nsync and M*A*S*H-- if this doesn't say 'inspired by Lise' nothing does. Except maybe Britney/Lance. But what are the chances of that happening. slim.
The tap water ran into the sink off of Justin's arms, wrists, and hands in salty pink sheets. His face was tight, frowning. He said, "Remind me again why I signed up for this."
Lance was leaning tiredly against a steel pole behind him, waiting for his turn at the sink. "You didn't sign up for this. but you're here for the ladies."
Justin snorted. "Yeah, you know-- music and candlelight are way overrated. Give me an open thoracic cavity any day."
"Don't forget the romantic pelting by shrapnel."
"Long walks on the minefield at midnight."
"Black market chocolates."
Justin barked a laugh. He shook his hands. "Okay, your turn."
Lance took Justin's place at the sink, Justin took his place slumping with fatigue. Lance stuck both his arms under the stream of water, and the blood and dust slid off reluctantly. Lance closed his eyes.
"God. I want to climb in."
"You should. Maybe you'll just slide down the drain all the way to Australia."
"I'll send a taxi for you."
Justin came up behind Lance and put a dryed hand on his back. "Seriously, though. You okay?"
Lance shot Justin a smile over his shoulder-- and it was exhausted and bleak but real-- and said, "You okay?"
Justin's smile was dazzling. "No way."
"yeah."
*****
JC stood in the middle of the Swamp, with his arms crossed. His hair was in wild disarray.
"You're both giant craps."
"Oho," said Justin, eyebrows raised at Lance. "Jump back, y'all."
"You think you're so clever, hogging all the glory, but you're not fooling anyone. I told the Colonel what you did."
Lance grinned. "He told the Colonel what we did, Justin."
"Oh god, Lance, we'll be-- wait, which thing that we did?"
"Probably hanging his secret Joey letters up around pre-op, is the thing he's talking about." Lance looked at JC's paled face. "Is that the thing you're talking about?"
"You didn't," JC said.
Lance looked at Justin. "Didn't we?"
Justin shrugged. His eyes twinkled. "It's so hard to keep track."
JC shoved his way past Lance, out of the tent, and the two men doubled over in laughter. Lance fell into his cot, gasping. Justin rolled onto his side, in his own cot, grinned at him.
When the laughing subsided, Lance asked, "How long do you think it took him to get out of that barrel?"
"I don't know," said Justin, shining. "Long enough for us to escape on our field mission without him."
"Out of the frying pan--"
"No," said Justin, holding up a hand. "Nothing is worse than a roadtrip with JC. So don't even."
"Okay." Lance released a long breath into his bedding. Then he heard a giggle from Justin's cot and his laughing bubbled up again. He said, "god, it hurts to laugh. I think I'm dying."
"You're not dying, you're sleeping."
"Then why am I so tired?"
Justin's smile slanted. He stretched his hand out, across the short distance between their two cots, and put his hand over Lance's eyes. He could feel them flutter closed beneath his palm.
"You're not tired. You're dreaming."
Lance's grin performed a slow motion melt into softness. He said, quietly, "is that what I'm doing."
Justin pulled his hand back and nodded. Then his gaze flickered away and he said, "We should totally hang JC's Joey letters up in pre-op."
Lance nodded once, and then closed his eyes again and went to sleep.
*****
Justin leaned over in the mess hall and whispered into Chris' ear. Chris' eyes went wide and he scrambled through his purse for a compact. Clicking it open, he pursed his lips and turned his head from side to side. Then he glared at Justin.
"You fucker. It is not."
Justin squinted at him. "I think it is. Lance." Lance looked up from his coffee. "Lance, doesn't it seem like maybe the liner is heavier on Chris' left eye?"
Lance perused Chris' face carefully. He said, "I think you're imagining things, Justin." He grinned. "Chris always looks immaculate." Chris smiled and nodded.
"No, yeah-- I mean, he does, of course." Justin nodded, grinning back. "I just think the liner is a little dark, for his coloring." Lance opened his mouth to say something, but then Justin caught sight of JC, who was hovering just outside of the food line, on the other side of the mess tent, with his tray in his hand. He was looking vaguely down at nothing, which meant that he was trying to subtley stare at Joey's table out of the corner of his eye.
Justin yelled, "JC, JC! Over here!"
JC looked over at them with a frown, but he made his way toward them; and when he saw Chris, his face pinched with disapproval. He said, "Nice dress."
Chris smiled sweetly, teeth gleaming obscenely white from under scarlet lips. "Thank you, herr sheik."
"Yeah, but--" said Justin. "The eyeliner. Doesn't quite go with the Sunday go-to-meeting look, does it?"
JC shook his head. "You're not fooling anyone, Corporal."
"Who's fooling?" asked Chris, eyes wide.
JC set down his tray, sat. "If anybody deserves a Section 8, it's me. You people are driving me crazy."
Justin put his arm around Lance's shoulder, smiling. "We didn't want you to feel left out."
JC scooped a forkful of green beans into his mouth, glared at them. "I'd prefer to be left out of all your perversity, thank you very much."
Lance raised his eyebrows. "Perversity, he says."
Chris drew his pencilled eyebrows together. "Is that even a word?"
"and speaking of which," Justin said. He nodded at Joey, walking toward their table with an empty tray. JC swallowed a bite of something loudly.
Joey put his hand on the bench-top beside JC's tray, when he reached them. He nodded at Justin and Lance, passed over Chris, and then looked at JC. He said, "Major."
JC looked up and said, "Major."
Lance looked at Justin and said, "Captain."
Justin slitted his eyes and let his mouth fall open slightly. His arm was still around Lance's shoulder, and he tilted his head toward Lance's and breathed, "Captain."
Lance swallowed and Chris laughed. Joey glared at them.
*****
One time, they actually drugged JC and mailed him to Seoul City, in a big crate with lettuce and air-holes. And one time, while JC was sleeping in his cot, they covered him with beanie babies and took pictures.
*****
"Is she gonna be okay?" Justin glanced over, not able to spare more than a minute of his time to check on the little Korean girl.
Chris pulled his hand away from the gurney, pursing his lips. "Not likely."
"Lance." Justin called him over quietly. "Got a girl, hit by shrapnel."
Lance took one look at her and went paler than he usually was. "Where's the mother?"
"Lance--"
He moved away, sharply, and Justin let his hand fall. "Don't touch me. Where's her mother?"
"outside."
*****
"oh god, Joey."
JC's hands curled around the metal bars on either side of the cot. Joey's mouth moved across his stomach and seared him like a branding iron. The nurses didn't call him Hotlips for nothing. Two of his fingers moved in and out of JC slowly and JC's breathy moans shuddered in time to it.
"oh god. oh god, Joey."
*****
"Hey, sad boy."
Lance glanced over his shoulder at Justin briefly then looked back out at the camp that seemed ridiculously small from the top of the hill. The sun was setting behind the far hill and it turned the camp from its drab olive and tan to a ferocious orange, making it seem alive in a way that the milling people and rustling wind could not. Lance's smile was small and quiet. "I thought that was my line."
"It is," Justin said. "And frankly, I'm tired of covering for your slacker ass."
Lance chuckled but didn't turn around. Justin sighed.
Lance had worked for forty-five minutes on the little girl-- longer than he really had any right to, pre-op had been over-flowing by then-- and she was alive now, and clean and asleep in post-op. But her mother was gone, had been gone ten minutes after Lance began operating, no one could find her anywhere or knew her name. The little girl would leave for the orphanage as soon as she was healed.
Justin laid his hand on Lance's shoulder and then lowered himself to sit behind him, stretched a leg out on either side of him. Justin's hand slid forward on Lance's shoulder and pulled gently so that Lance settled back against Justin's chest.
Lance said, "don't touch me," again, but tiredly this time, on a soft exhalation of breath.
"It's okay," said Justin, curling an arm around Lance's chest.
"It's not okay."
Justin pressed his mouth into Lance's hair. "no, I know."
*****
Joey pulled away from JC, a little bit, and JC let out a shakey laugh, ran a hand down Joey's side. "wow," he said. Joey smiled warm and said, "yeah." He kissed JC's shoulder.
"Here," said JC-- there wasn't room in the cot to comfortably lay side by side-- so they shifted until Joey was on his back and JC was draped over him. "So," said Joey once they were settled. JC nodded, rubbing his cheek against Joey's chest, and said "mmm" low in his throat.
Joey said, "so."
"You're so beautiful," JC murmured.
"You, too." Joey brought his hand up to sift through JC's hair, run over the curve of his skull. "so did you write that letter?"
"What letter?" JC's voice was slow and dreamy.
"The. the letter you said you were gonna write."
"hmm?" Joey could feel JC's face shift against him, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion. Joey sighed. He moved his hand from JC's hair to his shoulder. He pushed at it.
"Sit up."
"what?"
Joey moved restlessly underneath JC. He said, "You said you were going to write your wife."
JC sat up. "What?"
Joey pushed further at JC. "Get up," he growled.
"Joey, I, I'm going to write the letter, I just haven't yet."
Joey shook his head, not looking at JC. "Let me get up."
JC pulled his leg from around Joey-- Joey rolled out of the cot and walked to the chair, where his slacks were carefully draped.
JC said, "Joey--"
"I don't believe this," said Joey, quietly, almost to himself. He pulled on his pants. "I don't."
"Joey, baby, I'm going to write the letter."
"When, JC?" Joey looked at him. "When did you plan on writing this letter? This year, next year? When the war's over? or are you gonna wait till she's dead?"
"Joey!" JC pressed a shocked hand to his own chest.
Joey pulled his shirt on, left it unbuttoned. He picked up his boots. "Do you think I need you to lie to me? You think I need this? You think I can't get fucked over by any guy in this camp?"
JC's face darkened. He pulled the blanket more fully over his lap. "Maybe you should do that, then."
"Maybe I will."
"Fine. Good luck."
"Thanks, I won't need it."
JC opened his mouth, but couldn't think of what to say before Joey took a fast furious look at him and then was gone, slamming his way through the rickety tent door. Instead, he sat in the cot for a long minute and then ran a hand through his hair and snorted derisively.
"Nurses."*****
The merchant pulled thoughtfully at his lower lip and Chris refolded his legs-- pulling the skirt tight around his thighs, revealing the slant of one pale thigh. "So what do you say, Tex?" he said, smiling.
The merchant nodded at his legs. "I say you have more need of a good razor than a crate of penicillin, Corporal."
Chris shook his head. There wasn't anything they needed more than extra penicillin right now. He said, "ah, nobody understands Romanian women anymore."
The merchant chuckled. Chris said, "Do we have a deal?"
The merchant's eyes narrowed. "I tell you what. I give you six crates for the two hundred dollars."
Chris' mouth twisted darkly. "Don't let the fine chiffon fool you, soldier. I'm nobody's bitch."
The merchant shook his head. "I am a business man. Six crates is fair."
"But not as fair as the ten crates I was promised, which is why I drove all the way out here."
"Ten crates for two hundred dollars," the merchant asked dubiously. "You want to cheat me? You want my family to starve?"
Chris rolled his kohl-lined eyes. "Funny, I was thinking two hundred dollars would be enough to feed your family for a year."
The merchant leaned forward, his voice dropped. "You need this penicillin, I know you do. I heard about the outbreaks. Who you think is going to sell it to you, if not me? No one. There's only me. Only me, generously offering you six crates for two hundred dollars. I know your army can afford it."
"My army doesn't buy black market, capice? There's only me. And I'm willing to give you two hundred dollars for ten crates, which is more than anybody else in this shithole is going to give you for anything." Chris stood up, and his small red skirt fell gracefully back into place. "You're not as alone in the penicillin industry as you apparently think you are. You just happen to be a mile or two closer. So do you want my money or not?"
The merchant scowled. "Seven crates. That's my last offer."
"How about ten crates."
"Eight crates is all I have."
"So I guess those two other crates on that truck outside are full of porn."
"Nine crates is robbery. You are a bandit."
"wow, then ten crates would be, what. a felony?"
" . . . Nine and a half crates, and I get you a pretty scarf."
Chris' bright red mouth parted in a toothy smile.
"Thassa my boy."
*****
JC's gaze stayed on the contained dance of his fingers across his knees, and his foot tapped a nervous tattoo against the dirt floor. His voice sped up and stretched out intermittently, and it filled the small chapel.
"--so this friend. He just wants to do the right thing. He wants to be a good husband, and he, he promised to support his wife till death did them part, and so he should do that, right? But he loves his, this other friend, too. and he's afraid he's hurting him, and so that can't be right, can it? Her, I mean. I mean. This friend is afraid he's hurting his friend, which is a her. And I just feel trapped. --He does, I mean." He looked up at the priest. "So what do you think he should do?"
Father Mathers gazed at him for a long moment before saying, "You're such a pyscho fag."
JC blinked.
*****
mooooore.
me