AUTHOR'S NOTES: First off, I have to thank you for reading this fic. I hope it's worth your time! ^_^ Secondly, I have to pass out chocolate-dipped Hawkeyes, BJs and/or Trappers to everyone who commented on "You Can't Hold On Forever." You guys are really awesome-- I know it's been said before, but you can't repeat it too much, am I right? ^_~
This fic is dedicated to Sara(Ra) for inspiration, and Iolanthe-- because the dear is an _awesome_ (hear me, Io? _awesome_) writer and I can't wait for more of her work. ^_^
My muse seems to have run off to Vegas with an Elvis impersonator, but I did managed to scrape this up. ^^ This has already gone through three title changes, too. *rolls eyes*
Alright, now that I have babbled, onto the fic. This is a companion piece to "The Danger of Following White Rabbits", so you might want to read that first. It's archived at my fanworks site (http://www.demando.net/horizon/) and will soon find a home at the new Mash-Slash archive. WAI! This is a missing scene from 'Goodbye, Radar', made to mesh with the aforementioned fic.
That said, I, like Raven, am a feedback addict. Gimme a hit, man. ^_~ Seriously, I would be ever so grateful and adore you if you choose to comment.
-Meredith
who is finally shutting up
DATE BEGUN: January 17, 2003
DATE FINISHED: January 17, 2003
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Who Will Protect You From the Things That You Say 1/1
(a missing scene from "Goodbye, Radar")
by Meredith Bronwen Mallory
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(What's that sound?)
Radar found BJ in the mess tent, poking his food with a disinterest as vague as the meal itself; he had so much to say, but the only thing his mouth would produce was: "Gotta talk to you, BJ."
Not even a full sentence.
For a moment, Radar faced the wall of low, half-sorry jealousy that lay over the camp like a fog-- it was thick and diffuse and aimed at him. 'You're going home', it seemed to say, like the thoughts of everyone in the camp echoing off the same cave walls, 'you're going home.' Disheartened-- they were tired of war and tired of being jealous and just tired of *being*. Staunchly, Radar listened past it, meeting the doctor's gaze when the other man looked up.
"Sure," said BJ at last, punctuating the word with a stab at the solid substance dripping in gavy. He pushed it from one side of the tray and back, finally taking it in his mouth with a determined swallow.
"Um, no sir," Radar felt a thickness at the back of his throat, "Not here, please?"
A blue glance of concern-- "What's the matter?"
"I just gotta talk to you 'bout something," the corpral said with a little petulance, "Could we got to my-- ah, Klinger's office?"
"Sure," the doctor lifted his lips briefly under his mustache, "I think there's a Communist hiding in my stew." Lifting the tray, BJ tilted it a little, watching the gravy slide like molasses, "either that, or it's Colonel Flagg in my stew, disguised as a Communist." He set the tray down in the 'used' pile, considering, "I'm not sure which is worse." With nervousness clinging against him, Radar merely murmured the phrase that had served him so well:
"Oh, yes sir."
(Did you hear that?)
"So, what's the problem?" BJ smiled again, the wide way he did when he wasn't sure what to expect, and lifted a box of paper-clips to toss from hand to hand.
"It's not so much a problem, sir," the young clerk corrected, peering briefly into Potter's office, then into Post-Op. Like a child who knows he's guilty of a miscellainious *something*, he looked down at the floor, "It's just, I thought it over pretty good and I figured I ought to tell you something, on account of my leaving and all."
"Okay, shoot-- but not literally," the doctor spread his wide hands.
"It's not so easy as all that," Radar walked to one end of the room then turned, pacing back and moving his strides into a nice, firm rhythm. "It's hard to explain, and I mean, I don't know how you're s'posed to tell a guy this or if you should tell him at all, you know?"
"No," said BJ, honestly baffled, "I don't know. Look, Radar... maybe, if you need help with a problem, you should talk to Hawkeye instead." He shrugged, "He's better at stuff like this, and he'll be off post-op in--"
"No!" the young man said with more force than he intended. Then, much more quietly, rooting BJ to the spot, he said, "No. I picked you to talk to for a reason. I can't talk to Hawkeye 'bout this."
(He tries, tries hard to distill his own adoration for the pride and gin and an easy gate and blue, really *blue* eyes into something he can say. He attempts to shove that feeling-- which is not brother-love, but also not fully the other kind of love either-- into words, but the letters burst from the pressure and he knows he never should have tried at all.)
"Considering how Hawkeye is Hawkeye," he made a round about motion to match the words, "Nah, I got to talk to you about this. Is that okay?"
"Yeah, sure," the doctor leaned against the desk, watching his young friend with eyes that were only mirrors-- he couldn't see any deeper. Beyond sight, and beyond hearing, Radar also sensed BJ pulling in-- purely instictive-- on himself, the way dogs quiver without knowing before the thunder starts growling low.
"Alright." Sitting down heavy on his old cot, Radar breathed in, his shoulders sagging, "See, I met this girl in Tokyo, and she got me thinking about a lot of stuff. And, you know, when Colonel Blake left, it wasn't really like he was leaving us forever, at least not like the way he ended up doing. If I'd ah known, maybe I might have gotten up the nerve to say---" Across the dim room, Radar found and met the Captain's gaze, searching for a trace of understanding. BJ's face was lax and smooth; Radar was almost certain he'd started out all wrong, because when it came to certain points, BJ could build walls of fear and caution faster than Hawkeye could drink gin. "Look," he moved his hands as if to set the situation on the floor between them, "you've been here long enough. You know that things happen here that shouldn't-- some people die who shoulda lived and some live that shoulda died. It's just not sense-ical all the time, right?"
"Right," BJ's smiled briefly, "half the time, I don't know how we do the things we do in OR, or... no, you're right, things don't make a lot of sense here. Least of all, *why* we're here."
"Well," the corpral tried, "have you ever thought that maybe things aren't the way we think they are-- I mean *never* like how we want to believe them-- but it's just that you notice in a war 'cause it's all discombobulated an' you don't have so much time to talk yourself into believing what you want to believe?"
Briefly, BJ's eyes flickered without seeing, as if tracing the logic of the sentence. "I'll buy that," he said at last, "Yeah." For a moment, he turned a fond, brotherly gaze on Radar, "You know, I don't think I've ever heard you say this many words together. Not that it's bad, but-- what's gotten into you?"
Blushing, Radar looked at his thick, farmer's hands, "I guess this is just something I care about making sure gets done." And he closed his eyes to gather everything in and around him.
Farthest and far flung was the diffuse, bloody light of the battles raging at the front-- like a nuclear sunset or crimson waves when fish wash up dead on the beach. It was always there, pain and noise, always dying, that distant hum, so that Radar couldn't wait to get back to Iowa and remember what it was like to not hear it.
Then-- the compound itself, a little clearer by still muted at the edges. Like splashes of color, the people, not always complimenting each other but always offering something new to the eye. And.
And BJ, just across the room, who was tired and lonely and all sorts of other things no one ever made up words for. Radar sensed and heard, like off-beat echoes, the sound of footsteps; felt the bed shift as the doctor came to sit beside him. There was a wide, skilled hand resting on his shoulder-- it transmitted regret and friendship better than BJ's words.
Because he didn't understand how Radar heard things, BJ said, "I didn't mean to sound like I didn't want to listen earlier-- it's just that you usually go to Hawkeye with this sort of stuff, and I guess I'm feeling kind of badly towards you. It's hard not to be jealous that you're going home."
"I understand, BJ-sir," Radar made it one word, "I really do."
"If this is important to you, I'll listen."
The clerk smiled with sheepish, pretended indifference, "Thanks." He took a breath, holding it in his lungs, "You know I hear stuff."
"Yes." So simple and hard to read.
"You know, my Ma told me never to tell anyone, but I guess-- like I said with this being a war and all-- people can't help but notice. But, Captain Hunnicut, um, BJ, sir," Radar folded his hands together, each finger touching its match, "I hear more than the phones before they start ringing, or the choppers before they start-- ah, choppering," he said, lacking a better word. "I hear lots of things."
"What kind of things, Radar?" BJ's hand was still on his shoulder, but at the same time it had withdrawn. The young clerk wondered briefly if the doctor knew touch made him easier to hear.
"All sorts of things," he ducked his head, "like what Colonel Potter is gonna ask for, and the pain the wounded come in with and..." His hands clenched, tight on the blanket covering the cot.
(Someday, he's going to learn every language, lick up every word and every syllable, no matter how strange the tongue, no matter how warped the sound. Maybe then, he thinks, he'll have all the words he needs. Somewhere, there must be a sound, a name for everything, because don't the scientists spend all their time giving everything something to be called?)
"And, sometimes," Radar let the words drop, "I hear what people think."
Pause. What must have been silence, for BJ-- Radar did not know what silence was.
"Telepathy?" the doctor asked with disbelief, but his drew back his hand.
"You know that word, sir?" Radar couldn't help but smile in every way, "I read about it-- I'm not sure it's the right thing but it's awful close!"
"Peg reads those same Sci Fi pulps you like, Radar," BJ said, rolling his eyes with a small, careful expression of self-concious happiness.
"Oh." And for something more to say, "Huh."
"How do you *know* you're hearing what we're thinking, Radar?" the older man pointed out, "I mean..."
"I ain't crazy!" Radar stood, barely resisting the urge to stomp his foot. "Listen-- think of something, anything. Make it like a picture in your brain and I'll tell you what it is, anything."
"Radar..."
"Honest!" he moved towards the desk, "I'll even stand over here-- the further 'way I am, the harder it is for me. Now, think of something."
With an indulgent shrug, BJ closed his eyes and Radar sensed the other man building the image in his mind, piece by piece by pierce--Pierce--
"Hawkeye," the clerk said, not without a little triumph, "He's sitting with his feet up on the table, holding some cards." Radar *reached*, "The King of Hearts.... the Ace of Diamonds, and the three of Hearts and the Jack of Spades! Oh, he has a glass of gin, and he's winking." Though he'd kept his eyes open, the young man had been ignoring them in favor of his other sight-- now he looked through them, and through the dirty speckles perched on his nose.
"How did you...?" BJ began, griping the metal sides of the cot. The doctor was trembling, though if it was his body or his mind, Radar could not tell.
"I *told* you how," he came back to sit beside the Captain, relieved when the other man didn't move away. "And now," he said with blank, unaccusing honesty, "you're thinking that the thing you should have thought of ought to have been Peg."
"Hey--" BJ began defensively, eyes narrowing, before he stook his head. Those same blue orbs were suddenly apologetic, "You're right. On all counts, you're right. It's a wonder you're not better at poker." It sounded like a joke, but held something more inside.
"Oh, no sir," Radar held up his hands in protest, "I can only hear what you're thinking um... off the top of your head, like. Most people get like a turtle when they gamble. You know how when you're near a river or somethin', and the further in the water you get the less you're able to see? It's like that."
"Oh," said the other man dimly. Trapping his tongue between his teeth and his lower lip, the clerk riffled through letters and long vowels, looking for the right sounds to use. He sensed the question before it solidified in the officer's mind, but he waited, watching it like a rabbit he might coax out of its burrow.
"I can see why your mother suggested secrecy," the doctor said at last, "I mean, it even makes me a little uncomfortable, that you may have heard things that I thought were safe in my own mind. Some people would--"
(Fires, he knows. And guns-- shots, bodies falling into wide, gaping graves that are really just ditches. A woman, hands kissed by painful ropes and her neck is like china. Snap.)
"I know, sir," Radar swallowed, "and they do. The more things I read-- well, what I can get my hands on-- the more I think there were lots of people with this.. thing that I got."
"You're probably right," BJ said, fingering his mustache, "it's probably genetic-- naturally recessive or... God, doctors could have a feild day with this."
"No one will ever believe, really--" the young voice was assured, and a little sorrowful, "at least not enough people to make a difference. I think that keeps me safe, makes me pretend, like Loc Ness or the Yeti."
BJ breathed evenly for a moment, and the corpral let words rest, his 'other' ears picking up that familiar blue-flame of Hawkeye, skirting the edges of his most immediate range. It moved away, and Radar relaxed.
"I don't mean to sound unkind, Radar," BJ breathed out, "But why are you telling me this?"
"Well, sir..."
(Arranging shapes to make letters, letters to make words, but which ones? Long ones he gobbled up from his dictionary even after he stopped the writing course; short ones he's touched his tongue to a million times. Understanding, warning, caution, affection, secret IWantTheBestForHimEvenIfItIsn'tMe.)
Carefully, "Can you hear what I'm thinking now?"
Behind the coke-bottle rims, Radar blinked, "Ah, not really, sir. It's jumbled. Noisy."
"Good." A little sheepishly, the Captain added, "No offense."
"Oh, I didn't take any," Radar replied, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Laughter for both of them, real. He seized the moment while he could. "The reason why I'm telling you this, Captain Hunnicut... is 'cause I have something *else* to tell you, and that's this: Hawkeye thinks about you as much as you think about him."
Blank-- a white wall, snow everywhere. "What do you mean?"
"Sir," he felt the flash of his own irritation, "It's a big feeling. I've kinda collected a lot of words for it, but they're all really dumb. Love--"
There was a breathless 'what!?', and Radar sensed the swing of BJ's first a second before the doctor's own mind sent the command. Ducking to avoid the blow, the young clerk rolled onto the floor and lay their, limbs akimbo, looking up at the man he considered his friend.
"God," BJ's wide hands had his in a moment, holding tightly, "God, Radar-- I'm sorry. I didn't really mean to... you just caught me off guard, is all." The blue eyes, so light and just *different* from Hawkeye's, were troubled and going pale.
"It's okay, sir-- BJ," Radar pulled a smile from someplace and shrugged, "I'm not sure who was more surprised, you or me."
Running a hand through his thining hair, the older man closed his eyes, "That's not an excuse. I just-- Radar, what are you *saying*?"
"You know what I'm saying," the corpral said with patience, and with each word swallowing those he wanted to utter-- 'Hawkeye loves you and not me.'
"I love my wife," BJ emphasized, but the echo in his skull seemed to say 'life'. He glanced at his friend with trepidition, and it occured to the clerk that-- if only for the moment-- BJ was honestly not sure whether he believed his own statement.
"I know that you do, sir," Radar allowed the other man to pull him to his feet, then stood with his hands in his pockets, unsure of what to do. He sensed that BJ's feeling for Peg, thin and filmy, like dragonfly wings-- it was real and had no equivilent he had ever sensed in anyone else. But that gosmmer emotion was also not the other--
(Holding on. He's screaming inside, he knows that they both are, but at least they are screaming together. Gin warm in the stomach, hand on the shoulder, on the back-- brief touch. Casual. Electric. He hordes them, looks, winks, conversations. When he knows he can't go on any longer-- when the trickle he gets is not enough and he wants to consume everything that is [my best friend-- I can't believe I'm thinking this about my best friend!]-- he tells himself he's lasted this long, and forces himself to last that long again.)
-- intense feeling BJ had safely tucked between his ribs. Both unique. Sagging with something like relief, the doctor shook his head.
"I... I can't help it," he said, as though he was at confession, holding out his sins to be taken from him, "I tried not to... you know, *feel* anything, but I've never..."
"Maybe you should," Radar's voice was rough with gentleness. By some unspoken consent, they both come to sit on the cot once more. "Look," taking off his wool cap, the clerk wrung it in his hands and said honestly, "Father Mulcahy says God knows all that's in men's hearts. I mean, men and women and children, and prob'ly even animals too. *I* don't know everything-- or even half the things in anybody's heart. I just know what I hear. I hear you and Hawkeye think'n at each other, and you can't hear it when you're the ones who really need to."
"Maybe," BJ offered kindly, "God made people like you to make us listen a little harder."
"Aw, gosh," Radar blushed, "I was just born this way, I didn't do anything special."
And, like a child, "Does he really think of me?"
The clerk scratched the back of his head, "Yeah."
Laughing mostly at himself and the absurdity of the situation, BJ covered his face with one of his hands, "I can't believe you *heard* that stuff. I mean..."
"Oh," Radar bounced a little on the bed, "It's not like I haven't heard worser things. In OTC, I heard *lots* of stuff I didn't even know I didn't even want to know about."
"Still--" BJ began, then choked as Radar's word's canceled his out.
"Usually I just catch feelings from people-- unless I'm real close. And that one time Capt'n Pierce was thinking about having you on the table in the mess tent-- well, it's not like it was any more disturbing than the food, or anything." At the absolute red hue of BJ's face, the clerk blanched, "Sorry, sir."
"Hawkeye corrupts the innocent even when he's not trying," the older man rolled his eyes.
"Hey," Radar drew his posture up, "I'm not all that innocent."
"So I'm learning," BJ winked, ruffling the clerk's hair. He rose from the cot and was almost to the door before he turned around like he couldn't help it. "Radar-- why *didn't* you tell Hawkeye... you're closer with him than you are with me."
Frowning, the corpral pulled his cap back on, "You got a mother, BJ, sir?"
A raise of eyebrows, "Last time I checked."
"Well, moms-- at least *my* mom," he ammended, "sometimes buy nice things, like a good dress or those little glass things? And then, they tuck them away some place safe and don't touch 'em ever, which is funny since they like those things best of all." There were words forming in BJ's throat, and Radar hurried on, "Hawkeye kind has that way about other things. If he doesn't really *care*, you know, he'll roll around with the girl or--" cautiously, "whoever, but if he really *loves* somethin' then he just keeps it safe and doesn't touch it 'cause he doesn't want to mess it up. I think."
"You're really something else, Radar," BJ's voice was fond. Perhaps a little desperately and more to himself; "What am I going to do?"
"I don't know _that_," Radar said helplessly, moving to complete the last of his packing. He listened to the faint hum of the other man's thoughts. There were syllables, sounds in him, that wanted to say 'take care of Hawkeye' or 'you better be good to him', but, somewhere inside, the young man lost the feeling he had the right to say them. BJ pushed the door open, and the clerk raised his head. "Where are you going?"
"To find the nearest alcoholic beverage," the Captain confessed, "and make it disappear."
With nothing else to say, he murmured, "Oh."
A pause, a footstep-- just one, and then-- "Thank you, Radar."
******************************
(Maybe he starts to feel a little selfish, towards the end, with wounded coming in and everyone running around and Hawkeye said-- he said he didn't *want* to say goodbye until he was drunk and Radar doesn't know *why* that stings but it does. So he gets to thinking that maybe he wishes he hadn't just handed over that secret to BJ, who sleeps in Trapper's bed and eats Trapper's meals and fixes Trapper's patients but gets something from Hawkeye that Hawkeye never *gave* Trapper. Even if there were bright explosions of color in the swamp, even if he remembers hearing Hawkeye moaning, it's not the *same*. All five feet of him never felt at all threatened by Trapper, but *this*-- he curses his hearing, his gift, asks God 'why'-- for BJ, Hawkeye has something different. And the worst part is-- even if he loved/loves Henry, and even if he likes Patty because it's like she's walking through the mud and her feet don't get dirty because she's all bright and open-- even if all of that, he still wants Hawkeye for *himself*.
He holds his bear between two hurting fists-- remembering how Ma said if you love something let it go if you love something let it go... but she never said it would hurt, never said how you could maybe love and hate that thing because it wouldn't come back. For a moment, he just *thinks*, about Hawkeye, about two-and-a-half years of knowing and admiring and all-those-bigger-emotions-ing somebody, and then he lets it fall away, like it's soaking into the teddy bear's fabric. Maybe it's relief, but it is also loss.
He keeps that bloody salute, that one respectful gesture he ever saw Benjamin Franklin Pierce give to anybody-- that red soaked hand and bottle blue eyes. He keeps it, and maybe understands a little why his mother hides her special things and doesn't let the world see them.
He leaves the bear on Hawkeye's bed.)
************************
Evening in the swamp. Off past the mountain ridge, the pain and killing flickers neon red, glows and fades a little-- but there is no one around to hear it. Just the half-warm night, and the gin sliding down BJ's throat. He watches Hawkeye with languid, fond eyes-- props himself up on his elbow and stares past the picture of his wife at his best friend. Hawkeye keeps his eyes closed, shutting the blue away, with Radar's teddy bear held against his chest with one long-fingered hand. They are tired and worn and tired of being tired, or being worn down to the bone. And BJ is thinking those thoughts he usually doesn't let himself really *listen* to; hands on skin, tracing patterns, mapping-- hands through silky hair, and bodies and rhythm, because he really doesn't have an actual, technical idea of how it would work between them. Just a rhythm, in time with Hawkeye's breathing.
(Briefly, there seems to be something.... Warm, like holding your hands in front of a fire.)
Without meaning to, he whispers, "Hawkeye?"
A faint affirmative noise.
"Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
A beat. "Never mind."
Laying down on his bunk, knowing Hawkeye is only two feet away, BJ closes his eyes and tries to listen.
=================================
Captain Tuttle says you should give me feedback-- I had breakfast with him
this morning. ^_~