Chapter Text
“I’m gonna make sure the Father doesn’t asphyxiate.” Hawkeye stoops and tries to sling Mulcahy’s arm around his shoulders, aiming to take over some of that deceptively heavy body weight from those wobbly knees, but it’s tough with the height difference. “You run on ahead and get the still warmed up for me.”
Trapper looks about as baffled by Hawkeye’s gesture as he does by the Father's intoxication. “You sure? I can’t promise there’ll be anythin’ left if you take too long to get back.” He’s already getting twitchy, nearly jogging in place, just at the thought of setting up their still again.
“Look, someone’s gotta keep an eye on this guy. I’m not sure he can even walk the whole way back without falling on his ass. I mean, for chrissakes, Trap, look at him.”
Mulcahy has a vague smile with glassy, far-away eyes, like an angel is whispering the winning lottery numbers to him.
Hawkeye smirks. “I’m not heartless. And I owe him one for repealing the prohibition.”
Mulcahy is barely audible over the chattering crowd. “Hawkeye… You smell nice.”
“Thank you, Father. It only seems that way because, for once, I don’t completely reek of gin… yet.”
Trapper laughs and claps his roommate on the shoulder. “Okay, take it easy, Hawk. And don’t try to cop a feel if you gotta give the guy some chest compressions.”
“I’ll try. Later, Trap.”
Trapper salutes on his way out and can’t resist sprinting back to the Swamp.
Normally, Hawkeye feels a little embarrassed that the chaplain’s tent is so close to the mess, which means it’s close to all the ungodly premarital things he does at movie night (and the filthy conversations he has at breakfast the morning after). But today, he’s incredibly grateful, because it turns out that lugging around a guy who’s almost solid muscle— underneath the doughy, modest exterior— is almost impossible.
Granted, Mulcahy can put one foot in front of the other just fine and probably walk a good couple yards on his own, but after seeing him threatening to knock his front teeth out on the pulpit, Doctor Pierce isn’t about to roll any dice, and he’s willing to pull a lot of muscles in his torso if it means he can get the Father safely laid out on a squishy horizontal surface that much faster. He briefly regrets sending Trapper straight home instead of asking him to run and grab a spare stretcher.
It takes a bit of maneuvering to get the door open while refusing to let go of the heavyweight lightweight in his arms, and he only narrowly avoids splitting those cute glasses in half on the edge of the doorframe when Mulcahy suddenly lurches to one side. “Jesus, Padre! I know bishops move diagonally, but this is ridiculous.” Hawkeye makes sure to lock the door behind them; everyone else’s gotten enough blackmail on their chaplain for one day.
Mulcahy lets Hawkeye lead him in a swaying walk to his still-made bed, and he drops into it like a loosely-filled sandbag. “Hawkeye, it’s still light out.” Even though he’s in a private space now, he isn’t much easier to hear.
“It is still light out. Which is why I can’t believe you’re this drunk. You’re stealing my bit. Come on, help me get this thing off you.” After slipping off the taupe satin stole and unclasping the stiff collar, he yanks at the hem of the loose, lacy frock that’s bunched up around Mulcahy’s waist; it needs to be set aside before it gets ruined one way or another. “Raise your arms. Up, up… There we go.” He peels it off unevenly and a little clumsily, jingling the crucifix he’s left behind, and he holds the wad of fine fabric like a poorly swaddled baby. It feels way too nice for this dump— same as basically everything else about, worn by, owned by, or even remotely affiliated with the Father, like a bluebell sprouting in the path of a Jeep. “Uh. Where do you want this?”
“Oh, anywhere’s f-f-fine…”
Hawkeye dumps it in the seat of the nearest chair. “Okay, now let’s get your belt and your muddy boots dealt with, and then you can get to work on sleeping this off, if you can still talk in a few minutes.”
Mulcahy manages to fumble his own belt out of its loops, but he just watches Hawkeye work at loosening the laces of the boots. They shoved halfway under the bed to avoid a tripping hazard while the belt is tossed on top of the rest of the garments, and when that’s done, Mulcahy stays sitting upright expectantly.
“Father, you can lay down now.”
“W-why? It’s still light out.”
“I know it’s still light out. But you need to be nice and still so you don’t try and find more ways to hurt yourself. You at least need to lie down in the right way, regardless of whether you’re staying conscious, so you don’t choke to death on your own—” Hawkeye huffs. “Look, I’m doing this for your own good. Same reason I do anything to anyone.” He plants his hands on the Father’s chest and oh-so-gently nudges until the poor guy is finally horizontal, lying on his side. “There! Isn’t that better?”
“Better than what?”
Hawkeye facepalms, dragging his hand down like he’s wiping sweat off his nose. “Lemme check your pulse.”
Mulcahy holds out his wrist, but Hawkeye bypasses it to stick two digits over his jugular.
He nods and doesn’t seem to find any immediate cause for alarm, taking his hand back. “I think it’s time I collect the taxi fare. Father, what did you drink before you gave that wonderfully eloquent sermon?”
“Oh, it was a gift.”
“What was?”
“The drink.”
“Uh… huh. And where did you put the bottle— the one you got as a gift?”
“It should be somewhere over there… I’m not sure.” Mulcahy points across the tent and hiccups. “…I-it’s very strong.”
“I believe it. I’ve got a five-star review right here in front of me.” Hawkeye turns to look over at the tent’s lonely little desk; standing proudly apart from all the other odds and ends, a dark, unassuming bottle of deep amber liquor is illuminated by a single sunbeam like a gift from above. He finds himself salivating. Maybe he does have a problem. No other earthly desire has ever looked that irresistibly good. Before he even has the time to ponder the ethics of drinking a chaplain’s special secret gift whiskey, he’s already taken a short, brisk swig straight from the bottle— it burns like hellfire the whole way down. “Ohhh-kay, now that I got my liquid patience, I’m gonna make myself comfortable.” He drops into the chair at the desk.
Partway through pouring himself a proper glass, he gets interrupted by some soft utterance from the owner of the liquor.
He doesn’t quite parse it. “Could you repeat that?” He’s assuming it was some scolding remark about theft and the biblical punishments thereof.
“Why’re you…” Mulcahy squints and adjusts his glasses. “Why’re you over there, Hawkeye?”
“Well, I can’t exactly go back to the Swamp knowing you just went from teetotaller to T.K.O.… I’m, uh, worried I might miss the show.” And I wouldn’t forgive myself if you so much as stubbed your toe in this condition, he almost adds. He doesn’t know if anything he says now is even going to be remembered come tomorrow, but he’d rather not risk it.
“Noooo…” Mulcahy smiles. “No, why are you over there? Come back to my bed, Hawkeye. I miss you.”
That phrase hits the peculiar neural ganglion just below Hawkeye’s belt before his actual brain can process it. It feels like he just got his reflexes tested, and he kicked hard. Whoa. Think, Hawk. This is a totally different time, place, and especially person than it was the last time he heard someone say that. He watches the dark drink wobble in his tumbler.
Mulcahy is still lying down— thank his God— but he’s got one arm feebly reaching out to the surgeon across the tent. “Please? Come here…”
Hawkeye empties the tumbler and claps it down onto the desk like a gavel, then stands, already feeling the buzz of the alcohol oiling all his joints. He leaves the bottle behind as he steps slowly closer to the bed, like he’s approaching some wild animal that might spook, or worse, strike, at any second. “What do you need, Father? I told you, you should be sleeping this off.”
“Sit with me. Please?”
“Are we having a role reversal?” He drags a chair toward the bedside and seats himself in a terrible slouch. “What’s on your mind?”
“Oh, I don’t know…” Mulcahy fidgets slowly, as if he’s checking that all his phalanges are still intact. “I’m really…” He swallows. “I’m really not sure that went well.”
“Your sermon?”
Mulcahy shakes his head, but then nods. “I already don’t… recall much. Is that bad?”
“I’d consider it very merciful.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
Hawkeye smirks, enjoying how innocent those dilated pupils look, even while knowing the embarrassing context behind them. “You drink often, Father?”
“E-every Sunday.”
“Besides that. I know you’ve bellied up to the bar at my place once or twice…” Not to accuse him of anything— he’s gneuinely curious. The Father doesn’t seem like the type to drown his sorrows on the regular, but on the other hand, he’s got a whole camp’s worth of confessed sorrows to drown. “Ever drink alone?”
“Oh, Hawkeye, I’m never alone.”
“He doesn’t count.” Hawkeye glances back toward the liquor bottle on the desk. “I’d offer you a second dose, but I think you’re good for now.”
Mulcahy quickly shakes his head no, then winces at how dizzy that motion just made him. “I… d-definitely prefer wine over that.”
“Me, too, but it beats Swamp gin. It’s just what I needed. And maybe just what you needed…”
“What? W-what did I need? …Did I forget something?”
“You forget how to take it easy. Cut loose. You gotta do more than just turning up for poker now and then.” Hawkeye nudges him on the shoulder with a loose fist. “Space it out, know what I mean? There’s a reason you don’t take the whole bottle of medicine at once.” A reason why most people don’t, anyway; Hawkeye’s spent a couple bad nights laying around with his mouth right under the still’s condenser.
“Oh… well… it feels… strange.”
“What’s strange?”
“Drinking, when I’m here. And I don’t have anyone… to drink with.”
“Sure you do. You got the whole gang.”
“Well, it’s… different. Different… rules. Limits, I think.” Mulcahy’s really struggling to put his thoughts in order, and it shows on his face; gone is the blank smile from just prior. “You aren’t… You’re a doctor. Your patients, the ones in post-op… they don’t see you at poker. M-mine do.”
“Father, we’re not gonna excommunicate you just for putting back a couple martinis on weekends, or whatever other vice tickles your fancy. I don’t think you’d even do that to yourself. You’re really not the fire and brimstone type.”
“I try not to be.”
“And you succeed!”
“I w-wish we’d just shown a film instead…”
“Yeah, probably could’ve had more fun in the audience that way.”
“There was…” Mulcahy blushes, but it’s hard to see it with how rosy his nose and cheeks already are. “Was it… you I was telling earlier? I saw a film once… Another chaplain brought it. Certainly… certainly got everyone’s attention. It was very, very… very lewd.”
“Oh?” Hawkeye likes to think you can tell a lot about a guy by his tastes in entertainment, and whether or not it’s true, it’s still fun to gossip and gawk over. He leans a little forward; he can already tell that his sense of balance is starting to suffer a slight lag. “Priests like pornos?” Even that phrase alone would make a great title for something. “Hey, if you’re interested, I got a few fun magazines. I’ll give ‘em to you for free so I can write it off on my taxes… I didn’t know you liked that sorta thing! Always figured it’d make you break out in hives.”
“W-well, I can’t exactly… or, I suppose, I shouldn’t be… trying it at home.”
The clarification catches Hawkeye’s attention. “You ever try it, though…?”
“I…” Mulcahy stops himself and shakes his head, looking like he would be getting very panicky if it weren’t for the alcohol blocking it. “I shouldn’t. It’s fun… but I shouldn’t.”
“It’s fun…” Hawkeye rolls the words around in his mouth. Not ‘sounds like’ fun, ‘is’ fun… “Tell me about that flick you saw. Any cute girls in it?”
“Yes. M-many.”
“More than one girl at a time?” Hawkeye whistles one long decrescendo. “You’re tough to satisfy, huh? Who else was with ‘em?”
“Two men… One was a n-nice boy, from a small, little, r-rural town. The other man… He had a whip, and he could… He could break the w-watch right off the boy’s wrist…”
“And a chaplain showed you this?”
“Strictly for, uh… edu… educational purposes.”
“Mmmmm. Personally, I’ve always been a hands-on learner.” Hawkeye snickers at his own joke. “The guy with the whip… Was he fit? Big arms, pecs…?”
“Oh, yes. Very.”
“Bet he made the other guy look like a beanpole.”
“Absolutely…” Mulcahy stifles a little laugh. “The nice boy, he looked like… a little like you, but… the eyes weren’t right.”
“You want to whip the witch— witch the watch— wanna whip the watch white— rip the— oh, fuck me running.” Hawkeye gasps for air. “You wanna whip the watch right off my wrist?” He snorts and cackles. “Oh, I always knew you had a dirty side!”
“W-we all have a dirty side.”
“One of God’s little gifts, right?”
“Don’t say that. There’s nothing… nothing godly about… these thoughts.”
“Sure there is, baby.” Hawkeye braces one hand on the bed to draw even closer. “Totally natural.”
“Natural…”
“Nothing but.”
Mulcahy rolls flat onto his back. “Hawkeye…” He looks focused, almost worried. “You make it look… easy.” His voice sounds wistful, bordering on absent. “Effortless.”
“Pfff. What? Sleeping around?”
“Everything.”
“No way. I bitch and moan so much at work, you’d think I was ampumatating my own leg…”
“Yes, but… you get to ‘bitch and moan’. Easily. Freely… And people listen; people react. No one listens to me when… even when I say something n-nice.”
“I listen.” Hawkeye lets his wry smile ease into something softer and friendlier. “Promise. And if you ever wanna talk to me here, you just gotta ask.”
“Are you offering…?”
“Offering… what?”
“A… an offer…”
Hawkeye’s brows leap up, making his eyes glitter as he tries to imagine how that would play out— just getting asked point-blank to come over sometime seems a little too casual, considering the place he’d be coming over to doubles as a confession booth. He’s struggling to picture it, but maybe that’s just the inebriation. “I… could be offering, if you’d be willing to take me up on it.” And if not, he thinks, forget I ever admitted that. “Would you?”
“S-sometimes I do want to… have fun with you, Hawkeye…”
“Only sometimes?”
“Okay… More than just sometimes. Most of the time… Oh, heck. A-all the time, really.”
“Makes two of us.”
“Ohh, don’t say that. You don’t… You wouldn’t w-want to. Don’t say that.”
“Why wouldn’t I? You know I think about doin’ crazy things to you every time I see you, right?” Hawkeye can still get defiant in this state, even though it feels like the alcohol is seeping into his braincase and sloshing everything around. He steps off the chair as if it’s made of glass, because he does not want it to snap shut, and then he sits at the edge of the bed right near Mulcahy’s hips. “You’re sweet, you’re shy… and you need the attention. The perfect combananation.” He runs one hand over the black button-down and squeezes Mulcahy’s left pec.
Mulcahy squeals, either in joy or in ticklishness. “No, no, Hawkeye, you wouldn’t—!” He tries to steady that wandering, kneading hand as it skips to the opposite side of his chest, but his grip is shaky. “You don’t like me. N-not like that.” He has a dizzy, disbelieving smile.
“You sound so sure. How come…?” Hawkeye skirts his hand over the tensing abdominals. “You don’t see what I see?”
“I’m not—” It’s not clear whether Mulcahy’s hitching breath is because he’s trying not to laugh, or trying not to cry; he’s smiling, but those brows are still taut with worry. “I’m not fun. I’m not exciting… E-even a film is more exciting than I am.”
“Pfff. Who cares if you can’t work a crowd? You can work me any day of the week. Well, not any day for you, I guess… Still.” Hawkeye huffs. “God, I wish I could say something way smarter to you right now. I know I’ve thought of some great lines to try on you, but I…” He moves his hand up to cup Mulcahy’s face—
Near-instantly, the Father sighs, delighted, and tilts his head into the touch.
The heat of his blush is easy to feel, and it’s almost scorching, especially at the tips of his ears, where Hawkeye is brushing one lazy thumb. “…But I… forgot.” He swallows. “Father…”
“Mm?”
“I…” He blinks in between reverent stares. “I forgot your name. Not the Milky— uh, Mulch— Mulcahy. What’s the other one? What is it?”
Mulcahy gawks like he’s also drawn a blank.
“No one ever says your name?”
“No…”
“Only ever Father, huh…” Hawkeye moves his hand just enough to feel the softness of the still-tidy hair and freshly-shaven cheek under his palm. “Father and Mulcahy and Father Mul—”
“Francis.”
“Francis?”
“That’s right…”
“Francis, baby, I know you’re still blotto, and I know I’m on my way there, but I wanna kiss you. I owe you, and I like you in all the ways I’m not supposed to like my chaplain…” He trails off, caught by his own phrasing. “My chaplain… God, I wanna kiss you, Francis.”
“You really do?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“…No.”
For once, Hawkeye decides he’s done talking. He shuts his eyes and trusts that Mulcahy’s lips will be waiting to meet his own as he bows his head.
He can only hope this kiss really is as amazing as it feels, but it’s hard to tell exactly what’s real and what’s just his intoxicated neurons firing at random on a seven-second delay. At least he knows who he’s kissing. And there’s no way to ignore it; he can hear the faint, whispery little sounds under him, taste that same whiskey that bombed the sermon what feels like forever ago, feel the dainty glasses bumping awkwardly—
Okay, the glasses gotta go. Hawkeye pulls back and has to put his entire mind on removing them and setting them aside without poking out an eye or a lens. He gives one last look to make sure the lousy glasses survived their surgical removal, and then he dives back in.
This is much better. It’s so good that Hawkeye keeps having to get closer, feel more, and he ends up climbing atop Mulcahy, settling neatly into a warm, welcoming lap that he knows has a bright red No Trespassing sign stamped across it. Hell, the Father probably does have a cross drawn on the back of his underwear… Hawkeye catches his lover’s lip in his teeth and gets a wonderful surprised squeak as he kneads it; he hopes that’ll sound even hotter when he’s sober, and he tries to kiss it better.
Mulcahy bites back twice as hard.
Hawkeye shouts and scrambles back like a startled cat, covering his mouth. “Jesus, someone’s eager!”
Mulcahy has a sorry, wide-eyed look that’s actually quite lovely. “A-are you okay?”
“Urgh… It’s no whip. I’ll survive.” Hawkeye winces and groans, taking his hands away from his face. “Am I bleeding?”
“No… Hold on… I think… No… Oh, I don’t have my g-glasses.” Mulcahy beckons him to lean a little closer. “…Oh, dear.”
“Is that a yes?”
“I’m sorry…”
Hawkeye grins, then hisses at how that just split his lip a little worse. “We oughta do this when we’re not so goddamn drunk.” He stares in thought for just a moment. “On the other hand, this isn’t so bad, ‘cause now there’s two of you.”
After a little pause, Mulcahy laughs— a hearty, solid laugh from the bottom of his chest, not the least bit shy or ashamed. The sun coming in through the window hits him in one wide, buttery beam, and it lights up his hair and eyes and smile all at once, and little glowing motes of dust all dance around him like glitter.
Hawkeye doesn’t know when he put his hands back on Mulcahy, but he must have, because he’s cradling that sweet, bright face like his life depends on it. “Oh my God.” He looks almost hypnotized. “Angel…”
“Hm?”
It takes a couple seconds for Hawkeye to realize he said that and didn’t just think it. “…Of course you answer to ’angel’.” He smirks, tilting Mulcahy’s head a little this way and that, just because he can, watching those sparkling eyes following him. It is amusing to think about an angel coming to this place, of all places, only to get so drunk that his wings don’t work anymore. “You like that, baby? Angel?”
“I like it…” Mulcahy nods as best he can. “You know w-what else I’d like?”
“What? Name it. Anything.”
“A nap.”
“Oh, fuck. You’re so right. I got… distracted.”
“Am I distracting…?”
“Way more than you should be.” He doesn’t take his hands away, only moving them a bit lower to check the pulse just under the jawline. It’s getting stronger and closer to normal. “You want me to get lost? I can run an’ finish off killing my liver with Tank and Fa— Trapper and Frank, if you think you’re safe to drive to dream-land.”
“N-no, don’t… I want you to stay.” Mulcahy tugs at Hawkeye’s sleeve, and it’s kind of funny how he forgets to check his own strength while he’s like this. “Y-you know. Just in case.”
“Just in case…”
“You never know w-what could happen…”
“I got a couple inklings.” Hawkeye sits back and sheds both his shirts in quick succession, then yanks off his boots with a fraction of the grace. “This isn’t gonna sound very sexy, baby, but we gotta lay you on your side in case your stomach is gonna wanna re-gift that whiskey.” As he flings his shirts to the foot of the bed, a fun idea pops into his brain and shows on his face. “I’m diagnosing you with big-spoon deficiency.”
Mulcahy wants to ask what in goodness that means, but he finds himself being rolled and folded over like an oversized omelet, facing away from the tent wall again. He’s more than a little sad that he can’t see Hawkeye anymore from this angle, and he’s about to say as much…
Then he feels Hawkeye settling against his back and nuzzling into his neck at the hem of his shirt-collar, and he instinctively murmurs a pleased mmm followed by an ooh and ahh as all their limbs start to tangle neatly into place.
Hawkeye makes sure to squeeze him tight around the waist. It’s a much nicer way to feel up those muscles compared to earlier, when they both had to struggle desperately against gravity instead of being neatly nestled by it. “This ought to work. You’re not gonna be rolling over anytime soon.”
“Y-you’re very thorough, doctor…”
“I do provide the best care anywhere.” He kisses Mulcahy on the back of the neck, behind the ear. “Mmmm… Your pulse feels great.” He nuzzles into a few more kisses. “And so does the rest of you.”