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1.
The supply room is quiet save for a few indistinct rustling noises. At first Frank thinks it’s rats, but then he hears a male voice hiss dammit, which makes him think it probably isn’t rats. Not even the giant scary Korean ones that keep stealing his slippers know how to cuss.
So Frank abandons his search for a blanket for a planned picknick with a certain Major and instead advances with courageous caution. He shuffles around a wall of boxes. He spots a dark head of hair and thinks Pierce, which explains very much indeed, but then the other head turns out to be set on a pair of shoulders much too wide for any nurse’s, which halts all those devious explanations in their tracks.
Doesn’t really help with Frank’s blank-minded confusion when McIntyre is still hiking up his pants and fumbling with the zip while Pierce turns around, casually leans an arm on the storage shelf in their dark little corner of the supply room, and shamelessly goes, “Hello, Frank.”
“What!” Frank says, because it is not a question, but rather a statement of fact. Pierce is obscuring most of McIntyre from view, but not completely, and it was too late anyway once Frank rounded the corner. “You were out of uniform,” he points out, because just that is enough to be aghast about, without having to divine any other phrasing for that particular state of dress. “Together! In here.”
“Well, yes,” Pierce says, like he doesn’t really get why Frank would even bother calling attention to that.
McIntyre steps out from behind him, but not really, because their corridor is so small their sides still touch. It’s a moot point anyway, because McIntyre’s elbow ends up on Pierce’s shoulder. “Just measuring, Frank. You know.”
Frank doesn’t know. Frank rarely knows when either of those two says “you know”. “Measuring?” he questions, as shrewdly as he can. This sounds like one of their smooth-talking excuses for some kind of scheme, but too many alarm bells are ringing in Frank’s head for him to make sense of any of it. Margaret would know. He should tell Margaret soon. “Measuring what?”
Pierce slouches further against the shelf, looking smug about his deep level of disrespect for respectfulness. “I have full confidence in even your ability to figure it out.”
McIntyre is quiet, and Frank looks from one to the other trying to put pieces of this puzzle together, until McIntyre says, “Take off your pants, Frank. Let’s see what you’re working with.”
That, that is the moment all of Frank’s pennies drop at once, together with his stomach. They! In here! Oh!
He’s frozen for the barest moment in the middle of the crash, but then McIntyre takes a step forward, so Frank turns on his heel and adapts a strategy of strategic retreat, strategically speaking. It may look somewhat like fleeing desperately out the door of the supply room, but that’s simply a matter of overlap in definitions.
When he’s safely hidden behind the garbage dump at the other end of the compound, he takes a few deep if unpleasant breaths, and decides he really can’t tell Margaret about this after all. Mention Pierce and McIntyre’s private parts, as being out in public, where anyone could see? She would be disgusted.
Or worse, intrigued. No reason to risk it.
*
2.
Frank enters the Swamp still mid-run, slams the door shut behind him to combat the worst of the blast of cold air, and very nearly careens into the stove’s exhaust pipe in the middle of the tent. He’s frantically rubbing his mittens and blowing on them, with a faint hope of getting his fingertips unfrozen before spring, when he notices that Pierce’s bunk is a little crowded. A double take still shows him the same thing, so he promptly forgets all about the sub-zero temperatures.
And then remembers, because it’s inescapable, but at least he’s still distracted.
“You’re using the same bunk.” He’s stating the obvious, yes, but it’s a necessary evil. Pierce and McIntyre make things that should be straightforward so very bent by their mere existence.
“Once again,” Pierce says, and then takes a brief pause for a little chattering of teeth as he burrows deeper in the nest he and McIntyre have built. “-nothing escapes your attention, does it, Frank?”
“It’s cold,” McIntyre adds moodily. One of his hands surfaces from presumably being wrapped around Pierce to pull their double blanket up to their noses.
“And Trapper is hot.” Pierce’s voice is muffled after he turns his face into McIntyre’s shoulder, and Frank can’t deny McIntyre’s cable knit sweater looks like a very tempting place to rub a cold nose on a day like this. “If it seems like we’re cuddling, it’s only because we are.”
McIntyre hums. “For body warmth.”
Those are magic words: Frank goes from straight-spined and outraged to his far more relaxed state of wilted and half-frozen. Even for real patriotic Americans, it’s too cold for military posture. “Hey guys,” he says, pitching his voice for reconciliation and a touch of shameless pathetic pleading, because that always worked wonders on his mother. “You don’t suppose that cot is big enough for three?”
The cot shakes a little, and it’s unclear if it’s a shiver due to temperature or surprise. “You want to join us?” McIntyre questions. “In bed?”
Frank forgets about the reconciling and goes all in on the patheticness. He stomps his feet a little in misery. “It’s just so cold.”
“What about Margaret?”
“Oh, she’d definitely fit,” Pierce says, which elicits a leer from McIntyre.
Frank can read the writing on the tent wall, and it says that once again everybody hates him for completely no reason at all. He gets over it quickly and huffs and jams his hands in his pockets. “Well,” he says, very casually. He ambles towards the door with absolutely no sinful intention whatsoever. “I think maybe I’ll go for an evening walk.”
McIntyre hums again. It reminds Frank a little of the annoying purring noises that the kids’ cat sometimes made before he gave it to a patient and told the kids it had run away.
“Tell Hot Lips we said hi,” Pierce says.
“Sure,” Frank almost promises, and then realizes it’s a trap and smartly saves the situation by adding, “-ly not! I’m not going to Margaret’s tent!”
“Right,” McIntyre says, in a way that implies he might not have fully bought that.
“Whatever you say,” Pierce adds.
Frank stands there for a second thinking of a good comeback, but when not a single one presents itself to him, he leaves. He’s very impatient for this evening walk, that’s all. And if, say, he were to perhaps pass by someone’s tent, or even happen to speed walk there in a straight line, well-
She doesn’t have a cable knit sweater like McIntyre’s, though.
*
3.
Frank is crossing the compound when he spots Pierce and McIntyre, reclining on a pair of beach chairs like the gold bricks they are. It’s a warm spring day, yes, but that’s no excuse to laze around, or to be wearing a Hawaiian shirt as an officer of the US Army in the middle of a police action, or to leave that shirt completely unbuttoned like McIntyre’s. It’s indecent, is what it is, and a disgrace and affront and-
Other synonyms Frank will think of in a moment.
While he fumes and walks and gets closer, his eye catches on a spot just above McIntyre’s collarbone. It’s darker than the rest of his skin, but not from the sun, which makes Frank stop in his tracks right in front of Pierce and McIntyre’s chairs.
Pierce lowers his sunglasses down his nose until they’re hanging by one of father Mulcahy’s prayers. “Can I help you, Mr. Burns, or are you just looking?”
Pierce’s voice makes McIntyre raise his head as well. He pushes his sunglasses the other direction, up into his hair. “Hi Frank. Ten bucks for a picture.”
“That’s Major Burns to you guys,” Frank retorts, but he’s learned a thing or two in the first hundred times he’s tried to exercise his authority and demand some respect around here, so he doesn’t give Pierce a chance to fire off another wisecrack. Instead he barrels right on, raising a finger to point at McIntyre’s neck. “What’s that?”
Pierce turns to look. “That’s a human man. I can understand the confusion if you’ve never seen one before-”
“No!” Annoyed, Frank makes a point of pointing better. “That.”
“Oh, that,” Pierce says, with the A drawn out into a long noise of understanding. “He ran into a door.”
“With his neck?”
McIntyre grins so the white of his teeth shows. They’re a little crooked, just like the man they belong to. “I’m clumsy. It’s one of my adorable traits.”
He can be adorable all he likes, but that won’t fly with Major Franklin Delano Marion Burns. He’s been around the block. He’s had to wear a turtleneck in summer so Louise wouldn’t know. “That’s not from a door. That’s a hickey!” He stares at them both, scandalized all over again. It’s a full time job around here. “Which of the nurses did you bother this time?”
They look at each other in that way they do. McIntyre shrugs. “I can say it wasn’t any of the nurses, but you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Liar!” Frank yells at him, because clearly no one else is going to, and then he turns on his heel and heads to the mess tent, because it’s lunch time. Best to quit while he’s ahead.
*
4.
Falling asleep in Korea is not like falling asleep in the US. Back home, Frank used to take a long time to get there, but it always worked. Over here he’s either gone a minute before his head hits the pillow – like that time he pitched forward in the mess tent and woke with mash potato in his nose – or he keeps tossing and turning endlessly. This particular night is one that’s full of the second, so of course the moment Frank finally manages to drift close to drifting off, Pierce suddenly speaks up. He’s not even trying to keep his voice down.
“Trap.”
There’s a brief silence from McIntyre that inspires hope in Frank that there might not be a reply at all, but then McIntyre sighs and it’s all moot. “Yes?”
“You know what I really, really want right now?”
“What?”
“A blow job.”
Another, even longer silence from McIntyre’s side. “‘M not doing that, Hawk.”
“Why not?”
“Frank’s still here.”
Frank pushes up on an elbow at the mention of his name, because they’ve officially gone too far.
At the same time, Pierce lifts his head just enough to peer across the tent and make very brief surprised eye contact with Frank. “Ah,” he says, falling back on his pillow and acknowledging McIntyre’s point. “I’m sure he won’t mind. Deep down he only wants the best for me.”
Now McIntyre looks up, grinning. “Aw, Hawk, you flatter me. I’m the best?”
And Frank, Frank knows exactly what they’re doing. They’re talking to keep him from sleeping, so he’ll foul up in surgery tomorrow, so they can have their little jokes at his expense. “Would you two quit fooling around?” he snaps.
They both stare at him for a second, necks craned and expressions surprised, like they fully expected Frank to just lie there and take it. Well, he won’t! He will not!
Then, in eerie synchronicity, they look at each other and immediately burst into uproarious laughter. McIntyre is soon clutching his stomach and Pierce the side of his bunk in a last ditch attempt to keep from rolling to the floor.
Frank flies up, scoffs, huffs, opens his mouth to say something and realizes they will neither hear him nor appreciate his wisdom even if they did, and finally turns on his heel and stalks from the tent. He can hear their laughter all the way to the latrine.
*
5.
When he’s done there, he’s shivering and the laughter has died down, but he doesn’t feel like condemning himself to their presence again yet. They’ve had their fun, now let them be bored for a while.
On his way to Margaret’s tent, he passes the Swamp and picks up a faint sighing and what must be Pierce pleading with McIntyre to find something for them to do, because he certainly sounds like he’s on the edge.
Frank instantly feels better. Serves them right.