#this detail is literally barely mentioned in the bj scene but like. I Want To Get It Right!!!! It's Important to me to get it right!!!!

[izzy-b-hands]

Sometimes I get mad when I get stuck mid-draft bc I need to research something, but researching abt prosthetic legs and what sort of knees they can have (bc I think for this modern hotel au, Izzy would probably have had Ed and Stede help spring for one that has a fancier, unfortunately more expensive and heavier but seemingly easier to bend, knee)

Purely so that I can have Izzy give Frenchie a blowjob while under the front desk at the hotel has been just. A good time. There's a lot of options for these prosthetics and it's been cool as fuck to learn abt tbh

[youngpettyqueen]

Director’s cut for Things That Cry In The Night?

Funnily enough I reread that one last night actually!

The idea for that one came to me because I wanted some good ol’ hurt/comfort for BJ. When it comes to hurt/comfort fics a lot of them are Hawkeye-centric (not a shot or a complaint, just look at my bibliography lol) so I decided to go with a classic nightmare scenario and reverse the typical roles

The fic is written entirely around that idea of BJ needing to feel Hawkeye’s heartbeat to calm down. It was the first thing I wrote, because it was the first concrete part of the fic I had. I’m a sucker for when character A wakes up from a nightmare and is immediately calmed by seeing character B, but I wanted to take it a step further here. The implication there is BJ thinks that this is the dream, and the nightmare he just had is the reality. It’s only once he feels Hawkeye’s heartbeat, and hears Hawkeye talking to him, that he’s able to calm down a bit and realize he’s awake and that this is real

I kept the nightmare fairly vague on purpose, but I left enough context clues to give the gist. BJ dreamt Hawkeye came back from battalion aid wounded, and died on his operating table. I did want to imply a pretty gruesome scene for it, hence-

“BJ doesn’t look up. “I couldn’t feel it,” He’s barely above a mumble, his voice frayed and on the edge of snapping like an overworked guitar string, “I couldn’t, I- I had to cut you open, I- I had to cut you open and I couldn’t-“ His fingers claw against Hawkeye’s pulse point, nails scratching, but Hawkeye holds him in place, “I- was holding it and it wouldn’t start, it- it was gone, it- you were gone, you were-“

-this bit. I really like the line ‘I was holding it’ because it really does convey that he was having a very vivid and gory dream where Hawkeye’s heart was literally in his hands. I could’ve had him describe the nightmare in detail, but I don’t think he would’ve, plus my descriptions would not compare to a reader’s imagination! I think the details are better left up to interpretation, while the necessities are given. You know what the nightmare was about, but you don’t know how bad it was- you can only guess based on how BJ’s acting

I had toyed with the idea of this being from BJ’s POV, and getting into writing that panic upon waking. I decided to go with Hawkeye’s POV instead because I didn’t want the time to be panick-y, I was working on and miles to go before i sleep at the time and didn’t want to cross wires with the anxious time of that fic. I also wanted to write Hawkeye offering comfort from his perspective, and get into how he knows exactly what BJ is dealing with here. I also wanted that mention of the will itself-

“Hawkeye thinks about the will stashed in the bottom of his footlocker. Written in such shaky handwriting the terror he was experiencing can be felt with each botched line, each illegible word. He wasn’t planning on telling BJ about it. Now he knows he can never let him find out it exists. He’ll have to find a better hiding spot, one where it won’t be found even by accident.”

-because I don’t think Hawkeye ever tells anybody about that will. He knows guilt is the core of the fear BJ is feeling in this moment, and he knows it’d probably destroy him if he ever found out about the will

It’s genuinely so sad to me- BJ takes one day to go try and relax only to get back and find out Hawkeye had to go to the front because he was away. It’s not his fault, it really isn’t, but he blames himself anyways