twenty years of snow; 7+
Apr. 9th, 2007 11:46 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
teapot-yo.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
mash_slashokay:
seriously, guys, i have been working on this since before thanksgiving time; it's about three pages in ms word. goddamn i wish i didn't fail so hard at everything english related. it may be time to select a new university major. GOD THOUGH I DON'T EVEN CARE. please like this? i feel like it's not really as pretty as things i've written in the past, but you know war is not pretty? or something.
i would like to say that this is largely inspired by this poem that was sent to me around the start of fall:
your absence is a thread
pulled through my being.
everything i do
is stitched with its colour.
good stuff, right? well HERE'S SOME HAWKEYE/BJ WITH A SIDE OF HAWKEYE/TRAPPER. WHAT THE HELL ELSE IS NEW RIGHT.
twenty years of snow
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teapot_yo
hawkeye/bj
7+
Peg doesn’t mean for her letters, a soft off-white with a Jonas Salk stamp in the upper right hand corner and just a touch of her perfume woven into the fiber, to be so ominous. They’re meant to cheer BJ up, to remind him that he has a family at home waiting for him and loving him. The trouble is that they can’t do both at the same time. And Hawkeye does his best to understand, he really does, it’s his job, just as much as it is to dig out shrapnel and treat infection; you save people any way that you can.
"It’s just... I feel so worn out, you know, I feel like I’m barely even a real person anymore, you know?"
"Yeah." Hawkeye likes to reason that, more often than not, he agrees with BJ’s sentiments more than his words. He knows that when BJ says that he barely feels like a real person, he means that Korea has worn him out to where he doesn’t know how to be this real. The great thing about Hawkeye is how he’s able to see through blood and dirt and grime into truth and equate it into beauty, even when it isn’t pretty.
"Yeah, you probably do know, don’t you?"
"Yeah, I do."
+
Pretty ironic, Hawkeye thinks, how Trapper decimated Hawkeye by leaving without saying goodbye, by throwing away years of friendship, by a complete abandonment of loyalty -- and how now BJ is painfully, beautifully close to canceling out everything Trapper was and making up for everything he wasn’t, and the only thing holding him back is loyalty. Interesting, too, the hold that Trapper still has over him; Trapper’s absence stains everything he does. Sometimes at night his mind disconnects, a routine if not necessary occurrence under the circumstances, and he acknowledges the irony of Trapper’s betrayal keeping him from loving BJ the way that he should. Hawkeye’s a funny man, always around with a joke and a smile. He can appreciate irony, most of the time. It’s just hard when it lifts away the only things he has, that’s all.
+
"What're you thinking about, Hawk," BJ asks a few nights later, and the frost that hangs in the air inches above his mouth serves as an insistent reminder -- answer me answer me answer me even if it does hurt you're a doctor you're supposed to stitch up others before yourself -- until finally Hawkeye replies with a long sigh, and then: "I don't know, Beej, what about you?"
"Peg."
"Oddly enough, so am I."
"I'm not just thinking about her, though, Hawk, I'm thinking about how I'm rotten and lousy and awful."
"Anything else?"
BJ sighs. "Well, I'm sorry, too, for what it's worth," which isn't all he wants to say, but his voice chokes on the important part, the part about how little an apology means from someone who fakes and manipulates and breaks, and how little good intentions mean when they're balanced with selfishness. I’m a doctor, too, hey, I tried, I didn’t want to be the next Trapper, I tried, okay? I really tried.
Hawkeye rolls over, wondering why it is that BJ needs absolution for every little thing, no matter how badly it digs into him. "Don’t be."
"I really am."
With Trapper it was so different. There weren’t any apologies with Trapper because there weren't any tears with Trapper, not ever, not even during drunken nights talking about families back home, or at least the semblances of personal relationships being passed off as such. And then, the next mornings, when both of them woke up feeling old, far older than they should, they’d go back to OR, feeling simultaneously as if they’d done something good and as if they’d done nothing at all, and eventually fall back into a good time at the still. No joke was too much, and no touches were off-limits; eventually their relationship evolved into the comfortable, familiar, easy back-and-forth give-and-take of friends who’d been keeping each other alive forever.
BJ didn’t exactly incite tears, but he gave into them far too often for Hawkeye’s taste and he also brought up things that Trapper never would have. Trapper never would have questioned the morality of the late-night handjob that Hawkeye had needed more than anything in the world, more than alcohol or love or sleep. Trapper never would have said "yes, yes, what we have is nice and I love you in a tiny convoluted awful way, but oh Hawkeye my wife, my family." And there’s the difference, the huge defining dichotomy between BJ and Trapper: Trapper’s loyalty was singular and motivated entirely by self-preservation.
Can’t you just turn the page into now, Hawkeye demands silently to BJ. Can’t you just forget how, a million miles away, your wife is sitting with your children in a warm house with warm clothes and all the food and friends and light she could ever want? Hawkeye thinks a lot about the way BJ seems to detach himself from the situation at hand. On the one hand, he hates the way BJ is able to stand upon his morality and evade everything that everyone else hates about Korea; on the other hand, why can’t he do that, too? Why does he need sex, all the goddamn time sex, and afterwards closeness?
Maybe Hawkeye’s thoughts are siphoning into BJ, or maybe he’s just finally being rewarded with a sliver of luck, because BJ interrupts his internal monologue: "Hawkeye, tell me you aren’t mad at me."
"What?"
"I mean, I don’t care whether you are or aren’t, but for now tell me you aren’t."
"I’m not," and it isn’t a lie, or at least, it isn’t yet, because anger hasn't yet even occured to Hawkeye.
"Okay, good," and BJ’s crossing the tent, kneeling on the floor next to Hawkeye’s cot, breathing onto his hands and Hawkeye hadn’t even noticed he’d been shivering. When BJ kisses him, finally, soft and slow and small, everything cancels and ceases; BJ’s family does not matter, only his hands and his mouth and how his sheer presence seems to wrap up everything Hawkeye is in a way that Trapper never did. The next morning does not, cannot, matter right now, only now, with BJ gently reclining Hawkeye back, kissing down his chest the entire way.
Let me make this right, is what BJ means when he nips lightly at Hawkeye's skin, and the difference between Trapper and BJ is that BJ doesn't have to say it.
seriously, guys, i have been working on this since before thanksgiving time; it's about three pages in ms word. goddamn i wish i didn't fail so hard at everything english related. it may be time to select a new university major. GOD THOUGH I DON'T EVEN CARE. please like this? i feel like it's not really as pretty as things i've written in the past, but you know war is not pretty? or something.
i would like to say that this is largely inspired by this poem that was sent to me around the start of fall:
your absence is a thread
pulled through my being.
everything i do
is stitched with its colour.
good stuff, right? well HERE'S SOME HAWKEYE/BJ WITH A SIDE OF HAWKEYE/TRAPPER. WHAT THE HELL ELSE IS NEW RIGHT.
twenty years of snow
teapot_yohawkeye/bj
7+
Peg doesn’t mean for her letters, a soft off-white with a Jonas Salk stamp in the upper right hand corner and just a touch of her perfume woven into the fiber, to be so ominous. They’re meant to cheer BJ up, to remind him that he has a family at home waiting for him and loving him. The trouble is that they can’t do both at the same time. And Hawkeye does his best to understand, he really does, it’s his job, just as much as it is to dig out shrapnel and treat infection; you save people any way that you can.
"It’s just... I feel so worn out, you know, I feel like I’m barely even a real person anymore, you know?"
"Yeah." Hawkeye likes to reason that, more often than not, he agrees with BJ’s sentiments more than his words. He knows that when BJ says that he barely feels like a real person, he means that Korea has worn him out to where he doesn’t know how to be this real. The great thing about Hawkeye is how he’s able to see through blood and dirt and grime into truth and equate it into beauty, even when it isn’t pretty.
"Yeah, you probably do know, don’t you?"
"Yeah, I do."
+
Pretty ironic, Hawkeye thinks, how Trapper decimated Hawkeye by leaving without saying goodbye, by throwing away years of friendship, by a complete abandonment of loyalty -- and how now BJ is painfully, beautifully close to canceling out everything Trapper was and making up for everything he wasn’t, and the only thing holding him back is loyalty. Interesting, too, the hold that Trapper still has over him; Trapper’s absence stains everything he does. Sometimes at night his mind disconnects, a routine if not necessary occurrence under the circumstances, and he acknowledges the irony of Trapper’s betrayal keeping him from loving BJ the way that he should. Hawkeye’s a funny man, always around with a joke and a smile. He can appreciate irony, most of the time. It’s just hard when it lifts away the only things he has, that’s all.
+
"What're you thinking about, Hawk," BJ asks a few nights later, and the frost that hangs in the air inches above his mouth serves as an insistent reminder -- answer me answer me answer me even if it does hurt you're a doctor you're supposed to stitch up others before yourself -- until finally Hawkeye replies with a long sigh, and then: "I don't know, Beej, what about you?"
"Peg."
"Oddly enough, so am I."
"I'm not just thinking about her, though, Hawk, I'm thinking about how I'm rotten and lousy and awful."
"Anything else?"
BJ sighs. "Well, I'm sorry, too, for what it's worth," which isn't all he wants to say, but his voice chokes on the important part, the part about how little an apology means from someone who fakes and manipulates and breaks, and how little good intentions mean when they're balanced with selfishness. I’m a doctor, too, hey, I tried, I didn’t want to be the next Trapper, I tried, okay? I really tried.
Hawkeye rolls over, wondering why it is that BJ needs absolution for every little thing, no matter how badly it digs into him. "Don’t be."
"I really am."
With Trapper it was so different. There weren’t any apologies with Trapper because there weren't any tears with Trapper, not ever, not even during drunken nights talking about families back home, or at least the semblances of personal relationships being passed off as such. And then, the next mornings, when both of them woke up feeling old, far older than they should, they’d go back to OR, feeling simultaneously as if they’d done something good and as if they’d done nothing at all, and eventually fall back into a good time at the still. No joke was too much, and no touches were off-limits; eventually their relationship evolved into the comfortable, familiar, easy back-and-forth give-and-take of friends who’d been keeping each other alive forever.
BJ didn’t exactly incite tears, but he gave into them far too often for Hawkeye’s taste and he also brought up things that Trapper never would have. Trapper never would have questioned the morality of the late-night handjob that Hawkeye had needed more than anything in the world, more than alcohol or love or sleep. Trapper never would have said "yes, yes, what we have is nice and I love you in a tiny convoluted awful way, but oh Hawkeye my wife, my family." And there’s the difference, the huge defining dichotomy between BJ and Trapper: Trapper’s loyalty was singular and motivated entirely by self-preservation.
Can’t you just turn the page into now, Hawkeye demands silently to BJ. Can’t you just forget how, a million miles away, your wife is sitting with your children in a warm house with warm clothes and all the food and friends and light she could ever want? Hawkeye thinks a lot about the way BJ seems to detach himself from the situation at hand. On the one hand, he hates the way BJ is able to stand upon his morality and evade everything that everyone else hates about Korea; on the other hand, why can’t he do that, too? Why does he need sex, all the goddamn time sex, and afterwards closeness?
Maybe Hawkeye’s thoughts are siphoning into BJ, or maybe he’s just finally being rewarded with a sliver of luck, because BJ interrupts his internal monologue: "Hawkeye, tell me you aren’t mad at me."
"What?"
"I mean, I don’t care whether you are or aren’t, but for now tell me you aren’t."
"I’m not," and it isn’t a lie, or at least, it isn’t yet, because anger hasn't yet even occured to Hawkeye.
"Okay, good," and BJ’s crossing the tent, kneeling on the floor next to Hawkeye’s cot, breathing onto his hands and Hawkeye hadn’t even noticed he’d been shivering. When BJ kisses him, finally, soft and slow and small, everything cancels and ceases; BJ’s family does not matter, only his hands and his mouth and how his sheer presence seems to wrap up everything Hawkeye is in a way that Trapper never did. The next morning does not, cannot, matter right now, only now, with BJ gently reclining Hawkeye back, kissing down his chest the entire way.
Let me make this right, is what BJ means when he nips lightly at Hawkeye's skin, and the difference between Trapper and BJ is that BJ doesn't have to say it.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-10 11:30 am (UTC)Your portrait of their relationship is, I think, truly spot on... Hawk's frustration with BJ because things can't be as simple as with Trapper, and yet his knowledge that because of that -- because of him -- they're more. And you had whole bunch of amazing lines..
"The great thing about Hawkeye is how he’s able to see through blood and dirt and grime into truth and equate it into beauty, even when it isn’t pretty."
That's really wonderful. And I like how... fragile your BJ thinks he is, haha, if you know what I mean. And I'm sure you do.
Really, a great piece. I could pick pieces out for ages, but I'll shut up now.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-10 03:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-10 10:32 pm (UTC)Also: How lovely to have one of the veterans back in action*g*
no subject
Date: 2007-04-15 10:48 am (UTC)Pretty ironic, Hawkeye thinks, how Trapper decimated Hawkeye by leaving without saying goodbye, by throwing away years of friendship, by a complete abandonment of loyalty -- and how now BJ is painfully, beautifully close to canceling out everything Trapper was and making up for everything he wasn’t, and the only thing holding him back is loyalty.
I love how you write about MASH in a way that makes it new even when we already know it. It's all these quirks and sparks that we take for granted - that we see right there but don't think on. ANd you do. You just know them, both on their own and together and, it makes me envious like whoah. It also makes me admire you like whoah, too. Just for the record.
The great thing about Hawkeye is how he’s able to see through blood and dirt and grime into truth and equate it into beauty, even when it isn’t pretty.
that's just a gorgeous line, man. and this,
"yes, yes, what we have is nice and I love you in a tiny convoluted awful way, but oh Hawkeye my wife, my family."
and this,
answer me answer me answer me even if it does hurt you're a doctor you're supposed to stitch up others before yourself
and aaah. I just want to nestle inside your brain forever. Would that be, okay? Yeah?
Lovely, as always. Congrats on finishing.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-06 11:58 pm (UTC)