#it hurt itself in its confusion | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

remyfire · 11 months

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Beejhawk, things you said with too many miles between us 😇

"Things You Said..." Meme (idk what this is. Angst. Pure angst. Oww. Ambiguous ending. Oww. Read into it whatever you want. Oww.) (Everyone say thank you Lisa—) (CW for recovering alcoholic, disassociating, general post-war PTSD)

He makes it all the way to three o'clock in the morning before he gives up on sleep. He rolls out of bed, snags his boxers on the floor first, then his pajama pants. His shirt is lost in the darkness, thrown somewhere in the desperate erotic rush to get out of his head right after they'd turned out the lights, and when he considers tugging a fresh one out of the closet just to chase away the chill, he catches sight of the moonlight painted over his sleeping wife behind him, and the anxious energy floods him so fast that he thinks he might be sick.

He can't get back in bed but he can't leave the room either. Second by second ticks by as he gazes at Peg's dreaming form, the two fresh purple marks from his teeth on her throat.

When he finally pulls away, he closes the door in complete silence behind him.

Little by little, he moves down the hallway, steps lighter than they've been since he was a kid. There's a slight hesitation as he passes a quiet bedroom, the crib only days before replaced by a small bed suited for a growing toddler, but nothing stirs, and so he drifts onward.

It's how it's been for months now. There's this sharp disconnect between what came before, what exists in the present—if he can call this existing. As he floats like a ghost onward, he catches sight of a small toy, fallen from tiny clumsy fists, and when he stoops to pick it up, he's so caught by the sight of his own hand that he freezes. Even when his fingers brush the hard, cold plastic, it doesn't feel like it's actually his digits. They're too clean. The plastic gives slightly when he presses, unlike a harder, more rigid tool which might be able to cut straight through something like this.

His pulse pounds right in his ears. Slowly, slowly, he places the toy on the edge of a nearby end table—the one which holds the dying cosmos he keeps guiltily thinking he should replace—and then he continues on.

As he enters the sitting room, his eyes cut to the cabinet, and through the glass doors he can see the gleaming of enticing bottles full of dark amber liquid. For years, he slowly built up his stock of whiskey, specifically his bourbon and scotch. They suited his palate. The burn seared his throat and challenged him time and time again. It seems a shame that since his return, he no longer drinks them for taste.

He slows. Stops. His body knows what it wants just like his heart knows what it needs. And no matter what he does, the two are in constant misalignment. He's not even sure he can call it a proper orbit. One of them loops ever, ever, ever closer to the other like a comet that's going to smash down and cause widespread devastation, but he's not sure which of them is going to be the casualty.

His fingers twitch. His mouth goes dry.

The moment he steps toward the liquor, the moon makes its reappearance through the window, catching on a small blown glass ornament that he and Peggy selected on their honeymoon. It hangs from the cabinet doorknob. He remembers how they'd watched the artist craft it slowly, enthralled by how something so rigid could become soft and pliable. It was the first ornament they hung on their Christmas tree, and Peg had been reluctant to put it away once the season was over. They'd hung it there just because it looked lovely against the wood, just because they'd be able to use it as a talking point when they were entertaining at one of their half-dozen parties they liked to throw every year.

This is the first night he's seen, through the aid of the moonlight, exactly what a light blue it can turn when all the stars align.

His heart roars. Overtakes his body. He needs. He needs.

The utter irony that Peggy's the one who saved him from another forgotten night, that she unknowingly is turning him toward the one thing he's been avoiding all this time.

He leaves the cabinet behind, but he takes the ornament along with him.

On and on, the specter floats, and when he sees the true object of his obsessive focus, he curves his hands into fists. One warms the glass against his palm, but the other digs his short nails into his skin like knives. The slim black rotary phone should be the most harmless thing in the world. It's remarkable. The fact that at any moment, as long as he's willing to accept the costs, he can reach almost anyone in the country is simply magnificent. He used to picture this exact phone when he reached for Peg all the way from Hell, twining his sanity around her in knots. She'd be sitting in her chair—the one on the right side, not his on the left—and she'd have Erin in her lap, and they'd talk and laugh and babble and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry—

It's a remarkable thing. Simply magnificent. Anyone could be on the other end. Anyone at all.

At first, he simply rests his hand on top of the receiver. Maybe this is actually all he needs tonight, just the knowledge that...that he could, if he chose to. If it's enough to quiet the rushing whispers in his mind—the guilt, the hunger, the pleading, the dying—then he can turn around and go back to bed and wrap himself around his wife and forget the rest.

But despite everything, his grip tightens. He lifts.

"Operator." A tinny voice barely radiates from the phone. "How may I direct your call?"

He drops.

The sound of the phone slamming back home jolts him a step closer into reality. Yeah, he can see it better now, that is his hand. Those are his fingers. He remembers now. He hates them. They make him sick. They've saved lives but they've taken them too, and if he doesn't keep up his sleight-of-hand routine, they're eventually going to ruin others.

Go back. Go back. Go back.

He doesn't listen. He lifts once again, and this time he brings the phone to his ear.

"Operator. How may I direct your call?"

"C—" The hard syllable almost startles him, as though he's forgotten what his own voice can sound like in the intimacy of midnight. All at once, he remembers the scratchiness of a shitty blanket under him, a cool glass in his hand, the ease of speaking as he held it out and asked for more while quiet snoring crossed from the other side of the tent. "Crabapple Cove, Maine."

"One moment, please."

Silence. It's just long enough that he remembers his fear, steps closer to the table with the intent of hanging up yet again.

"Operator." A tired voice this time.

Of course. It's three in the fucking morning. What is he doing?

"How may I direct your call?"

He squeezes the receiver so hard, he thinks he might start to bruise. Last chance. Last fucking chance to back out. "I-I'm looking for...for Dr. Pierce in Crabapple Cove." Stop. No, you're not. You're in Mill Valley. Your wife and your goddamn child are asleep in the other room—

"One moment, please."

He makes a deal with a deity he's confident no longer exists. It's three in the morning. Obviously no one will answer. And if—when they don't answer, he's going to put the phone down, and he's going to walk away, and he's going to leave everything but the life he chose for himself behind him. He'll commit to that. It's the easiest thing in the world.

And then it comes.

"Hello?"

And it's him.

Oh God.

See, the hilarious thing is he knows that Hawkeye is living with his dad right now, because he'd told him so in that nightmare land that they left behind, and so really what should've happened is that Daniel Pierce should be the one speaking because he owns the house, he's the primary doctor of this community, and if anybody is calling in the middle of the fucking night, it's for his services, and so—

"Is anybody there?"

—he takes a raw breath—and so the fact that this sleepy, syrupy voice is the one he's hearing means that if there is, in fact, still a deity in charge of this world, it's one that hates him so bad, that wants him to suffer the way that he deserves, and—

He yanks the phone away and goes to slam it back home in its cradle.

"Are you okay?"

He stops.

"Do you need help? Can you talk? Make a sound so I know you're there."

He can hear that warm tone, usually so loose, turning unbelievably snappy now, because of course it does. Of course Hawkeye Pierce, the only messiah that he believes in now, wouldn't assume this is a mistaken connection, that the other line hung up, that it's a prank. He'd believe it's an emergency that only his perfect hands can save.

Though the phone trembles just over its holder, he sucks in a sharp, wet breath, and the world blurs as he brings the device right back to his ear. This isn't how he imagined this. He'd thought there'd be speeches, laughter, falling right back into step together. But nothing's quite right. Nothing's like he planned.

Without meaning to, a single word slips out. "Hawk."

And against all odds, there's a shaky breath through the line. "God. Oh my God, BJ."

BJ...BJ. Though the room is blurred with tears, a piece of BJ's brain feels like it clicks back into place, and his fingers suddenly regain their feeling as they wiggle around the phone.

Everything shatters. BJ curls tightly in on himself, the receiver hanging loose again as he begins to weep, choking back the sound into nothing but shivering breaths.

"Jesus, are you all right? Are you hurt? I-Is someone there to...is..."

The fact that the only thing Hawkeye can think that BJ would call him for after all this time, all this silence, is that he's hurt somehow breaks him further. It's like he's been trapped behind a wall of frosted glass for months, the sound muffled, the vision clouded, and no matter how hard he pounded, he could never make more than a crack. But across time and space, Hawk's suddenly pressing his hand to the surface, and he feels as though he's aligning his own fingers right back.

BJ stares at the ornament in his palm, and though it's a dark royal blue, he still remembers it as being the exact color of Hawk's eyes, standing between him and the bourbon that makes him forget.

"I'm not okay," BJ finally whispers. He stops, amends. "I-I'm not hurt, b-but I...I'm so fucking..."

"God," Hawk murmurs back, like it's the only thing he knows how to say. "Yeah. Yeah."

"I-I can't do this." BJ looks over his shoulder as though he'll have a host of every single person he's ever disappointed standing as a seamless unit directly behind him. But there's nothing but elegant furniture and, of all things, the portrait of him still sitting on the mantle, staring him down. Something about staring at the tight smile of the man trapped in that photograph makes his legs wobble, and he sinks down to his knees. "I'm so fucking sick of myself. I don't—"

"I know, I know." Hawk's voice is softer now, losing its drowsy scratch, and it's warm enough that BJ swears he can feel it on his cheek. "Hey. Hey, Beej?"

It's the first time he's heard that nickname in months. No, it's worse. It's the first time he's registered that active wave of affection under it literally ever. How many times has he deluded himself into thinking it wasn't there? BJ rests his forehead on the edge of the table, closes his eyes, and sniffles. "Yeah, Hawk?"

"Can you take a deep breath for me real quick?"

BJ bubbles up with a raw laugh, sharp as daggers. "Yeah. Yeah, sure I can." And because there's nothing else to do, nowhere he can run or hide, he does precisely that. What's weirder is it actually makes him feel better. He's so caught by the relief of filling his lungs all the way to the brim, emptying them completely, that he does it again. Again.

"I'm right here," Hawk murmurs.

He makes it sound so simple. Like he's rehearsed this. Wrote a script. God, it wouldn't surprise BJ if he actually had. "No, you're not," BJ rebuts with an edge of bitterness. "You're on the other side of the fucking world."

"Oh, c'mon, Beej." He pauses. "Think about it. I'm a hell of a lot closer than that."

When BJ forces his mind to span across the entire country as opposed to the entire ocean, the logical part of his head that he thought he'd lost must accept this reality. Even still, he spent what felt like half a lifetime attached to this man's hip. Him being further away than a city block is like cutting off one of BJ's limbs.

God. He's been trying so long to avoid that reality, but it's right here, staring him down, forcing him to accept the truth. The tears come flooding back.

Another sniffle. "What, Hawk, are you gonna spread your wings and fly to me, then?"

Hawkeye hums faintly in thought. "I don't know. Are you gonna catch me?"

Absurdly, BJ presses the glass ornament right against his heart. He can't answer. He doesn't know. He's spent so long with his arms full.

In the end, BJ opens his mouth, closes it, then finally forces the words out like pulling his own teeth. "I-I need you. I fucking need you, Hawk, I-I'm so... I can't..."

And against all odds, he hears it on the other end of the line. The quiet sounds of crying, ones that match his own. BJ rubs his forehead over the hard edge of the table as hot tears drip down his cheeks.

"Beej," Hawk finally whispers. "Fuck. Yeah, I-I... When? When can I come?"

#it hurt itself in its confusion #bj hunnicutt #hawkeye pierce #beejhawk #hawkbeej #hunnihawk #m*a*s*h #my writing

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