[mijmeraar] If wishes were horses, Pt 1 of 1, 13+

[mijmeraar.livejournal.com]

Title: If wishes were horses [beggars would ride].
Pairing: BJ/Hawkeye
Rating: 13+
Summary: In a place like this, you’ll take your wish.
AN: this is fic for the lovely, lovely, lovely murf1013 whose birthday has been and gone without my realising it. I’m so, so sorry for the oversight, you’re such a star, and I’m so lucky to know you. I hope you enjoy this shameless sap ♥


%

It starts mid-March, though all the months collide and mix together. Hawkeye presents BJ with a mound of potato and a burning candle sticking out the top. It’s deep red and half way to the end, wax dripping down and bleeding through white. BJ is forced to sit up in his cot while the tray is perched on his lap.

“Make a wish!” It sounds more like a demand, as Hawkeye budges up beside BJ and rubs his hands together in glee. BJ’s eyes are barely open and good thing. It’s not the sort of gesture he’d hoped to wake up to.

“It’s not my birthday.”

“Who said this was a birthday cake?”

BJ looks at the slop pretending to be food. It oozes down from its original shape and seeps dirty liquids at the side. “Cake?”

“Right. Potato cake.”

“You know the old saying, ‘it’s the thought that counts’?”

“Are you kidding? That’s my gift-giving motto.”

“Well, sorry, but,” BJ thrusts the tray at Hawkeye, and the candle snuffs out. “This time, it doesn’t count. It’s practically a foetus - it can’t count.”

“You know,” Hawkeye stands up, holding the tray and waving a finger in BJ’s general direction. He slowly makes for the Swamp door. “I would have thought that a guy in your position – Winchester in Post Op and the two of us free for at least half an hour – would have appreciated a wish. Shows what I-”

“Wait, wait, wait,” BJ hollers, just as Hawkeye is set to lawn-bowl the tray out into the compound. “You mean my wish is your command?”

“Oh, no, no, no.” Hawkeye says, haughty voice and his chest pushed out. “I’m quite certain that your wish is simply mine.”

%

Early April, BJ tries to mend a broken heart and fails. Though all the holes are plugged and stitched and sewn; the young boy won’t open his eyes. He probably can’t stand to bear witness any more. Black is black is black. BJ spends endless nights at his bedside, hopes there is an answer here, and hopes it’s this. Watching every curve and line and plane of his face, and willing him to health.

Hawkeye comes in at 2am with the pudding he stashed at dinner. Dinner BJ never showed up for. There’s a blue and white candle stuck in the middle, and a small, flickering flame. The brightest thing he’s seen all week. It casts shadows on Hawkeye’s face, almost dies as Hawkeye slumps down on the neighbouring cot.

BJ rubs at his face with a shaky hand. “Hawk, this isn’t the time.”

Hawkeye rests it flat on his palm, and his voice is soft. Grave. “Make a wish.”

“Don’t.”

“Wish for something important, like new socks, or soap that doesn’t smell like feet. Or, I don’t know … peace?”

“This isn’t a game!” BJ hisses, leaning elbows on his knees and getting in close. Hawkeye understands all the words his eyes say, BJ knows this. “This kid – Private … Samuel. Samuel is going to die.”

“You’ve done everything you can.”

“No, I’ve done everything I know to do. Obviously I don’t know enough.”

“Beej, you can’t keep doing this. You haven’t eaten, you haven’t slept. The last time you took a shower I think I was cutting teeth.”

“Don’t worry; I’m not trying to steal your show.”

Hawkeye’s deep, agitated breath wafts toward the candle and it goes out, smoke curling up through the air. The patterns are almost pretty. “Look at that,” Hawkeye says, frowning. “It’s my wish now.”

“Let me guess, fresh eggs? This week’s Girls and Garters?”

Hawkeye gives the cake to BJ who takes it, reluctantly. His hand moves to BJ’s shoulder and he grips it tight. For comfort. For both of them. “No. I wish for my best friend back.”

%

With May rolling through and spring in full swing, the 4077th battle with the 8063rd. It’s a one-for-all clash. Racing in wheelchairs, racing with their legs all roped together. Racing with eggs and spoons, and in empty powdered-milk sacks, crawling to the finish line. It’s ugly – they’re coated in mud and their fatigues are in tatters and one or two wheelchairs end up plainly as chairs. Still, a sweet sound echoes through the cherry blossoms.

It’s not the chatter of the birds, but the laughter of the people. Deep, from-the-gut laughter that Korea barely knows. Wounded soldiers on the mend, doctors and staff. They shake hands, brush themselves off, and join each other in the mess tent. United.

In the Swamp, however.

“It was my toe!”

“It was my nose!”

BJ throws a shoe-clad foot on Hawkeye’s cot, despite the chunks of mud falling from the sole. “It was my big toe on my left foot!”

“All your toes are big!”

“You can’t bear to lose, can you DiMaggio?”

Hawkeye scoffs, helping himself to a drink from the still, sloshing it onto the floor as he turns. “I can if I do but I didn’t, because my nose beat your toe by a hair!”

“Fine, fine, tell on-the-nose stories all you like. I’ll be able to sleep tonight, knowing the truth.”

Hawkeye waves a finger, a sarcastic chuckle and a shake of his head. Without any more words of denial, he disappears out of the Swamp. Through all their differences, their dissimilar walks of life, there’s this big, shining likeness that forever seems to threaten their ties. Threaten, but never break. Stubbornness. BJ flops down on his cot, poking his tongue out at no-one, and doesn’t move until Hawkeye returns.

Of course, he returns.

With a bottle of Grape Nehi and a big yellow candle, alight and sticking out of the neck.

“Not this again.”

“All you have to do is blow out the candle and say, I wish I was as great an athlete as Hawkeye, and that I didn’t always lose, and that I didn’t feel the need to lie about losing every time he beats me. Which is a lot. Etcetera, etcetera, you make up the rest. I was never one for speech making.”

BJ jumps up off his cot, joining Hawkeye in one stride and blowing out the candle. He takes the bottle off Hawkeye, who’s grinning like the cat who got the cream. Grinning until BJ is pouring Grape Nehi all over his head, and then he’s shouting words that would make Mulcahy blush.

BJ’s laughing. The grudge is gone. “What do you know? Some wishes really do come true!”

%

In the opening minutes of his birthday, Hawkeye is checking Corporal Tanner’s stats and trying to stifle a yawn. BJ arrives with a slice of fruit cake from home, a tiny purple candle pierced through it. There’s only the sound of his feet, as he shuffles up to Hawkeye, and it’s a testament to how well they know each other that Hawkeye doesn’t bother to turn around. He already knows.

“I’m looking for the birthday boy,” BJ says in his soft, Post-Op voice. They’re alone, and the wounded are asleep.

“He went to the Officer’s Club to get filthy drunk,” Hawkeye mutters, leaning against the desk and scribbling in the books.

“You’ll have to do, then.”

Hawkeye stands, arches his back so it pops into place. He turns, nonchalant, and grins lazy when he sees what’s in BJ’s hands. It looks kind of pathetic, there; sitting on top of a crumpled napkin and half the fruit fallen out. Still, Hawkeye seems flattered and BJ has to pull it close when Hawkeye tries to snatch.

“I haven’t lit the candle yet!”

“Oh silly me, of course. Wax might make it taste better.”

“Where’s the gratitude?”

“In my shorts.”

“Come on, Potter’ll have matches.”

BJ leads them through to Potter’s office, tip-toeing past a snoring-Radar. While Hawkeye flicks on the lamp, BJ, still holding the cake, rummages through draws until he finds a matchbox. He shakes it to hear a familiar rattle. “Bingo.” Hawkeye slumps into a chair on one side of the desk, while BJ takes the other. He puts down the cake, lights the match, and before Hawkeye can blow them out he puts up his hand.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Hawkeye motions to the cake with a lazy, bored hand. “Blowing out my candle and taking my wish?”

“Wrong. It’s my wish.”

“It’s my birthday!”

“You get one every year, don’t be greedy!” Before Hawkeye can protest any further BJ leans forward and gives a quick, sharp blow. Hawkeye sits back with his arms folded, staring curious at BJ through the haze. Things are always cloudy with them.

“What’s so important you had to steal my birthday wish?”

“You are.” BJ leans across the desk and puts his hands out. His eyes say all the things his words were taught not to, and the room is quickly solemn. Expectant. Hawkeye breathes in deep, sits up and takes BJ’s hands in his own. They curl together like wax to the wick, flame to the tip. Here they are, the bright light in a sea of black.

“I wished you many more.”