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BJ wasn’t in Maine solely because of Hawkeye.
He’d had fantasies over how it would go of course. The power of true love making everything easy, finding Hawkeye in some kind of open area (somewhere lush and crowded nicely, never an airport because then “missed him by ten minutes” seeps into his brain), dip kissing a fantasy Hawkeye who didn’t cut through the dream and moved like Peg, and the faceless crowd cheering a happy ending.
It didn’t happen quite like that. And to tell the truth, as much as he kept telling Hawkeye that they’d see each other, that it wasn’t the end, the moment he’d set foot down in San Francisco he’d felt like a stranger in a city he’d always fantasised about coming back to. He felt like he needed to put Hawkeye out of his mind, if only for a short time until he at least could stop imagining family friends lying bleeding and eyes open wide on the ground.
He’d cried in Peg’s arms when he saw her and Erin again. He hadn’t meant to do that. Korea was meant to have been a nightmare, Hawkeye the white rabbit leading him through the terrors and the upside world where members of their own country got ignored; a name on a sheet that only got noticed when they were born and when they were injured, and men with stars on their collars blowing up everything until they were snuffed out.
He has dreams where Hawkeye keeps taking organs out of generals, desperately throwing pink and perfect pieces of tissue through the cracks on the floor while the bodies pile up. They find him out. His body is thrown on top of the heap.
So because he didn’t want to sleep, making jokes that fell flat that he got enough rest in between OR shifts, Peg spent most nights in bed by herself. She laughed it off at first, saying it wasn’t really that much different than when he was in another country, and at least he could be around for Erin crying this time.
He really did try to get back to normal. He put the pink shirts away, tried to wind back time before everything in Korea had set up camp in his brain and made him want to see how many times he could play with someone’s mind before they got him back (and then the wounded would come, and any hurt feeling would be buried, never to be talked about again).
Just because he was angry at Peg for many undeserved reasons; all the times her unthinking words had made him spiral, for being able to sleep and eat and function, for being sweet and accepting but still not being able to actually help him, didn’t mean he could replace Hawkeye with her and prank her like he did back then.
He knew she was quickly getting tired of him though. Sympathy and compassion always had a time when they ran out. He’d be sitting on the couch staring out at nothing, she’d be with Erin and ask him curtly if he wanted to visit her sister with their daughter. Of course he’d blankly said no and she would growl under her breath.
It devolved from there. He felt like any goodness he once had was leaking out of him, and he was poisoning anyone he touched.
“We’re a lifeline when you’re not here, but when you are, you can’t be bothered with us!” Peg had shouted at him one night, over the sound of Erin crying.
So it lasted six months. After three years of desperately hoping to come back to his wife and child and warm bed, all he could do was six months. And now he was here in Crabapple Cove, having left a note on Peg’s bedside table (because that always made things slightly better didn’t it? The difference between him and Trapper), on the Pierce doorstep, too scared to knock on the door.
A chilly wind, colder than what he was used to, and wetter feeling than Korea, made him take a deep breath and knock on the door. Even if Hawkeye wasn’t there; drinking, hooking up or having walked into a lake, or was and just outright rejected him, it would be better than just standing outside.
The door wasn’t opened by Hawkeye, but an older man; in his sixties, clearly having stress aged in the past three years, but still handsome and unmistakably Hawkeye’s dad.
“Um, hi.” He held his hands behind his back so he could hide at least a few nerves. “Is your son home?”
Daniel Pierce had a soft, knowing smile on his face. “He’s in his room. I'll coax him out. BJ Hunnicutt right?”
“Yes sir.” It was as if he was in a tainted version of a fairytale, waiting for the princess to come down the stairs. Only he was technically still married and Hawkeye was more like the mad woman in the attic than Cinderella.
It was a pretty small house, swamped with make it yourself furniture and family decorations, probably when Hawkeye left and Daniel was by himself, worrying if his son was alright and always gripped by the fear that the army was cocking up by letting him believe Hawkeye was alive, or that he would get word that Hawkeye was dead, and this time it would be for real.
Hearing Hawkeye’s voice for the first time in six months, getting closer and so sure that his dad was pranking him, made his head spin. “Dad, there's no way. BJ Hunnicutt is on the other side of the country, making up for wasted time by giving his daughter lots of little sisters.”
If his legs could have moved, he might have run back home before Hawkeye was dragged downstairs. Fear had replaced fantasy ever after, and the reality that he hadn’t thought this through, was starting to take over.
“BJ?” Hawkeye was frozen at the top of the stairs, his dad - existing in the wrong story, still thinking of his son as a child whose best friend had just invited him to a party - grinning at him.
“And you doubted your old man,” said Daniel proudly. “I’ll let you two catch up.”
Even when they’d been left alone, they still felt too far away. The grey in Hawkeye’s hair had spread, his eyes sunken in with exhaustion and his bed clothes hanging off him. His shirt had a wine stain on it.
If he didn’t speak first then they’d be looking silently at each other forever. “How- how have you been?”
Hawkeye gripped the railing and finally started to make a move down. “Not sleeping, mostly. You?”
He couldn’t say that he’d run from his wife and child because he still thought Hawkeye was his best friend in a tent who would welcome him with nothing but open arms. He would have to deal with that at some point, both facing Peg and withstanding Hawkeye explode in self righteousness.
“Peg didn’t want me like she thought she did, so I guess I’m here.” It was technically the truth, and playing to Hawkeye’s ego that he was the only one who could even slightly understand BJ’s brain always seemed to work. He’d call Peg later, apologising.
The only comparison he could make for Hawkeye’s reaction was remembering a little wind up toy he had when he was young. It was scuffed and one of the eyes had fallen out, but when you turned the key in the back it would flash all these lights. Hope reanimated Hawkeye, and he’d come alive again, bounding the distance between them and flinging his arms around BJ’s neck.
“I’m sorry about Peg,” Hawkeye said, his mouth warming BJ’s cold skin. “But my dad is gonna love you, even if you can’t stay long.”
Grabbing his hand excitedly, he took BJ into the living room, where Daniel pretended to have been reading the Maine newspaper the entire time. “Dad! Can BJ stay over?”
Despite his brain still screaming that he was so far in over his head, BJ had to smile despite himself. After so long of being huddled together, trying to repair bodies, aging a year every month, Hawkeye holding his hand and showing him off to his dear father felt light and innocent.
Daniel looked delighted at his son being so happy. “Of course he can. But you have got to change into clean clothes.”
Hawkeye looked down at himself, finally noticing he’d probably been wearing the same thing for weeks, and disentangled his fingers from BJ’s. Almost instantly, BJ felt as if he were drowning again, both lifelines cut off from him. “I’ll go shower and shave. Say nice things about me, both of you.”
BJ stood awkwardly in front of a man who, while probably you would have to try extra hard to piss off, he was still anxious as anything around.
“So, BJ,” Daniel started cheerily, so like Hawkeye and yet not at all. “Do they stand for anything? Should I call you that or would you prefer something else?”
He definitely couldn’t repeat the “anything you want” joke. “It’s my parents’ names together, sir, and BJ is fine.”
It kinda felt like at the start of Korea, trying to create this perfect image of himself, only instead of well tempered wholesomeness who could make jokes, reassure and walk zombie-ish through the forest of hellfire; it was trying to impress a father who he’d heard so much about that he had been deemed the best dad in camp not even being there, and needing to be deemed good enough for his son who so many had hurt.
It carried on like that, a rigid sort of nervousness despite how warm Mr Pierce was, and the lull of a running shower upstairs, the pipes groaning with signs of age. Because he had messed up so badly outside this room, not just recently but had made so many bad choices, he felt he had to be on guard. Perfect.
Hawkeye eventually came down, still looking tired and older, but in a thick flannel shirt and slacks, shaved and pleased, not so much as the walking corpse BJ had seen a few hours ago. “How is everything?” he asked, still perky. “Hope you both love each other slightly less than you love me.”
Not really caring much how clingy it was (and they couldn’t do it outside, the 4077th was a little place where if you crossdressed or were a boy kissing other boys it was okay, but hold hands with another man in “nornal” America…), he reached out for Hawkeye’s hand again. He wanted to hold it as much as possible before everything went wrong. Hawkeye squeezed his hand in return, clearly loving it.
Daniel beamed, the ever supportive father. “If BJ wants to stay a while, you two can have my old beach house? It’s closer to the sea, cosy and just sitting there.”
BJ flushed fiercely and, overlapping with Hawkeye’s complaints that he never wanted to go to the beach again, tried to demure that he could always rent a hotel, but Daniel had more experience convincing patients to do what they were told than both of them combined, and eventually the house keys were in Hawkeye’s shirt pocket.
(“I think he just wanted a quiet house,” Hawkeye had mumbled to himself later, sounding both grateful and resigned.)
It was still early afternoon, and as much BJ wanted to stay here, with Hawkeye and a parent who actually seemed to like his son and his partner, his image of Peg was that of a sprawling Medusa, growing angrier in her grief, and he had to face that music eventually. Better get it out of the way before he had dinner with Hawk and his dad?
“Is there a phone box nearby?” he asked politely, hating himself and how he always seemed to know someone’s weak spots to manipulate them. “I won’t be long, I just want to tell my folks I’m safe.” He probably should do that, just because they were distant didn’t mean they wouldn’t eventually notice he was in another state. ...It would just take them a few weeks.
Hawkeye seemed to know on some level that he was bullshitting, a little clench in his cheek that quickly went away, too high on positive emotion to think clearly. And maybe Daniel did too, but not knowing what kind of man BJ was yet, he gave him a quick curved smile. “About half an hour away. It’s closer to the vacation house.”
He backed out, more terrified by the second. “Thank you. Sorry. Won’t be long.”
As he exited, he was vaguely aware of Hawkeye affectionately complaining about having to clear his room out, and so badly wanted to stay, clinging to him instead.
Finding a phone wasn’t difficult. Crabapple Cove was fairly easy to figure out after Mill Valley, and all he really had to do was walk in the direction of a more populated part of it. The phone box was near a fishing river, and it overlooked a section of trees in the distance.
He was stalling.
Trying to disconnect himself from emotions, manage this like the walking through the dream feeling that had been tried and eventually failed in Korea, he entered the box and with shaking hands, dialed what used to be home.
“Hello?” Peg sounded worn down to the bone, and she didn’t even know he was calling her yet.
Gathering up all his courage, he spoke. “It’s me.”
With the silence that followed, he assumed she’d left the phone. But then she screamed, a long outpouring of anger and outrage. It wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve it, but he hoped Erin wasn’t around.
“You son of a bitch,” she whispered.
That felt worse than the screaming piercing his eardrum. “I know.”
“Did Hawkeye actually ask you to come over?” she spat, needing to get it out rather than actually asking. “Is it that he puts out easier? Or just needs you more? If I was helpless and easy, would you like me better?”
It would have been so simple to just blame Hawkeye, with the irony that the man who tried so hard to keep BJ’s marriage safe and secure made him look more in his direction, but this was completely BJ’s fault, running to the only person who was more fucked up than him. “It’s not his fault,” he said, trying to explain. “Or yours.”
Peg sounded about to cry. “Yes, BJ, that helps so much.”
“I’ve just been wondering,” she then said, now sounding more angry at herself than at him. “Has this always been you and I just didn’t notice it, or did Korea make you worse?”
He didn’t know himself. “Whichever it is, I know I’ve really hurt you. I’d do anything to make this easier.”
“Are you trying to ask forgiveness?” Peg asked, her deep resignation coming through the phone. “Because that might be a while yet.”
"I'm sorry I ruined your life," BJ said, resting his head against the payphone wall.
He heard the rustle of a dress being smoothed down. "I love you," Peg said, cold and cool again. "But you're not that important."
BJ would be reeling from that blow to his ego for a while. “Do you want me to not call you again?”
He heard a bitten down noise of disgust, and flushed in shame. He hadn’t meant for it to sound that much of a guilt trip.
“You know you would deserve it,” Peg said, downcast. “But you can call me. Just because Erin needs some kind of father figure in her life, even if he is useless.”
On some level BJ would have rather Erin didn’t know him at all. Better to have nobody than to be disappointed. “Okay. Thank you.”
“I’m a better person than you.” It seemed to bring her no joy to say that. “Can you hang up now?”
BJ did so, feeling less terrified (at least he’d got it over and done with), but guilt trapping him like a vice.
When he got to the Pierce residence, they were still in the living room, Daniel in a comfy chair, watching the newly lit fire burn, while Hawkeye sat in the usual way he did (completely wrong), with his legs over the armrest, reading Tess Of The D’urbervilles. When he saw BJ enter, he gave him a slightly knowing smile. “How’s your folks?”
“They’re dealing.” Technically it was true.
“Good.”
With Hawkeye clearly recharging, with a book BJ didn’t expect for him to enjoy, BJ actually looked at the photos everywhere for the first time, seeing a woman with curled blonde hair, a big smile that made her eyes crinkle and a striking nose that curved like Hawkeye’s. She was clearly his mother. A lot of the pictures were of her, either in Daniel’s arms (a lot of the poses they were doing reminded him of he and Peg when they were dating, innocent and having no idea what was going to happen) or holding a grinning little boy whose mop of hair hadn’t changed in thirty years except for going from black to grey.
One picture though, more tucked away than others, caught his eye. It was another one where she was cupping Hawkeye’s head, and BJ definitely wasn’t in the business of assuming women as pregnant, but this woman in particular looked six months at least. And he did hear a few murmurs when he first came to Korea about Hawkeye having a sister.
“Mr Pierce,” he asked, trying to not sound awkward, just curious over his… partner’s(?) life. “Does Hawkeye have a sister or a brother?”
“Mom had a miscarriage,” Hawkeye said, barely looking up from his book and in the flattest tone BJ had ever heard from him. “When I was seven. My fault. Doctor said it was too much stress.”
He hadn’t meant to exchange a worried look with Daniel, both as people who cared and doctors almost certain nobody had said that, but Hawkeye seemed barely there to notice. Mr Pierce spoke first. “Ben, I’ve told you before.”
Hawkeye finally looked up, eyes like an innocent ten year old. “Told me what?” BJ wasn’t sure if it was real or manipulation to get his tired dad to shut up.
Either way it worked, as Daniel sighed, exhausted. “Nothing, son.”
There was a moment of dreadful guilty silence, before Daniel spoke again.
“Hey BJ,” Daniel started, his initials still sounding strange in the older man’s mouth. “Dinner will be in a few hours, but do you want to join me peeling potatoes?”
“Ooh Beej,” Hawkeye crowed, not flat anymore but still forced and not quite normal. “He wants to talk to you about me.”
Mr Pierce kept his smile on. “Upstairs, or your ears will burn off. Not that it would stop you from talking.”
As Hawkeye stomped up the stairs, BJ followed Daniel into the kitchen and immediately started apologising. “I’m so sorry for asking. Hawkeye never really said anything about family other than you that wasn’t wrapped up in a joke.”
Daniel waved him off gently. “It’s alright. Rose and I dealt with it together, and I keep her and the daughter that could have been in my mind. That’s partly what I wanted to ask you. Was he okay in Korea? Clearly he’s not going to tell me everything.”
“Everyone looked after him, if that helps?” He didn’t tell Daniel the context of some of that, him being the one to kick the guy where it hurt, and Margaret keeping Hawkeye from lying down and dying in reaction.
Daniel’s shoulders sagged in a way that he’d seen Hawkeye defeated so many times. “I know he doesn’t like me treating him as if he were ten, but I’m not sure what else I can do.”
Maybe it was just his role in life to comfort a Pierce. “If it helps, I think you’ve done a great job so far.”
Like Hawkeye, Daniel Pierce didn’t seem to be able to take a compliment. “A lot of things I could have done better,” he mused warily.
Tentatively, BJ put his hand on the man’s shoulder, feeling both his own regrets, failing as a husband and as a father, and a sense of deja vu, almost expecting to feel Hawkeye’s hand gripping his wrist again.
Instead, Daniel gave him a small smile. “I’m sorry. Self pity tends to happen when you’re in an empty house.” He handed BJ a potato peeler. “C’mon, we’re having fish.”
The evening passed in a daze for BJ. Hawkeye was in higher spirits again, sitting close to BJ like they were shoulder to shoulder in the mess tent, only this time occasionally squeezing BJ’s thigh whenever he got bored, and laughing with his dad about stories only they two knew.
“I think I left my virginity at one of your friend’s houses anyway.” BJ’s head snapped up as he almost choked on his white wine.
But Daniel Pierce didn’t even blink. “Which one? Just so I can be sure whoever is taking good care of it.”
Both men laughed as he tried to cover up feeling completely out of place. His father, hell even his mother and little sister, were funny people, and dinners weren’t completely solemn, but they were mostly about work and their days. Leave food until it was cold and his mother would have locked herself in the kitchen weeping.
It carried on like that, Hawkeye coming ever so close to revealing something terrible, but always smothering it in a joke, his father’s eyes fixed but always batting back, and by the end of the night, BJ was exhausted without even really knowing why.
***
The first week of living with Hawkeye was honestly what BJ had dreamed. Hawkeye grabbed his hand and showed him everything, from little coves to childhood haunts. He was feeling more comfortable around Mr Pierce, and helped move everything in.
But after that, after being shown every nice moment in Crabapple Cove, Hawkeye seemed sapped of all energy, barely talking anymore.
Maybe it was selfish, but he assumed from so many of Hawkeye’s jokes he’d be the cute little wife for someone even if that someone wasn’t him. Instead Hawkeye was spending more time lying on the rug, his hand gripped around a bottle of booze.
After three days of finding him like that, hearing soft crying whenever he made himself a sandwich, BJ finally asked what was wrong. He was itching for a drink himself, regularly imbibed, but this felt like it ran deeper.
Hawkeye just stared at him blankly. “Nightmares, the usual. You know: killing babies, drowning as a favour, getting captured.”
He couldn’t parse the second one, could hardly deal with his own issues let alone Hawkeye making a Korean mother’s grief all about his witnessing it, so he tried to tackle the third. “It was scary for a second, but Ralph came through for us?”
Hawkeye just shook his head and took a deep swig of gin.
BJ tried to think of any other time there’d been danger. There was that bug out where he’d been away, with only Margaret, Hawkeye and Radar staying, with Margaret clinging extra hard to Frank for a week after, while Radar took special care of his pets and everyone let Hawkeye make shitty jokes about how it would have been fun to sit on a Chinese soldier’s lap, until he wore himself out and his brain processed that he was safe.
Hawkeye learned his head back on the couch, blinking slowly at the ceiling. “Contrary to popular belief, we aren’t actually one unit. I have a life outside of you.”
He didn’t have the energy to explain to Hawkeye that this was less self absorbed (and he had been in the past, he wasn’t denying that) thinking they were joined at the hip, and that everyone - him, Potter, enlisted men - was worried they’d find Hawkeye hanging in the supply tent with his eyes open.
Fearing the worst, hurt at why wouldn’t Hawkeye have told him before, BJ bit the bullet. “Okay Hawk, what happened?”
Hawkeye leaned into him, snuggling into his neck like he wasn’t about to say something horrific. “I was on my way to R+R, and the jeep stopped, and I got a gun pointed at me.”
The hurt that Hawkeye hadn’t told him any of this before only intensified. “When did this happen?”
Hawkeye scrunched up his face, trying to remember. “After that time I just kept sniffing food and didn’t eat anything for about a week? Can I continue?”
He snuck his arm around Hawkeye, feeling slightly nauseated at what could have happened to his best friend while everyone was dramatically playing bridge back at the camp. “Yeah, sorry, sure.”
Hawkeye curled in harder, his free hand on BJ’s thigh. “Anyway so I got marched into the forest, and I figured I’d get a bullet down my throat, but he wanted me to help his dying friend.”
Against all knowledge of how these offroad surgeries usually went, BJ so hoped Hawkeye had got lucky. “Did you save him?”
Hawkeye’s eyes were tearing up as he shook his head again. “No. I really tried. I told myself if I was going to die or be a hostage, I might as well deserve it with a clear conscience.”
In what felt like desperation, he cupped Hawkeye’s head, like he’d seen Hawk do for so many other people. “You wouldn’t have deserved anything like that.”
Hawkeye shied away from him, and BJ felt like crying himself. “When you start accepting you’re going to die, it doesn’t really go away.”
BJ stayed silent, helpless, as Hawkeye slid back into casualness. “Anyway. He didn’t kill me and I buried his friend with him.”
“I’m so sorry, Hawk.”
“It’s really no big deal? He did let me go.”
It was getting a little hard to breathe, and it didn’t even happen to him. “Hawk, you’re allowed to be upset.”
Hawkeye giggled drunkenly. “If you say so.” He wandered into the kitchen. “You want more alcohol?”
The house felt too small, he needed to get outside. “I’m uh, I’m just gonna take a walk actually.”
“Uh-huh,” Hawkeye said, disinterested and already opening cabinets.
BJ blindly raced out of the front door, until he hit the phone box and dialled Peg’s number in a daze, hoping she A) was in b) was okay to talk to him.
“Hello?”
It all came out in a rush. “I need to know about your day, your job, how Erin is feeling, just anything you want.”
He needed something, anything, to push out the image of Hawkeye’s body with a gunshot wound in his head, dying alone and forgotten about in some Korean wood. Or kneeling behind a wire constructed pigpen, dirty and starved and his hair full of lice, trying to protect himself from a kick.
“You could have asked me about any of this before you left?” She was still pissed off at him, and he knew he was selfish for this, but he kept pushing.
“You could talk about all your friends hating me if you like?” He meant it as cute deprecation, but it came out self pitying. Honestly he wasn’t even sure if Peg’s friends knew about her husband abandoning her, most of Peg’s worries about her daily life had come in the letters sent to him.
“I haven’t figured out a way to tell them yet,” she said, confirming his suspicion. “I’ve barely processed it myself, how could I explain to them?”
“I’m-”
“Tell me you’re sorry again,” she interrupted. “And I’ll put the phone down. You don’t get to do something terrible and then play the apologetic hero.”
Feeling it best to just shut up, he kept silent, running a hand through his rapidly thinning hair and watching the drizzle hit the glass.
Eventually Peg relented. “So you want to hear about my job? Okay. I got a commission the other day, I took Erin to the beach, she got so much sand under her little nails.”
He closed his eyes wistfully. “Sounds nice.”
Peg’s voice trembled. “BJ I can’t do this. Maybe someday, but everything hurts too much for us to talk like nothing is wrong.”
He didn’t blame her for hanging up, but he also couldn’t go home yet. So he sat on a nearby bench, and watched the rain water drip into the road grate for an hour.
***
Something he hadn’t considered coming here, as in Korea it was only natural to have a fucked up sleeping pattern and you couldn’t have sleep-ins, is how sometimes Hawkeye would sleep all day (a lot of the time downstairs) and stay out all night, and other times he would drag BJ up at 6AM to go to the park, full of manic energy.
Not that BJ didn’t enjoy it, he knew that going later would mean kids and Hawkeye going stock still like the few times they’d gone for a walk and came across the school run, and holding hands meant that at least one part of him was warm. He had no idea how Hawkeye could get used to it, only wearing a thick flannel shirt and ignoring his own persistent shaking.
“Ben!”
He barely had time to process Hawkeye’s soft, pleading “no…” before a burly blonde man barrelled down upon them. Way back when, in Korea, he’d snuck a peek (...and then stole it, his brain screaming at him every which way) at an early photo of Hawkeye with his arms wrapped around Trapper John. Even in his seething, he’d had to admit that with his muscular build and curly hair, the man he’d replaced was attractive.
This man on the other hand, had thinning wisps of blonde hair and way overdone it on the weights. And whereas at least Trapper had a puppy dog smile that he could see made him popular, this guy had almost a hungrily mean look in his eyes as his hands gripped Hawkeye’s waist and forearm.
“Ben!” the man shouted again, ostensibly excited and shaking Hawkeye just a little too much. “You didn’t call me after you got back from Korea? Uncle Daniel’s being weird too. What gives?”
He would have felt the familiar stabs of jealousy if it weren’t for Hawkeye being stock still, his eyes unfocused, and his WASPy upbringing telling him to relax, it was just family.
He waited for Hawkeye to make a snarky comment, squirm his way out, anything to make the moment less awkward. But instead he replied meekly “sorry Billy. Didn’t mean to.”
The name instantly made him see red, clouding at the edges of his vision. After all the sneezing, they hadn’t talked about it besides a flat “my cousin hurt me” before crawling into bed, but… Hawkeye was loud. Everyone in the camp heard his wailing, and had pushed it out of their minds in a bid to help the man keep his self respect.
Billy had only just noticed him. Still keeping his arm possessively around Hawkeye’s waist, he held his other arm out for BJ to shake. “Hi! Who are you?” Only a distressed glance from Hawkeye made him grudgingly take it.
“I’m BJ,” he said, trying to keep his seething to a minimum. “I roomed with your cousin in the Korean suite.”
Billy laughed loudly, then addressed Hawkeye. “Bet you cried all the time huh?”
“Less than you’d think.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you as well,” BJ interrupted, with a thin smile. He thought he saw a minor eyeroll from Hawkeye, but passive aggressive was his only option that wasn’t breaking this guy’s neck.
“I taught him all he knows about sex probably, gotta get guys there early,” Billy said proudly. “Although,” he added in a hushed tone, as if it were humiliating gossip. “Worked a little too well with you didn’t it.”
“I looked at the wrestlers in the magazines too,” Hawkeye answered his thought of question. BJ had never heard him like that. When it came to sexuality, Hawkeye was full of jokes and innuendo, loud and daring anyone to have a problem with him. Here, with his cousin, he sounded exhausted and deeply shamed.
Billy laughed again and slapped him on the back. “Love you you little sissy. I’m late for work, but we’ll catch up later.” And he was off.
“I’m going to pound him into the ground.” Billy may have been bigger than he was, but what did Freedman muse to him once? That he was a rage volcano? He could at least break the other man’s nose, Hawkeye deserved that much.
But as soon as he took off after the man, Hawkeye came back to life and grabbed his arm with both hands. “Maybe don’t do that.”
“He hurt you! In more than one way! How does he not deserve it?” He knew Hawkeye hated being talked down to, but he felt like he’d just seen the man huddle on the floor and asked to be kicked.
Hawkeye didn’t budge, eyes boring into him. “It’s more complicated than you think. He had a rough time, so he felt like he had to fit in with the grown ups. I was just… there, but too young to understand.” His words were half the pace than usual, trying to get BJ to understand what wasn’t being said.
He couldn’t help but sneer in disgust. “And let me guess, when he gave you bruises you said you walked into a door.”
Hawkeye just stared at him, before his posture went unnervingly casual. “No,” he said, his tone flicking poison. “That was the joke I made after you gave me the shiner.”
It probably didn’t help his case that he felt like screaming in this public space, but he choked the anger and nausea down. “I… was hurting over missing my daughter’s life, and you’re comparing me to him?”
Hawkeye wasn’t looking at him, clearly already checked out from the conversation. “No I’m not. It’s me. I pick people that want to be needed and that sometimes means I’m a punching bag.” On BJ’s look, that he knew reeked of “I’m dragging you back to your dad so he can yell sense at you”, he shrugged. “If it helps, Trapper did the exact same thing you did. Missed his daughters bad.”
As they walked home in silence, BJ had the sinking feeling Hawkeye had known he’d done the exact opposite of helping.
He’s a little boy again, but he knows from the cold air and trees this isn’t home. Two other boys are with him, the boy on the other side keeps changing, from a smiling face with blonde curls to matured early cheekbones with thin straw hair.
He doesn’t want to admit that the body they’re dragging to the lake is Hawkeye, muted and dulled even though he’s struggling to make sounds.
Billy shoves Hawkeye’s head down into the water, and he’s the one who gets to keep his kicking legs down. Always being the one to help.
The water is red and thick, blood or dye he’s not sure, instead of clear, and when Hawkeye goes limp, Billy-Trapper runs away afraid into the woods, leaving him to hold Hawkeye in his arms.
Grocery shopping was actually going okay. It had been a few weeks since Billy, and Hawkeye was finally smiling at BJ genuinely in the mornings while Peg had moved to giving him updates on how Erin was doing. So they had gone to the supermarket together, and it felt nice and domestic.
...Until Hawkeye got spooked and tried to hide behind the bottles of milk.
Taking it as his punishment for abandoning his daughter, and never getting to see her have a tantrum in the sweets aisle, BJ tried to coax him out. “Hawkeye it’s fine, the noise is just the machines going.”
But Hawkeye didn’t notice his words, staring at something in the distance and muttering to himself. “No I should- but will she- no I’ve gotta…”
He finally turned around to see what was in Hawkeye’s eyeline. An older woman, quite far away and in her seventies, holding the hand of a small girl. BJ should have known, should have remembered Hawkeye’s reaction to Carlye. He held back from touching the other man, resigned. “You might as well.”
Hawkeye’s eyes flickered, still barely registering him, but gripped the metal bars of the milk cage before walking over.
BJ knew he shouldn’t watch, but Hawkeye’s reaction had made it impossible for him to not want to stick his nose in, and the woman’s reaction to Hawk lightly touching her shoulder, a mix of recognition and grief, only made him more morbidly curious.
It was possible that she was an ex lover, yes she looked a lot older but Hawkeye didn’t seem to discriminate age wise. Hawkeye was hunched over, and seemed to be making himself smaller, but maybe he had really hurt her feelings.
Eventually the young girl tugged her grandmother’s hand, and she and Hawkeye wrapped themselves in a clinging hug, before he wandered back, sad but almost looking like he’d achieved something.
BJ was about to ruin that. “So,” BJ started cheerily, anger seeping through his skin. “Is the young lady yours?”
Hawkeye seemed to recognise him for the first time, and moved their trolley to another aisle. “She’s Tommy’s niece. I know enough now to never subject babies to me.”
“Who is Tommy?” He was going to regret asking, he just knew it. It was probably another version of Billy, or Trapper.
Hawkeye closed his eyes and swayed, before taking a deep breath. “My best friend since childhood. First time I cried in Korea.”
Maybe it was hypocritical of him to demand a straight answer, considering the weight of all his lies might have outdone all the lives he saved. Maybe Hawkeye would join him down there, having ended a baby’s life through a soldier’s order. “What are you talking about?”
Hawkeye leaned over the packaged lasagna, the frost melting under his hands to ground himself. “Tommy came to the camp in the first few months. Then he came again, to die on my table.” He shook his head and gave a sad laugh. “He was identified and buried before my shift was over.”
“ What would you do if I was dying? ” echoed in his brain, finally understanding what Hawkeye was talking about in that mess tent so long ago. He was so sorry, for now and for then. “God, Hawk…”
Hawkeye wiped his wet hand on his slacks, decidedly not looking at BJ. “Guys die all the time, I just wanted to apologise to his mother.”
“You could have told me about him?” He didn’t know a way to not make that sound pathetic, like he was begging Hawkeye to let him in.
Just when he thought his heart couldn’t splinter any more, Hawkeye ran the jeep over it again. “I thought you might get jealous.”
He almost wanted to leave right there and then, no way should they be having this conversation in the frozen food aisle. But he couldn’t stand the man who supposedly loved him acting like that was his only character trait. “He was your friend and he died in front of you, do you really think that little…” Logic met Hawkeye’s uncharacteristic quiet, and he finally understood what Hawkeye was saying.
“You slept with him didn’t you?” Amazing that he ever thought Hawkeye flirting with him when he’d arrived in Korea meant that he was special. He was just part of a long line of notches on Hawkeye’s bed post.
Hawkeye suddenly focused very hard on the TV dinner in his hand, sneering at the ingredients with disgust. “Only a few times.”
He had to laugh bitterly. “How many is a few times when it comes to a childhood best friend?” The thought of kissing Leo, even though they’d met slightly older, would be like kissing his sister.
Hawkeye threw the dinner against the side of the trolley. “I was thanking him. Like you’ve never eaten Peg out when she paid for your medical school.”
He ignored the crudeness towards his wife. “Is there anyone I know who you haven’t slept with?” People were starting to look at them, the two traumatised messes clawing at each other.
“Does my dad count?” Hawkeye perked, rage covered by the plastic.
An anxious check out girl came up to them before he could register his disgust, she must have been no more than sixteen. “Um, sirs,” she started, obviously thinking the two scary men were going to yell at her too. “I’m sorry, but you’re disturbing the shop.”
From the way Hawkeye’s eyes were lit up, spoiling to cause even more of a scene, BJ knew he had to be the sensible one. He took out his wallet. As Hawkeye refused to take the bus, that meant he needed to fork out extra so Hawkeye could take a taxi home.
Gritting his teeth, trying to be mature, he handed a thirty to Hawkeye. “Okay, we’re sorry. You go home, I’ll get the rest of the shopping.”
Somehow Hawkeye managed to look at it with disdain and still grab it out of BJ’s hands. “And they called me the martyr.”
“This is passive aggression, you’ve got the corner on martyrdom.” He knew he was in full condescension, that was the point.
“Fine,” Hawkeye snapped, starting to walk the other direction. “I’ve gotta work on the 912,000 people you assumed I’d sleep with anyway.”
When he did finally come home, too guilty to call Peg on the way, Hawkeye wasn’t there. The door slammed a few hours later, and he could barely face getting up.
He was on the chopper again, knife in his hand. He hadn’t actually had this dream in a while. This time, he was over the operating room, watching Hawkeye surrounded by faint copies of what he remembered Trapper and Henry looked like, and Frank and Margaret, trying to convince him that the body on the table wasn’t worth saving.
He watched as Hawkeye dropped the instruments onto the wooden floor, and straddled Tommy. He knew what it was going to turn into right at that moment. Hawkeye opened his eyes and looked directly at him, giving him a smirking wave, disgracing everything he’d ever known.
He was awoken with a start by a pillow thrown on his face. Rubbing his eyes, he saw that Hawkeye was standing over him. “Get dressed,” he said, with a grim look on his face. “It’s cold today.”
BJ started to ask what was happening, but Hawkeye was already out of the room, walking down the stairs, so he got up, confused and lost.
He still had no clue when it was twenty minutes later and they had come to a graveyard. Hawkeye seemed to know where he was going, keeping silent.
“You’re not going to bury me alive are you?” He’d meant it as a joke, but his image of Hawkeye had been contorting into something uglier, and he hated not knowing what was going to happen next.
“Five minutes”,” Hawkeye responded, until they finally got to the plot at the top of the hill. “Look at the middle one.”
The tombstone read “Rose Elizabeth Pierce. 1890 - 1929.”, and beneath, “please think of something funny to say.” He didn’t even know her and he still felt a rush of affection for the woman who had raised Hawkeye for the first ten years of his life.
“Dad had to fight like hell to get the epitaph she wanted,” Hawkeye’s voice spoke from behind him. He was pulling up weeds around the soil, pointedly not looking at the actual tombstone.
He tried to make his voice as soft as possible, willing to back off if Hawkeye lashed out at him. “Do you want to talk about her?” Hawkeye had bought him here for a reason, it was only fair to ask.
Hawkeye was silent for a minute, looking at the grave. Maybe he was searching for a way to spin it into a joke. Or maybe he was just figuring out how to say what he needed. Eventually. “I think they loved me more than they loved each other?”
BJ couldn’t relate, nor was he sure where Hawkeye was going with this. “Isn’t that a good thing?” His parents wanted the best for him, but it was always their version of “best”, to the point where he barely knew what he wanted even at thirty years old.
Hawkeye glanced at him, suddenly remembering something. “I never told you that my dad was sick while we were in Korea, did I?”
He couldn’t help but sigh audibly, his breath clear in the Maine air. “Seems to be a lot of things you haven’t told me.”
Hawkeye’s eyes flashed, having found a way out and spoiling for a fight. “Oh yeah I told Charles instead.”
They’d come here for a reason, something that Hawkeye needed, and he refused to argue anything on a woman’s burial site. “You were complaining about your parents loving you too much?”
Hawkeye flushed, whether it was from the cold, anger or embarrassment he didn’t know, and part of him was a little tired of having to figure it out. “Do you want me to tell you shit or not?”
BJ gritted his teeth, still trying valiantly to keep his promise of not fighting on a grave. “Yes.”
There was still silence as Hawkeye wiped moss off the stone. Finally he spoke. “Mom liked her cigarettes. Dad hated it, doctor’s wife and all that, but when she got stressed out she’d sit on the back porch, light up and read The House Of Mirth or The Voyage Out.”
“Seems like an interesting woman.” While he was also trying to push Hawkeye along, he genuinely meant it. He could imagine her animatedly talking to baby Hawkeye, filling his brain with cultural references early.
Hawkeye gave him a small smile, gaze still off somewhere else. “Yeah... Anyway, she died of pancreatic cancer when I was ten, Dad kept making me fancy breakfasts while she was sick. Nobody let me know it was serious.”
BJ had a feeling that was what Daniel Pierce was referring to when he’d said he’d got it wrong. He tried to think what he would do in that position, if Peg was dying and Erin kept asking why she couldn’t see her mother. He’d ruined that life already of course, but he still couldn’t think of a good option. “Hawk, you were ten.”
His voice sharp as a scalpel, Hawkeye spat it out. “I’d already lost my virginity at that point. I think I could handle it.”
He kept silent. What could he even say to that?
Hawkeye was hiding his face, keeping it down and staring at his mom’s name, but BJ could hear his voice hitch, similar to Peg when she was about to burst into tears. “She wanted me to be safe, and I… I just keep letting her down.”
He could relate to that, partly anyway. “Hawkeye, it’s not your fault you were drafted.”
The dam was about to burst, as Hawkeye sat cross-legged on the wet grass beside the grave and leaned his head against the stone. BJ was instantly reminded of the bus, the first trauma, not the time that snapped his friend’s mind. “Not everything is about drafting horror, Beej. I drink, I sleep around, I get myself into trouble on purpose, I go for people that remind me of her and every time they hurt me I get mad at her all over again but there’s also no way she could be proud of this.”
Only Hawkeye could make BJ feel this helpless, spewing out platitudes when you put a nickel into him. “Your dad is.”
Hawkeye emitted a broken crack of laughter, echoing around the hill. “Dad’s gonna wake up one day and realise he could have had a stress free life.”
Maybe it was just best to leave Hawkeye to it, let him go round and round in self loathing circles until all his light got snuffed out. But after a minute of hearing the wind whistle and the far off waves crash, Hawkeye got up, wiped his face and kicked the stone’s side. It didn’t crack or wobble, just stood there, unfeeling.
“Hawkeye! What the hell?”
Hawkeye just shrugged, giving him a thin smile, before addressing his mom’s engraving again. “Sorry mom, love you, will do this again next year.”
He could only stare after Hawkeye trudging down the hill with his hands shoved in his pockets for a few moments, before he muttered an “it was nice to meet you” apology of his own, and followed him home.
He and Hawkeye are getting married. The very thought of that is laughable, should have told him right away it was a dream, but all he feels is hysteria.
It’s a very small wedding, he’s in a white suit and bowtie, Hawkeye in his too big for him tux and cowboy hat, he hasn’t even seen the guests yet.
“Take a look,” Hawkeye says, on the brink of cackling.
He finally sees them; Peg clinging onto Erin, Aggie taking notes, Carrie dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. And on the other side; a tired Korean woman feeding a crow, a blonde woman lying across a row of seats, her curls immaculate despite her skin rotting, and Trapper John, leering in Peg’s direction.
He looks back at Hawkeye, feeling like he could scream, and Hawkeye finally bursts laughing. “Too many ghosts here!”
The next day, they didn’t even bother going out. When he finally woke up late in the afternoon, he found Hawkeye sitting on the kitchen floor in shorts and sullenly eating Ruffles potato chips.
“Hi.” No answer, just crunching.
Not in the mood, he grabbed one of his coats and walked to his favourite spot these days, the phone box. Even if Peg hated him too, it was at least less claustrophobic than with Hawkeye.
It took a few rings. Selfishly, he didn’t know what time it was in California other than they were a few hours behind. Lately it was feeling like he and Hawkeye had their own portion of the world, and anyone else was only allowed in a few minutes at a time. To put it bluntly, he needed to be in a crowd of friends with their own lives soon or someone’s blood was going to splatter the walls. Whether it was his own or Hawkeye’s, he hadn’t decided yet.
“Hi BJ.”
He had to ask. “How did you know it was me?”
Peg sounded about twenty years older than she actually was; he knew the feeling. “Everyone else, everyone here, calls me on my days off, not half an hour after I get back from work.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not.” Guilty silence hung in the air. She wasn’t exactly wrong.
“How’s everyone’s favorite war wife?” Peg then asked, with a hint of bitter laughter in her tone. BJ felt a fresh wave of grief; as much as he (and Hawkeye too) deserved the anger, he never wanted her to be like them.
“He’s fine.”
Now that got an actual snort of derision. “Honey, just because you think you’re a great liar, doesn’t make it true.”
He didn’t want to admit it, he didn’t want to acknowledge it by saying the words out loud. “I’m not sure it’s working out.”
“I’m sorry.” She seemed sincere, although he wouldn’t have blamed her if she felt vindicated.
He rested his head on the glass window, watching the far off trees sway in the wind, until she spoke again. “Will you be coming back to California?” She seemed to be trying to keep her voice neutral.
BJ could just imagine the look on Hawkeye’s face, finding out that he’d been left a second time. Maybe he could form a second time abandoning your loved one club with Carlye. “I wish you weren’t so far away.”
As so often it happened, the manipulation oozed out of him without meaning to, but it seemed to work, as she explained haltingly. “You know… I’ve lived in the same place for so long. I have some cousins in Gorham who could probably get me an estate agent job, I hear they vote liberal…”
Despite all his self absorption lately, and how desperate he was to see Erin again, it still felt like having his cake and eating it too. He wasn’t Hawkeye, he wasn’t allowed to juggle everyone. “Can- can I think about it?”
Ice crept into her voice. “Obviously.” He didn’t judge her for hanging up.
When he got back to the house (it still didn’t feel like his and Hawkeye’s home, just a gift from a kind parent), Hawkeye had moved from eating junk food in the kitchen to lying on the floor in the living room, bottles surrounding him.
BJ made a noise of disgust. “I was gone an hour, what happened?”
Hawkeye’s voice was muffled by the rug. “Booze was there, you weren’t, simple math.”
He bent down to at least right Hawkeye, grabbing his shoulders and rolling him on his back.
“Take me to my coffin,” Hawkeye grinned, holding his arms out and cognizant enough for cutesy references, but not enough to get up off the floor himself.
“This is pathetic,” he said. “Do you really need daddy looking after you to even begin functioning?” BJ knew that was a cruel thing to say, especially what he vaguely knew about Hawkeye’s situation in Boston, but he was more than a little jealous of how devoted Daniel was to Hawkeye considering his own parents, and sick of how Hawkeye barely seemed to appreciate it, preferring to stew in self loathing.
Hawkeye just swiveled his head to leer at him, slurring “you can be daddy if you want.”
“Say that again and I’ll drop you down the stairs.”
Hawkeye let out a giggle, but thankfully remained silent until they got to the bedroom. So it took him by surprise when Hawk pushed him against the door and stuck his tongue in his mouth.
It wasn’t just that Hawkeye tasted of wine, vodka and gin, or even the fact that Hawkeye had conned him so he could have a make out session. Though both of those pissed him off, his own alcohol consumption hadn’t decreased since Korea, and he already knew Hawkeye liked to think he could convince anyone to sleep with him.
It was the fact that he felt nothing. Obviously any enjoyment wouldn’t have negated the fact that Hawkeye had done something really shitty, but he had a very real fear bubbling in his brain that this relationship, even this friendship, that had got him through so much, was dead in the ground and beyond repair.
“Hawkeye…”
The other man’s hands were clenched in his shirt, pulling him to the bed. “We keep trying,” he was still slurring, but less than before. “And failing. If this can’t make it better I’ve lost my touch.” It still amazed him that Hawkeye could have such little self esteem but make up for it in spades by thinking he was kind of sex god.
Despite now being on top of Hawkeye, Hawkeye was still the one in control, hands in his hair, invading his mouth, hooking his legs around his waist, grinding into him. It would be so easy to give into him, let him win while also having the upper hand, like the push and pull they’ve always done. But he also knew that if he caved this time, he would keep caving, and there’d be no love for each other left.
“Okay, Hawkeye, stop,” he tried to say, muffled by Hawkeye’s mouth on him. Hawkeye didn’t stop, only gripping on tighter until his fingers left dents in BJ’s arms. BJ knew he was stronger than Hawkeye, hadn’t wanted to throw him off (or admit that he might need to) but Hawkeye was in a blind frenzy, and clearly was going to do something he would never come back from.
So with a show of force, he twisted them around until Hawkeye was on top, felt Hawkeye’s smile against his moustache, and shoved him off the bed. And Hawkeye landed with a crash on the floor. He righted himself, breathing heavily and BJ noticed the half mast erection in his pants, but his face looked aghast. “What do you even want from me!”
He got onto his feet, sick to death of this whole thing. “Not everything can be solved with sex!” He thought that was obvious, and had held out hope that for all the childish hypersexuality, Hawkeye knew that too.
If this was still Korea, Hawkeye would have dusted himself off, made a cute quip and they would go to the mess tent with their shoulders touching. Instead this was a two storey room in Maine, and he was still on the floor looking at BJ with something like hate in those blue eyes. “Some of us have to deal with shit the only way we know how, Beej.”
Maybe it was his own anger at his own terrible choices, directed at Hawkeye. God knows that’d happened before, but he’d finally had enough of this man’s self pity, known from the first minute he’d met him. “That is such bullshit.”
There was a trace of a smirk on Hawkeye’s face, just daring him to say something he couldn’t take back. “Oh but Beej, you’re so good at mind games and playing innocent. Teach me how to get away with it.” Batting eyelashes and all, like BJ was a general who wanted to beat him down in some way than his best friend.
His hands ached to shove Hawkeye against the wall, get in his space, but he clenched them at his sides. “Contrary to what you think, Hawk, not everything is about you.”
Hawkeye just laughed at him, still not taking anything seriously. “Says the guy who left without a note.”
And there it was. A million comebacks entered and left his brain; no wonder everyone leaves you, you’d have still complained even if me and Trapper had left a note, nothing is ever attention enough for you. Instead he went for the god complex. “Don’t know if you noticed, but there was a war on, which kinda trumps one surgeon’s abandonment problem.”
He could see the air around them freeze as Hawkeye’s face contorted, trying to process what had just been just been said to him, and snap as a satisfied smile spread across his face. “So glad you said that, Hunnicutt, cos now I finally get to leave first.”
The bedroom door slammed, leaving BJ alone.
When he woke up the next morning, Hawkeye wasn’t there. That wasn’t unusual in itself, with both of them having nightmares, neither of them had the same sleeping schedule, but he’d kept awake for most of the night, and Hawkeye seemed to have stayed out for all of it.
An angry, tired part of him, that part who had given up on this whole mess, assumed Hawkeye had just grabbed the nearest body, probably getting hammered in the back of a cramped car or shacking up with a wife on a dingy couch while her husband was at work.
Just then, he heard a crash downstairs, followed by muffled swearing. Fully done, and assuming he’d have to deal with a hungover Hawkeye, he stayed in bed for longer, staring at the red curtains wafting around in the wind, until he finally got up for whatever shit Hawkeye had got up to now.
He expected to see Hawkeye limping around, putting a cold compress on a bruise or hunting for more booze. What he saw instead - and sniffed a few minutes before, but he couldn’t believe it - was Hawkeye cooking a million different breakfasts, his old ratty purple robe (with the MASH 4077 knitted over) flying behind him as he sped around the kitchen.
“Hi!” It wasn’t even his regular voice, higher pitched and breathy, and BJ noted with horror that it was similar to his mother when she’d been trying to convince the rest of the family that she was fine. “Did I wake you? Sorry!”
“Hey..,” he replied tentatively, not sure what to make of all this. “How you been, buddy?” It sounded more condescending out of his head, but maybe that would get Hawkeye back and not this perky housewife.
Hawkeye grinned at him, his hands working on various hot saucepans and all his words running into one. “Fine! You know I was a bit harsh last night, so I figured I’d make up for it. We’ve got pancakes, sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs but if you want them done another way I can run to the store and get more and make them a different way-”
“Hawkeye…” BJ touched him gently to both not scare him and to ease the manic running around. “I appreciate this, and I’m so sorry for what I said too, but you know things have been rough for a while. We’ve gotta actually talk instead of chasing a fantasy.”
Hawkeye gave a faint whimper, looking mournfully at the oven and food. “Okay. But can we at least eat as well?” At least he was back in normal voice.
He smiled placatingly, an old habit that probably didn’t help them at their fractured point. “Sure. It all smells really good.”
While Hawkeye cut up bananas for pancakes, BJ took a piece of everything; scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, hash browns… he wasn’t really that hungry, a nerve ball forming in his stomach, last chance for them to fix this, but Hawkeye had made so much, he’d feel guilty otherwise.
Back in Korea, he’d had fantasies about sitting with Hawkeye one morning, in a sunlit kitchen with the breeze quietly whistling through the open windows. He didn’t think the context would be “we’ve made a complete disaster out of this.”
“Okay,” Hawkeye started. “First point. Why have you not kissed me at all?”
BJ snorted incredulously, trying to find a nice way to put it. “I don’t know, Hawk, I tend to find coercion a turn off.”
Hawkeye ducked his head, and BJ could tell he was trying to not snark back. “Okay. I’m sorry, I’ve… normalised some shit. I shouldn’t have done that.”
He was still sore about it, still felt a little betrayed, but he had enough details to last him a lifetime that Hawkeye hadn’t exactly been taught about boundaries either way. “Thank you for the apology.”
“But!” Hawkeye’s hands were flying around, trying to explain himself, his old self righteousness still burning white hot. “It was bad to do, I know, but we haven’t kissed at all even before that. Do you just not want me?”
BJ hadn’t really thought about it. He liked the thought of Hawkeye being his, emotionally speaking, but sexually? “Hm. Ask me nicely for a kiss.”
Hawkeye took a quick breath, actually asking strange on his tongue. “Can I kiss you, Beej?”
“Sure.”
Hawkeye leaned in, a soft palm on BJ’s cheek, and kissed him softly on the lips before going deeper. It was warm and nice, and he could tell Hawkeye was giving his very best work, but aside from knowing he was meant to melt, he felt nothing.
Hawkeye moaned into his mouth, both in pleasure and frustration, and stopped the kiss, his hands still cupping BJ’s head. “You don’t want me,” he said, more curious as to how this could have possibly happened than upset.
“I don’t get it either.”
Hawkeye leaned back, calmer than BJ felt at this moment. “So what do you want?”
He wanted to give a short, quick answer, what had always been expected of him, whether it was a quip or reassurance in Korea, or the good non threatening guy words in Mill Valley. “I… don’t know? I love Peg, and I love you, and I’ve had the fantasies of fumbling around on a motorbike but… they’re just fantasies. Hugs are great, I’m attracted to people, but I’ve always peaked at psychological foreplay and sex and kissing just feel like duty for after the fun.”
Hawkeye nodded, deep in thought. “I don’t get it. But okay.”
“Is that bad?” He felt as if he were five years old again.
It was Hawkeye’s turn to look anxious as he picked at his pancakes. “Just because I don’t get it doesn’t mean it’s bad. If you can love me without sex then okay. But. I do genuinely enjoy and need sex. So maybe… maybe we can be open? I can hook up and always come home to you and you be the most important person in my life right now? And even if I fall in love with somebody else, you’ll still be there?”
He knew this was serious, and a negotiation that meant things could be better, but he couldn’t help but see the funny side. “So basically we’re in Korea again?”
Hawkeye’s eyes were still wide on him, waiting for approval, but he smiled too. “Just with no blood in our boots, and actually decent cooking.” There was a pause. “So?”
He had to think. Much like Hawkeye with him, he didn’t understand the need for casual sex. He either loved one person fully, even after all this Hawkeye and Peg were still different forms of love, and if they weren’t there, someone like them; Carrie for Peg, Aggie for Hawkeye, getting into bed with random strangers held no interest for him. And he knew he’d got worse with jealousy in Korea, to the point where he’d assumed Hawkeye was asking for any attention at all, good or bad. That whole deal with the press for example.
But as he had to keep telling himself, this wasn’t Korea. He wasn’t stuck in a loop between never ending shifts and his bored brain spreading to thinking of nastier games both to occupy his time and seeing just how far he could go until something broke. So even if it took some getting used to, he could cope with it.
“It’s a deal.” Hawkeye made a strangled joyful sound and flung his arms around his neck. “But. No blonde built guys? Can I be your only one of those?”
“Scout’s honor.”
That wasn’t their only problem though. He missed Erin like a hole in the chest that was getting larger by the day. And giving Hawkeye permission to hook up gave him a segway into something that he’d been thinking about since his last conversation with Peg. “So this sounds bad but I’ve talking with Peggy-”
Hawkeye interrupted, sounding resigned. “I know, you’re not subtle sneaking off.”
He gave his hand an apologetic squeeze, deciding not to mention those few times Hawkeye had come home smelling of a back alley. “And she’s not going to say it outright but I think she’s sick of Mill Valley. She doesn’t have to move right next door, but closer than across the country, and might help us not go crazy.” It was so rehearsed that he almost felt guilty.
Hawkeye looked uneasy. “If every time I see Erin I’m scared of her because I see her getting smothered, then what side are you going to take?”
He fought the fatherly instinct to smack Hawkeye up the head for including his daughter in his crude way of talking about trauma, and instead pushed on. “I promise you can be the fun spoiling honorary uncle for as long as you need.”
The other man gave a deprecating smile, and then emitted a sad laugh. “Maybe both of us need some therapy too.”
Ice crept into his skin. He’d never gone to see Sidney during Korea, and as much as he liked the man, talking openly about his feelings never felt right, his brain always blocking the words. But he wasn’t sure they could manage this alone and not end up in the same fight a few weeks later. “Sidney?”
“If he’s allowed? Or can spare the trip. Or he could recommend, there’s gotta be other queer commie therapists out there.”
Taking a deep breath, willing to try, he sat back spent, while Hawkeye ate some of the forgotten food and made a face. “I went overboard.” He leapt up and made a move for the door. “There’s a new bakery a few streets down. Wanna come with and get pastries? Cook tomorrow? Or you can sleep and I’ll bring you donuts in bed.”
This felt nice. Real in a way that was soft and not bitter like the last year had seemed to be. “I wanna go with you.”
Hawkeye grinned in a way that made look like the young man, not completely wrecked yet, he’d first seen in that dusty airport. “Come on then. We gotta get the good bread before they’re sold out.”
BJ took the offered hand. Like he had always done, and always will.