider and said that he was an original model. Since that night, they had found themselves falling in with each other more and more often.

Ray towered even over Hawkeye, which was always an odd sensation for a man his height and never failed to make the hairs on the back of his neck prickle pleasantly. He had a strongman’s build, a layer of plush fat camouflaging muscles that could easily pry two drunken GIs apart during a bar fight or, to hear his stories, lift a Jeep off of a trapped soldier without assistance. Hawkeye figured that most, if not all, of Ray’s stories were embellished, like any good storyteller would do, but it was certainly plausible.

As it happened, Hawkeye had an even better idea for the kind of uses those muscles could be put to. He just needed to do a little convincing.

“Hawk, are ya sure?” Ray said, his brow furrowed. “I don’t want to hurt ya.”

“Believe me, this is the furthest from hurting me you could be,” Hawkeye leered. They were holed up in the supply tent, a hanger hung on the door like a protective ward. They were seated together on a misappropriated mattress laid on the floor, and Ray had his shirt off, which was making it considerably harder for Hawkeye to focus on the topic of discussion.

“But… I know ya don’t take pain well.”

“This isn’t real pain,” Hawkeye said, a little exasperated in his rush to get going, “it’s-” he waved his free hand, trying to communicate his meaning. From Ray’s befuddled look, it wasn’t doing the job. “It’s make-believe. It’s not real. I’m not asking you to really hit me, that would be crazy. I mean, look at your hands, you’d squash me like a fly. This is just… it’s fooling around, is all.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Ray, who still looked a little worried. Hawkeye cast around in his head for a better example.

“You know the burn you get after a good workout, when you’ve really exerted yourself?”

“Sure I do,” said Ray with a grin, “but how would you know what that was like?” He playfully gripped Hawkeye’s bicep. “These arms don’t lift anything heavier than martini glasses.”

Hawkeye scoffed in faux-offense, which had the added benefit of covering up the little involuntary shiver that came over him when he saw how Ray’s meaty hand so easily dwarfed his arm. “I’ll have you know I was the star of the track team in high school.”

“No kidding?” Ray dropped his arm, an impressed look on his face. “Never woulda guessed.”

Hawkeye shrugged. “Okay, maybe not, but I could have been! I was running all over town chasing girls.”

Ray guffawed and slapped his shoulder, knocking Hawkeye a little sideways. “That sounds more like the Hawk I know.”

“The point is,” said Hawkeye, grinning, “that soreness, that feeling of– of exertion, that’s painful too, right? But you still like it. It’s satisfying. Because it doesn’t really hurt that badly, not as long as you’re doing it right. It’s a good kind of sore.”

Ray nodded along as he spoke. Some of his apprehension seemed to have faded away.

Hawkeye softened his voice. “I trust you, Ray. You’re a good guy. I know you won’t do any real damage. I wouldn’t say no to a little bit of bruising, though. A little something to remind me of you when I'm sitting on my cot or standing in line at the mess tent.” He let his eyelids droop half-closed at the idea.

Ray looked at him for one more long, appraising moment, then nodded. “Just… let's go slow, okay?” he said, hesitant. “I really don't wanna hurt ya.”

“Okay, okay,” Hawkeye said, rolling his eyes and trying to act like it wasn’t actually quite sweet of Ray to worry. “You’re so sensitive sometimes, I forget. Should we put our shirts on and hold hands for now, or–” He interrupted himself with a gasp as Ray reached into the opening of his boxers and pulled him out. “ Ah-h!– Or-or we could just get started, I’m f-fine with that too.”

Ray’s hand curled around his cock, brushing a thumb over his slit, smearing precome over the sensitive head even as more welled up to take its place. Hawkeye’s hips jerked up involuntarily. He stifled a whimper.

“So wet,” Ray said, marveling. “Hardly touched you at all and you’re dripping for me.” Hawkeye felt a flush spread over the back of his neck, skin prickling with heat. He sometimes felt self-conscious about it, about how wet he got. Or perhaps it was less about the physiological response itself and more about how people reacted to it. Like a girl, Ray had said the first time they'd gotten naked together; Hawkeye was pretty sure it had been intended as a bit of a dig, but he had to admit it hadn't not done it for him.

(Hawkeye sometimes wondered what BJ would think. If he’d be surprised, put off, if he'd tease him like Ray did. If he might, like Hawkeye, appreciate the convenience of not needing any extra lotion or lube. If he might get on his knees and open his mouth for Hawkeye, dart out his tongue to lap up the wetness as it beaded up.)

The familiar sick, sad feeling began to crawl over him at the thought of BJ, threatening to overwhelm him. They needed to get going, now. Hawkeye forced himself to pull back, biting his lip at the feeling of Ray’s hand slicking over him. He stretched out belly-down on the mattress. “C’mon, big boy,” he said, looking over his shoulder and wiggling his rear end at Ray. (He had a sudden flash of memory of being in the same position with Margaret more than once. It had been under considerably different circumstances both times, but the idea of her meting out some well-earned discipline certainly merited some further consideration at a later time. Ideally alone in his tent.) “Let’s put ink to canvas already. Just don’t go all out or you’ll shatter my pelvis.”

Ray’s face scrunched further in concentration. He was sweating, his glasses slipping down his nose. Hawkeye felt abruptly guilty for asking this of him. He had gone too far.

He didn’t even feel the impact of the hand on his buttocks at first. Then the sensation bloomed out, hot and stinging, and he let out a belated yelp, squirming away on instinct. Ray grabbed his hip to keep him steady, and then: “Like that, Hawk?”

“Yes, yes , more, just–” And the second smack came, stronger than the first. A moan tore out of Hawkeye’s throat, and the hand on his hip gripped tighter still. Then another smack. And another, and another, until Ray had built up a rhythm, spanking him so thoroughly that he knew his ass must be glowing red. With every swat, Hawkeye moaned into the mattress below him, cock throbbing and smearing precome onto the sheets as he rubbed against them.

This was what he’d needed. This would straighten him out.

He felt a little bad for using Ray, which really was what he was doing, more or less. Using him as catharsis, as stress relief, as – punishment, maybe, just a little bit. But Ray wasn’t exactly getting a bad deal out of it either, getting to toss around an officer and engage in a more robust kind of fucking than he’d be able to with almost anyone else. And it wasn’t like Hawkeye was leading him on. They both knew exactly what they were getting out of the arrangement.

“My god, Hawkeye, what happened to you?”

BJ’s exclamation shook Hawkeye out of his reverie, hands still scrubbing away at his hair.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re black and blue! Did you run ass-first into a Jeep?”

Hawkeye’s stomach dropped. He had thought the shower barriers would be enough to cover any marks of indiscretion, and he and BJ weren’t exactly in the habit of peeking over the stalls to catch a glimpse of each other like schoolboys looking to tease a classmate, but evidently he hadn't been careful enough.

He twisted his torso and lifted an arm to get a look at his backside, groaning a little in protest at the way the motion stretched muscles stiff from a long shift in the O.R. When he saw what BJ had seen, he jerked his head back a little in shock. He’d been so exhausted the night before that he’d barely kept his eyes open during his solo shower, and had gotten dressed half-asleep in the dark that morning, so he hadn’t seen Ray’s handiwork for longer than a moment in good lighting. He’d been sore, but he knew from experience that bruises often felt worse than they looked. Not so, in this case. The backs of his hips and thighs and ass were littered in bruises in a dizzying array of colors; mostly vibrant blues and purples, a few small ones already fading into yellows and sickly greenish grays. He felt a thrill roll up his spine, but it was quickly squashed by anxiety. What must BJ think?

Hawkeye frantically tried to think of a lie good enough to convince BJ. Rolled down the hill from the landing pad? Table dancing in the Officer’s Club ended badly?

“I… fell out of bed,” he said lamely, and regretted it immediately. “Right on top of my boots. Hurt like hell. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me yelling all the way in post-op.” Great lie, Hawkeye. An all-timer. Not only was the lie completely ridiculous, it made things seem more suspicious, because he’d lied about it.

BJ looked at his back again before carefully turning back to the showerhead in front of him. “Some of those marks look an awful lot like fingerprints, Hawkeye.” His voice was very level.

“So I fell on my fingers too,” said Hawkeye, forcing out a laugh as he grabbed the bar of soap and started lathering his chest aggressively. “Or on any of the hundred things on the floor of the Swamp. This might be the thing that gets me to clean up for once. Charles will be thrilled.”

BJ didn't respond. Hawkeye’s mouth kept rolling without his permission, as it often did. “Maybe one or two is courtesy of a companion. You know those nurses, always so rough with their toys. No respect for my delicate condition.”

“No,” BJ said, in that same carefully casual voice, “I don’t know.” Whether he was referring to the roughness of nurses or Hawkeye's exaggerated fragility, Hawkeye wasn't sure.

“Right.” They lapsed into silence. Hawkeye returned the soap to its dish and got to work rinsing off the considerable lather he'd built up. What a mess he'd made.

“Fancy seeing you here, Hawk!”

The sound of Ray’s voice made Hawkeye jump in his chair. He and BJ were sharing a drink at Rosie’s, decompressing after an exhausting session in surgery. They hadn’t been talking much, worn too ragged to have much of anything to say, but still wanting the comfort of company. He had just started to relax, the watered-down whiskey percolating into his system and spreading the familiar tingling heat down into his extremities, but Ray’s appearance was like a bucket of ice water. He was in no state to figure out how to navigate the impending conversation. He wondered if it would be too obvious if he crawled under the table.

Ray seemed oblivious to his sudden state of panic, pulling up a chair and sitting down so hard that the wood creaked under him. “Was hoping I’d find ya here, actually. Been one of those days, ya know? The kind where all ya want is a stiff drink and a good pal.” Hawkeye did know, had had that exact kind of day himself, would have jumped on the implied offer in a heartbeat if he’d been there alone. The operative word there, of course, being if.

“Gonna introduce me to your ‘pal’, Hawkeye?” BJ asked. There was a strange tone to his voice, one that Hawkeye couldn’t quite parse but didn’t like.

“Ray, meet BJ. BJ, meet Ray. He’s an MP stationed nearby.” He reached a hand up to rub at the back of his neck. He had no reason to feel as nervous as he did. He and BJ weren’t doing anything wrong.

Ray beamed out one of his trademark ear-to-ear smiles, the kind that made your cheeks hurt a little just looking at him. He stuck his hand out to BJ. “I’ve heard a lot about ya, Doc. Hawk is always talkin’ ‘bout the hijinks you two get up to. Sounds like you folks here at the double-seven have a lotta fun.”

BJ smiled. It probably looked perfectly welcoming to anyone else, but Hawkeye could see the stiffness, how it didn’t quite reach his eyes. It took him just a moment too long to take the proffered hand.

Ray pumped BJ’s hand up and down a few times. “Quite the grip on ya, Doc! Surgeon’s hands, I guess. Hawk’s the same way, though not quite as strong as yours.” Hawkeye stiffened, then made himself relax. There was nothing suggestive about that phrasing to anyone but him.

Maybe not. BJ’s smile grew wider, but not warmer. “So where’d the two of you meet?”

“Right here at the bar!” Ray replied, clearly not sensing any of the tension coiling about the table like a serpent. “Took to each other immediately, didn't we, Hawk?” He smiled brightly at Hawkeye before redirecting his gaze back to BJ. “Boy, he's a pistol, ain’t he? Never a dull moment with Hawk around, no sir.”

“Yeah,” BJ said, and even Ray couldn’t have missed the frosty tone. “He’s a character.”

The silence stretched out uncomfortably. “Well,” said Ray, slapping his hands on his thighs as he stood, “I can see that I’m interrupting here. See ya round, Hawk? Catch a drink later, if you’re still interested?” He smiled.

“I might take an early night, but, uh, sure,” Hawkeye said, flicking his eyes over to BJ before returning to Ray. “If I haven’t passed out at the table.”

“Sounds like a plan. Nice meetin’ ya, Doc,” Ray said with a wave. BJ inclined his head before taking a long sip of his drink. Hawkeye mirrored him.

“Interesting guy,” BJ said after Ray had walked back to the bar. His smile was still plastered on his face.

Hawkeye nodded.

“You weren’t there when I turned in last night,” said BJ as they scrubbed in one morning, too casually. Hawkeye hadn’t been; Ray had pinned him to the wall behind Rosie’s and fucked him until his legs gave out under him, whispering sweetly filthy things into his ears the whole while. A smile came across his face unbidden at the memory.

“I had some business to take care of,” Hawkeye replied, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. “Nurse Able had some urgent work that needed my special touch.”

“I asked Able, and she said she didn’t go out with you last night.”

“Well, maybe out is a generous way to phrase it–”

“Says you didn’t stay in with her, either. Nor did any of the other nurses.”

Hawkeye pasted on a smile. “Sounds like you’ve been asking around. Must have really been lonely without me.”

BJ stepped closer to him.

“Beej…” Hawkeye said weakly.

“Hawkeye,” BJ started, then stopped. He looked as if he didn’t know what to say. That makes two of us, thought Hawkeye. “You’re my best friend. You know that, right?”

Hawkeye nodded, not trusting himself to speak around the lump that had suddenly come up in his throat. He did know. Felt his love from the tips of his toes to the roots of his hair. Most days it was almost enough.

BJ was looking at him expectantly. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, Beej. I know.” It wasn’t the time for a crack or a deflection. “I know.”

BJ reached out and laid a damp hand on his shoulder for a moment before turning back to the sink to rescrub. It should have been comforting, but his touch burned through the fabric of Hawkeye’s scrubs like a brand.

He fought the urge to peel it away and see if BJ had left his own mark.

He had been trying to get Ray to choke him for a while, but he had been more reluctant about it than any of their other activities together. Understandable, given the obvious danger involved. But Hawkeye had wheedled and prodded and even offered to try it on him first, to show that it could be done safely and without causing marks. (Even he wasn't crazy enough to think he could get away with walking around camp with handprint-shaped bruises on his throat.) Finally, Ray had agreed. They had waited until movie night, when the majority of the camp was sure to be holed up in the mess tent; Radar had accomplished a truly remarkable feat of trading magic and somehow gotten his hands on a copy of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , and everyone had been talking about it for days. Hawkeye himself was disappointed to be missing it; anything that wasn’t a hygiene film was always a treat, let alone a good movie. But he was going to be more than thoroughly entertained.

And so they found themselves in the Quonset hut by the edge of camp, Ray straddling Hawkeye's hips as he carefully applied pressure to Hawkeye’s trachea; not hard enough to damage anything, but enough that his oxygen supply was significantly restricted. He had gotten into a rhythm; press-press-release, press-press-release, each press getting longer and each release getting shorter. At first, Ray had just been following Hawkeye’s instructions, but he quickly grew more confident; he pulled Hawkeye’s shirt up around his collarbone and scraped his blunt nails down his chest, tweaked his nipples raw, slapped and pinched the soft parts of his sides, wringing raspy sobs and whimpers from already-taxed lungs. Some of the marks had already started to swell into long, ropy welts, and tears streamed from the corners of Hawkeye's eyes.

Hawkeye was gone, hips bucking spasmodically, practically humping at Ray like an animal in heat in a desperate attempt to get more friction where he needed it most. His fatigues were unzipped, his cock still confined in his boxers, which had initially been uncomfortable but was long past being something he was capable of caring about. His vision was spotty, graying around the edges. He felt like he was floating halfway out of his body. His brain was screaming for air. He needed to breathe, he needed to come, he couldn’t figure out which he needed more. Nothing else mattered. He was in heaven.

This is what I needed , he thought deliriously, this is the only thing I’ve ever needed.

“Ya like that, huh? Yeah, you do,” grunted Ray, his eyelids heavy. “Never met anyone who liked it as rough as you, Hawk. You’re - uh - you’re a real slut, ya know that?”

Hawkeye moaned. This seemed to spur Ray on, and he continued, pressing harder on Hawkeye’s neck with a sneer as he rolled his hips down: “Bet I could tie ya up outside Rosie’s, hang a sign on your neck: ‘free for public use, no need to be gentle’. Let all’ve the visiting MPs and Marines and enlisted have their way with ya.” Hawkeye’s cock was steadily leaking into his shorts. His lungs burned. “‘S how we got here, isn’t it? Ya practically begged for my cock, that first night we met. I bet you’d beg them too, huh? Beg ‘em to spit on you, let you lick their boots, wrap their hands around your neck just like this.”

Ray leaned back slightly, just enough to reach his free hand into the open vee of his own fatigues and pull out his cock. Hawkeye’s mouth watered at the sight of it, flushed thick and dark with blood, as Ray tugged at himself frantically.

“But – uh – I’m not the one you really wish was here right now, am I?” he gritted out, a wild grin on his face. “Betcha wish it was that ‘friend’ of yours, am I right?” Hawkeye’s eyes widened and he bucked up, not really sure what he was doing, but Ray’s hand kept him pinned right where he was. “What was his name again?” panted Ray. “Jay something? JC?” Hawkeye writhed. “Oh, that's right – BJ. I saw how ya looked at him, that night at Rosie's. Looked pretty – fuck! – pretty cozy together. Maybe–” his hand moved faster, faster “–maybe next time we can ask him to join us, huh? Mmm– make him take my sloppy seconds, fuck you while my come’s leaking out of your hole, see if he gives it to ya as good as me–!”

Ray let out a long groan as he folded over, increasing the pressure on Hawkeye’s throat. His cock pulsed out long ropes of come, spilling onto Hawkeye’s bare pecs, his scrunched-up shirt at his collarbone, over Ray’s hand where it still pressed into his throat, scalding his skin wherever it touched, making Hawkeye feel hot and shivery. It was almost enough to make Hawkeye paint the inside of his shorts, but the weight on his neck was too much now, compressing too much of the carotid, making his face feel swollen, pulse pounding, panic surging through him. He arched his back, reached weakly up to bat at the hand on his throat, and even in the middle of the aftershocks Ray understood, began to sit up and relieve the pressure with what might have been an apology on his lips–

Suddenly, things seemed to move very quickly.

He heard the door to the hut slam open, and a shout, and a bang. Then the hand around his throat – that big, strong, beautiful hand – was ripped away, along with the weight on top of him. He gasped, gulping sweet air into his lungs as he heard a thump, an oath, a muffled yell of pain. None of it was making sense. He was absorbing information faster than his oxygen-starved brain could put it into a logical order.

BJ stood over him, chest heaving, face livid with fury. Ray had backed up into the opposite wall, blood gushing from a clearly broken nose, hands held above his head as he shouted at BJ, “Hey, hey, it’th not what it looks like!” and BJ shouted back, “The hell it isn’t!” It was a little absurd, to see such a big man being held up by someone comparatively smaller like BJ, his wilting cock still jutting out of his fatigues obscenely; for a moment it made Hawkeye wonder if he was seeing things, if some crucial vessel in his brain had popped when Ray had been choking him and this was all a hallucination or vision as his brain swelled and died.

“I knew it,” BJ spat venomously. “I fucking knew it. I knew there was something off about you, you evil goddamn–”

“BJ,” Hawkeye tried to say, but it came out as a croak. BJ flashed a look down at him and laid a hand on his shoulder as he continued.

“You’re a sick fuck, you know that, Ghazarian? A sick fuck . This is how you get your kicks, huh? Torturing people who won’t fight back?”

“I wathn’t–” Ray slurred out through a mouthful of blood, but BJ didn’t let him get a word in edgewise.

“I know exactly what – Keep your damn hands up!” he barked at Ray, who had lowered one hand to pinch his nose in an attempt to staunch the blood flow. Ray obeyed immediately. BJ continued, “I know exactly what you were doing. You’ve got something on him, some kind of– of blackmail or something, and you think that means you’ve got the right to abuse him. Well, it doesn’t, and you’re not going to get away with it.

“Hawkeye, come on,” said BJ, finally addressing him. He tugged on Hawkeye's sleeve. “I’ll take you to post-op, you’ll be safe there, Charles can check you out. Or, or I'll do it, if you– Whoever you want. Then I’ll get Colonel Potter. You –” he turned again to Ray “– had better not move a goddamn inch if you know what’s good for you. I’ll call for Klinger or whoever’s on guard duty, they’ll make sure you stay put.”

BJ started for the door of the Quonset hut, half-dragging Hawkeye behind him. Hawkeye stumbled, tugging his shirt back down and almost tripping over the cuff of his pants before grabbing at his waistband and pulling them up further. The situation was bad enough without flashing his traitorously still-half-hard cock at his best friend.

“BJ, BJ, BJ, stop,” he panted, hand twisted in the back of BJ’s shirt. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine, I swear to God I’m fine.”

BJ turned around, and for a moment his mask of rage slipped and revealed utter devastation. “Hawk. I’m– I’m so sorry.” He sounded almost as hoarse as Hawkeye did. “God. I couldn’t be more sorry. I knew something was wrong, I saw what he had done to you, but I didn’t do anything before because I wasn’t sure and now he’s almost– he could have killed you, for Christ’s sake!”

“BJ, I asked him to do that.”

BJ looked even more upset, if it was possible. He reached out as if to touch Hawkeye before drawing his hand back. “Hawk, no, it’s not your fault. You have to believe that. He hurt you because he made that choice, you didn’t make him do anything. I promise, no matter what he has on you, we’ll fix it, it doesn’t matter what it is.”

“Beej, you're not listening to me. I. Asked . Him. To.”

He probably could have elicited the same expression of utter discombobulation if he’d hit BJ in the head with a tire iron. “ What? ”

“Believe me, I’d love nothing more than to be having any other conversation right now. I’d rather be undergoing open heart surgery without anesthesia. With Frank as my surgeon! Just, just let Ray go and I’ll explain everything.” He looked BJ in the eyes, trying to impress his sincerity. “Please.”

BJ stood for a moment. Then: “Fine.” He looked past Hawkeye to Ray, still standing with his hands up. “Go on. You’re lucky I’m the forgiving type.”

Ray let his hands fall with a sigh of relief, carefully pinching his nose and spitting a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the dirt floor. “Okay. Okay. Glad we could, uh. Get thith thtraightened out.” He started to walk tentatively towards the door, then more quickly once he figured BJ wasn’t going to pounce on him the second he moved. He stopped with his hand on the knob and looked back at Hawkeye. “I’ll… I’ll be theein’ ya, Hawk.” Hawkeye couldn’t be sure, but he thought BJ let out an honest-to-God snarl . Whatever it was got Ray to high-tail it the rest of the way out of the hut, letting the door bang shut behind him.

Once the door closed, BJ stepped back and folded his arms. “This had better be the mother of all explanations, Pierce.” Hawkeye tried to ignore the sting of BJ reverting to last-name terms and took a deep breath, steeling himself for what was surely going to be one of the most excruciatingly uncomfortable conversations of his life.

“I… We have an arrangement. Ray and I. For blowing off steam.”

“For God’s sake, Hawkeye, you don’t have to defend him!”

“Beej, come on, look at me!” Hawkeye gestured at his crotch, which had thankfully calmed back down to a more situationally-appropriate state. “You saw me when you came in, that tent in my shorts wasn’t there to hang my robe on.”

BJ spluttered, caught off-guard. “I wasn’t, uh, I wasn’t exactly looking closely at that, uh, area.” His ears had begun to redden. “I was more concerned with saving my best friend’s life!” Hawkeye was torn between feeling genuinely touched and wanting to yell at the top of his lungs.

Hawkeye tried to smile reassuringly, but knew it was more of a grimace at best. “Hell, just look–!” He let go of his fatigues where he was holding them shut and let the fly flap open, displaying the fist-sized wet spot on his boxers. He could feel his own ears heating up. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t go any further, but I could have flooded the hut if you hadn’t interrupted.”

For a flash, BJ looked confused. Then the red spread from his ears across his forehead, his face, down his neck. It was like watching a sped-up film reel of someone getting sunburned. He suddenly seemed to find the ceiling fascinating.

“Th- there can be a physiological response to asphyxiation, you know that–”

Hawkeye groaned, wishing desperately for the interruption of choppers carrying an entire platoon of wounded, for someone to drop an atomic warhead on the compound, anything that would end the conversation. Based on the burning in his cheeks, he was probably red enough to rival BJ now. “It wasn’t, Beej. Can’t you believe me? At the very least, can’t you believe I wouldn’t be giving you this much very personal detail if I didn’t think it was absolutely necessary to prevent the laying of false rape charges- not, not to mention murder charges, on an innocent man?”

BJ was still staring at the ceiling. Hawkeye, for his part, was giving the accumulated dust in the corner a real working-over.

“Why, Hawk? Why’d you ask him to do that?”

“For the record, this particular activity was new to us.”

BJ snorted. “Not to you, I’m guessing. Unless you’re a lot dumber than I give you credit for.”

“Given the circumstances, you probably shouldn’t rule that out.”

“You planning to answer me any time soon, or should I pull up a chair and get comfortable?”

How could he possibly explain? “It– I don’t know. It stabilizes me. It balances me out when things get to be too much.” Not for the first time, Hawkeye wished for the comfort of the still and a glass of gin in his hand.

BJ looked at him as if he was confessing to a secret deeply-held patriotic streak. “How does having a stranger beat you senseless stabilize you?”

Hawkeye ran his hands through his hair, grabbing a fistful and tugging a little in frustration. “I don’t know! Believe me, I’d much rather I gravitated towards a more conventional coping strategy, like journaling or, or your ridiculous pushup routine, something like that. But sometimes the still is dry and the nights are cold, and I need something… more. Someone more.”

“I don’t mean to get blue, but as far as I’ve ever seen you, you’re not generally… lacking companionship,” said BJ, looking bizarrely shy given the circumstances. “Is that not enough?”

“Maybe it’s the sensation, I don’t know. Pleasure and pain, isn’t that something? And sometimes it feels…” He stopped himself before he went too far. Telling BJ that walking around in pain sometimes felt like an appropriate punishment for anything that he happened to be twisted up about was a pretty goddamn stupid way to try and reassure him of Hawkeye's (relative) sanity.

BJ still looked worried, but he looked a lot less like he was about to rush out of the hut and find Ray in order to beat him to death.

“Why him?” BJ blurted out.

“Have you seen the guy?” Hawkeye said, deliberately effete, leaning harder into the refuge of comic exaggeration in the face of so much discomfiting sincerity. “He’s tall, he’s stacked, he’s not hard to look at when you’re not trying to give him a free rhinoplasty. Not to mention available.”

“I’m tall,” said BJ quietly, ignoring Hawkeye’s pointed comment. He sounded almost hurt. Couldn’t be. Hawkeye’s head throbbed. He could feel a headache coming on, and the idea that BJ was trying to engage in some kind of pissing contest with an absent Ray wasn’t making things any easier.

“Yes, well, good for you, I’ll make sure to measure you two against the Swamp’s doorframe and see who comes out on top.”

“Why didn’t you ask me?”

Hawkeye closed his eyes for a long moment. That was it. He’d had a good run, but clearly some crucial part of his brain had swollen and pressed against his skull, and now he was having the strangest EOL experience imaginable.

When he opened his eyes again, BJ was still looking at him like he was expecting an answer. When none was forthcoming, BJ repeated himself, slower this time: “If you needed this kind of… help, why didn’t you ask me instead of going to a stranger?”

Hawkeye stared at him. “Why didn’t I ask my happily married, heterosexual bunkie to– to hold me down and wrap his hands around my neck?” That fact that he had a long-standing suspicion that BJ wasn’t entirely heterosexual was immaterial to his central point.

“I’m a doctor,” BJ said stubbornly. “Whatever kind of stress relief you get from this, I can give it to you safer. I know the anatomy, I can patch you up if anything goes wrong–”

“So you’ll fuck me until my head’s on straight again, too?” He was being too loud. “I may not be married, but isn’t there something in those vows about forsaking all others?”

BJ’s expression was unreadable. “Hawk, Peg and I have an… understanding.”

“Sure, sure,” Hawkeye said. He hated the nasty note he could feel creeping into his voice, but couldn’t stop the words from spilling out. “You’re a very modern couple, and after Carrie, you wrote to your beautiful blonde wife to say, ‘Darling, I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep faithful over here, a man has urges, don’t you know, so would you mind terribly if I took my roommate behind the woodshed and bent him over in more ways than one? I promise I won’t say a word if I find out the milkman has started making extra deliveries–’”

“That’s enough!” barked BJ, and the loudness of his voice startled Hawkeye into silence. They stood still, staring at each other. The silence left time for Hawkeye to become keenly aware of how sticky and sore he felt, how Ray’s come still covered his chest under his shirt and was starting to dry up and flake. He wondered how BJ would feel about continuing the conversation in the shower, then had to jerk his thoughts away from wet + naked + BJ and the results one could get from an equation like that.

BJ rubbed the back of his neck. “Listen, could we get out of here? I’m not– I’d like to tell you this somewhere we’re a little less liable to be interrupted. You never know who else might have plans here tonight.”

“Probably for the best. You know, the last time I was in here, I was quite loudly intruded upon.”

They stood in front of the minefield together. For a long moment, Hawkeye thought BJ might have lost his nerve, but then he began to speak.

“We’d been seeing each other for a while, and I was starting to think about proposing. Well, one night, she came to me in tears, saying she had to confess something to me. My heart was in my stomach, I was picturing all of the worst things it could be; mostly affairs, to tell you the truth. I had already built up an imaginary man to hate by the time I sat down. She told me she thought she was falling in love with someone else. I asked her what his name was, and she said ‘Ruth’.”

Hawkeye blinked. This was not at all the kind of conversation he had been expecting. “So your other man was a woman?”

BJ chuckled. “We talked until the wee hours that night. Peg told me some things that I think she had been trying to figure out long before we met. I… I think it helped me figure out some things about myself, too. Not right away, but later. Things I had never really let myself think about.”

“Men?” Hawkeye got out, mouth dry. BJ nodded.

“I love Peg, with all my heart. Part of me will always love her a little more than she could ever love me. But I’ve gotten past that part of my life. We’re a great team, and great friends, but that’s it.” BJ briefly got the wistful look he always had when he talked about home.

“And we–we’ve talked about our future, as a family. We were already talking about Ruth moving in with us, before I was drafted. I said she could move in while I was away, it might even end up working out better. It gave the two of them a good excuse, Ruth moving in to keep Peg company and help her with the baby with me overseas. They’re happy together. We’re talking about having two master bedrooms in the house, the one we’re going to build on that land we bought.”

Hawkeye could tell his mouth was hanging slightly open, but couldn’t quite muster the force of will to shut it.

“And Carrie?”

“I felt rotten about Carrie because I knew I’d just made things worse. She’d just gotten that Dear Jane letter, and we were both lonely and feeling low, and we– I made a stupid, thoughtless mistake. And I hadn’t talked about her with Peg.”

A raucous cheer rang from the moviegoers in the mess tent. The camp could have been under artillery fire for all Hawkeye would have noticed.

Even in the darkness, BJ’s eyes were bright. It was hard to look directly at him. Like staring into the sun.

“I write about you to Peg, Hawk. All the time. We… she likes you. I like you. I like you an awful, awful lot.”

Hawkeye sat abruptly in the dirt. The only thing that kept it from being a full collapse was that he couldn’t move fast enough for it. He had a sudden, acute awareness of the speed at which the Earth was spinning, his own precarious position atop it. He dug his fingers into the dry, rocky soil, hoping to hang on. BJ sat down next to him, more carefully.

“I– Beej, I can’t,” he said. “It’s too much.” It wasn’t enough.

BJ’s face fell. “If you’re saying you don’t want this, I-I understand. It’s a lot to put on you, and I’m sorry.”

“No!” Hawkeye blurted out, before realizing from the look on BJ’s face that this was perhaps providing more information than he had intended. “I'm telling you, this can’t… you’re aware that I don’t have the best track record when it comes to–” love “–casual entanglement. And our friendship means too much to me to jeopardize it.”

A glint came into BJ’s eye. “So that means you won’t take a chance? You, Hawkeye Pierce, afraid of a little risk?” Hawkeye started to say something, but BJ pressed on. “And did it sound like I was looking for something casual? Like I was going to have a little fun and throw you out like a used sponge?”

Hawkeye felt a lump come to his throat. “I'm just– I'm so tired of being left, Beej. I don’t know how much I have left in me.” He was saying too much, being too vulnerable. The events of the evening, BJ’s confession – because that was what it had been, hadn’t it? – it had all left him flayed open, unable to stop the words that poured out of him like blood from an open wound.

“Well, that's fine,” BJ said stubbornly, “because I'm not going to leave you. I’ll be here for you, whatever you need. As long as you’ll have me.”

“Beej, that’s what they all say,” Hawkeye said, pleading. He needed BJ to understand. It wasn’t his fault, or Hawkeye’s, really. It was just life.

“I’m not them. I’m not any of them. I’m just me.”

Hawkeye started to speak until a hand on his arm made him stop.

“Let me take care of you, Hawkeye,” BJ said, and silenced any further protests with a kiss. His mouth was warm and soft. His moustache tickled.

The stars twinkled in the endless black sky above them, closer than they had ever been before.

fin