Chapter Text
The moment Hawkeye hears the knocks, he knows he's screwed.
He knows exactly who knocks like that, he knows precisely who the silhouette in the rain belongs to, and knows, without a single doubt, that there's a pair of size thirteen Chuck Taylor's standing out on the front porch of his father's home. But both his dad's and Margaret's words of warning ring out in his head, and Hawkeye makes himself ignore the shadow in the window.
Even when the knocking continues.
And continues.
And the stupid doorbell which always breaks in the rain keeps going off.
And more knocking.
"Hawkeye," BJ—is it bad that Hawkeye still thinks of him as that?—calls out, voice reverberating around the tiny house. "I know you're mad at me, and you're right to be mad, but, please? It's raining."
Of course it's raining. It's spring in New England, all it does is rain. If he was going to make some stupid gesture and jump scare Hawkeye at his childhood home, BJ should've thought ahead and brought an umbrella.
"I know you-" BJ starts, before cutting himself off when a particularly large rumble of thunder growls. "Would you just let me in? I know you're in there and can hear me."
Out of pure spite, Hawkeye turns away from the front door. It's not like the recipient can see the action, but it's about the principle of the thing. Hawkeye is well within his rights to turn his back on BJ in both the metaphorical and physical sense.
"I'm here to talk. To- to actually talk. And tell you who I really am."
Stupid fucking temptations.
"I know you care. I know I don't have your trust but please, Hawkeye?"
The cat, whom Hawkeye has brilliantly decided to name Henry because he thinks he might hate himself, stares up at Hawkeye like he can read his mind. So much for trying to be a Good Sarmatian and rescuing a cat from the torrential storm.
"I'm not gonna leave until you open up the door." A pause, and then, "And that's not just because I used my spare and I already have another flat. Just hear me out? There's also- I honestly think I might be devoured by mosquitoes if I'm out here any longer."
Henry makes a quiet chirp at him.
"Oh, not you too," Hawkeye mutters back, scooping the cat to prevent him from making a run for it as soon as he opens the door which he really, honestly, genuinely, is not going to do. Because He shouldn't have to humor BJ or whatever the hell his actual name is and do anything at all, but-
"What." Hawkeye flatly asks, rain pelting him from the minutely cracked door.
BJ's hand falls from the inevitable next knock. "I just want to talk."
"You don't have to hear him out," his dad told him. "Just tell him to fuck off if he comes, and then call me and I'll hit him with my car," Margaret said. Both very viable and reasonable options, unlike what Hawkeye actually does, which is open the door further and step aside to let him pass.
"Wipe your shoes," Hawkeye tells him, because amongst his confused, manic cleaning and remodeling, he had just mopped the floors.
Dutifully following the directions, BJ reaches for the tabby in Hawkeye's arms. "I didn't know your dad had a cat."
"He doesn't."
"I didn't know you had a cat."
"I don't." Henry jumps from his arms before BJ can scratch his chin.
"Right. Look, Hawk-"
"How did you even find me?"
"Lucky guess? Half of every story you've ever told had to do with this house."
Turning his back on BJ, Hawkeye walks to the kitchen to lean against the countertop. "I never told you the address."
"There's only like a dozen houses in all of Crabapple Cove, so…"
"You do realize this isn't helping your case, right?"
"I know. I'm sorry, Hawkeye."
Both his dad and Margaret also told him to not take any of his apologies. "You're sorry? You're supposed to apologize when you accidentally bump in to someone on the street or double book yourself for two meetings, Beej!" Running a frustrated hand through his hair, Hawkeye suddenly turns to stare at him. "Am I even supposed to still call you that?"
"You can call me whatever you want. And I know that's not enough, but I still wanted to say it. I'm sorry. But that's not all I came here to do."
"Jesus, there's more?"
"I'm here to tell you the truth. About me. That's all I want to do, and then if you decide that you never want to see me again, I'll respect that."
Hawkeye doesn't think he's ever seen a six and a half foot tall man ever look so nervous in his entire life. "The truth."
"The truth," BJ confirms, only looking away from Hawkeye when the cat rubs along his shins. "I promise."
"You are aware that your promises mean nothing, right?"
"I- yes."
"Good." Not that Hawkeye's going to willingly admit it, but it feels good to be pissed off. To be angry and have a reason to be angry, to be able to say I told you so to his dad when Hawkeye gets in his moods and swears that no one has ever actually loved him for who he is.
He's so caught up in the reveling of his feelings that Hawkeye barely has time to call out a, "Don't sit there!" when BJ reaches for the back of the kitchen chair to swing it out.
Pausing mid sit-down, BJ looks at him. "What?"
"I'm fixing up the chairs," he says in lieu of an explanation for why the otherwise unassuming chair wouldn't be able to hold his weight. He's trying to, anyway. As it turns out, Hawkeye must be the only guy who grew up rural who doesn't know how to do even the barest amount of woodworking. "Actually, I'm fixing up this entire place."
"Yeah," BJ slowly replies, looking around and actually taking in the state of the place. "Is it always this…"
"Bad? No." There usually isn't half a wall torn out.
"Hawk, tell me you didn't take apart your dad's house."
"Not that it's any of your business, but this place has been falling apart since I was a kid. Now that I have the time off work and I'm trying to ignore the fact that my entire life is falling apart!" The word lingers in the air. "…I figured I'd fix it up." The doorbell rings, rain water caught in the system forever screwing it up. "Ignore that. It's on my list of things to deal with."
Henry jumps up onto the table, delicately cleaning his paws, and for a few blissful seconds, both of them watch him.
And then, of course, BJ has to break it. "So if that cat's not yours or your dad's, where did it come from?"
"He was out in the rain, Beej. What was I supposed to do, just leave him there taking shelter under a tree? I don't know if you know this, but trees are kind of known for being terrible places to be during a lightning storm."
"Uh huh."
"I named him Henry."
BJ ruminates on that for a few seconds before admitting, "He does look like a Henry."
It's so BJ that it makes Hawkeye want to scream, because it's not actually BJ in front of him. There's no such thing as BJ "stands for whatever you want" Hunnicutt, and there's no such thing as BJ's childhood, or life, or fucking anything, as it turns out.
Hawkeye turns away and chokes out, "Yeah. So, look, if you're here, feel free to start groveling whenever you'd like, but in the meantime, want to be helpful and help me pour concrete?"
"Why in the hell are you pouring concrete?"
"I'm trying to fix up the foundation."
"Hawkeye, it's pouring rain."
"Thanks, I hadn't noticed."
Pulling the messenger bag off his shoulder that BJ usually reserves for bringing files in and out of work, he drops it on the table next to Henry. "What other stuff have you been doing?"
"Oh, you know," Hawkeye starts, faux casual, "Just a few things here and there. There's a light in the hallway that's been flickering since I was six years old, which is an easy fix. Except apparently it's not because this house was wired back in the 50s so LEDs don't even work here how they're supposed to."
"How they're supposed to?"
"You know! Function. Emit light without heat. Anyway, the wires weren't connecting like how they should be, and then I think I knocked out the electrical connections to the entire upper-story of this house, so I had to go fix that."
"Naturally."
"Except when I tried to get to inside the walls to get to the wires, I found everyone's favorite thing: black mold! Black mold, which has apparently been infesting my dad's house since who knows when, and it's not like I could just leave that there since my dad's getting old, and that thing's probably killing him slowly each night, so then I had to go back into town and buy things to deal with that but honestly the rotting boards themselves need to be torn out and new ones put back into place- there's not some quick fix when it comes to black mold."
"You know there's people you could hire for that."
"It's my dad's house- I'm not gonna let some strangers come in here and tear it apart."
"Which you clearly haven't been doing yourself."
"That," Hawkeye says, throwing an arm out to gesture to the non-load bearing wall that is currently in multiple pieces, "Is destroyed for a very important reason. The reason being the aforementioned black mold because it can hide basically anywhere, and I wasn't going to chance it being behind the beautiful gallery wall that has generations of photographs of our family on it. That'd just be cruel. You have to, you know, you have to start from the beginning to fix things."
They stare at each other.
"The mold, I mean."
The rain makes the doorbell rings again and Hawkeye winces.
"I know I'm going to regret asking this, but where does the concrete come in?"
"Well, naturally, after taking down two dozen photographs and destroying a wall, I reached the foundation, which had two holes burrowed into the ground, which for those of us who aren't city slickers-" which maybe neither of them are, because who knows what the hell BJ's life growing up actually was, "You'd know that those are burrows from chipmunks, and I'm not gonna kill a chipmunk couple."
"Of course not," BJ agrees. "You cried when we accidentally hit a squirrel in the Home Depot parking lot."
They had an entire funeral for it, too, after they got home. "But I still don't want them living behind my family's pictures, so I needed concrete to fill the holes to make sure that they don't come back. Except then the cement that I poured didn't even set, and I looked it up, and apparently cement can get old? There's an expiration date on these things, so I went back out yet again to buy more, and I haven't yet gotten around to pouring the new stuff because I still have to clean out the old stuff that wouldn't set, and now everything is worse than when I began." As soon as his mouth shuts, Hawkeye takes a deep breath, trying to get air back into his system.
While he attempts to re-oxygenate, BJ offers him a small smile. "I think it's great that you're trying to fix up this old house for your dad."
"Yeah-huh."
"But this is… a little worrying."
And, okay, fine, when Hawkeye actually takes in the carnage that used to be his dad's cozy and comfortable home, he can kind of see where BJ is coming from. Kind of. But what BJ doesn't understand is that it had to happen, Hawkeye had to do something while his life was literally tearing apart at the seams, and BJ of all people should be the last to judge him.
"Are you still taking your carbamazepine?"
The nerve of this guy. Holding his arms out wide in an effort to encompass the house itself, Hawkeye replies, "This, believe it or not, isn't the result of a manic episode, this is just what happens when you realize that your partner, the love of your life, the person you've lived with for the past three years and only person that you ever felt safe with, turns out to be none of those things!"
At minimum, BJ at least has the wherewithal to look guilty. "Hawk-"
"Stay on your side of the room," Hawkeye bites, having somehow migrated to the torn apart living room while keeping BJ in the kitchen. "Just stay there. I just want to forget about you. That's the whole reason I came out here in the first place."
"You don't mean that."
"Maybe I do!"
"I'm still me."
"You're not!" Hawkeye cries out, somewhere between a sob and laugh, taking a few steps backwards. "You're not even BJ. Who is BJ?"
"Me. It's still me. I came here to fix things, okay? Would you just let me explain myself?"
"There's no fixing this. There's no fixing us."
"Can you at least let me try?"
No. Hawkeye wants to say no. Everything in his mind is screaming at him to say no, that he needs to put as much distance between the pathological liar that was his partner and him, that he needs to shut the door on his face and let him be sad and wet outside and then have a grand old evening with Henry and possibly, definitely, get drunk and then finish fixing up his dad's house and then get his life back together and pretend like he wasn't being taken for a fool for years, and- "Fine."
"Would you come back in the kitchen? I'm not gonna bite."
"How would I know? I clearly don't know anything about you."
"Hawk."
Huffing loudly, Hawkeye makes his way back toward BJ before he can stop himself. "There's nothing that you can do to fix this."
"Open my bag."
"What?"
"I'm serious! Open my bag."
Henry, who had since made himself comfortable on the table and is now lying on his side, glances up at Hawkeye has he approaches. "There better not be anything weird in here."
"For crying out-" Giving up on letting Hawkeye do the honors, BJ pulls the snaps to his messenger bag and dumps the contents onto the table, causing Henry to jump down.
Carefully, Hawkeye approaches. "What's all this?" From just a single glance, he can see BJ's Massachusetts's state ID, his passport, and his double-sided hospital ID.
"My documents. My- the fake ones."
"I can see that." There's also old insurance cards printed with 'BJ Hunnicutt,' in black ink, paper receipts from the DMV, and just about every single piece of official information with his name on it that Hawkeye could think of. "Why are you giving them to me?"
"They're not for you." Reaching into the side pocket of his bag, BJ pulls out a drugstore matchbox. "This is."
"Okay. What-"
"To burn them."
"What, and I cannot express this enough, the hell?"
Awkwardly trying to defend himself, BJ replies, "To make things final! So you know that I'm done lying to you."
"Beej, these are literally all of your documents."
"I know. That's the point."
"What happens if you need to go on a plane? Or- or get pulled over or something?" And people say Hawkeye's the impulsive one of the pair.
"That's not important. What is important is that you get rid of them, once and for all."
"I'm not burning your fake documents."
"Okay, fine." Pulling back his arm and the offered matches, BJ says, "I'll just do it myself and you can bear witness."
"This is ridiculous."
"You know, burning sentimental objects actually has a history."
"I'm not even going to humor you-"
"Don't you have a metal trashcan or something?"
"You're serious about this, aren't you?"
BJ looks at him like it's not at all far-fetched. "Yes. I am. I don't want to- I can't lose you, Hawkeye. And if that means getting rid of this version of me, then I will."
"It's not about the fact that you have a whole fucking different version of yourself, it's the fact that you lied to me every single day of our entire lives since the moment I met you!"
"And burning them means I'm done lying to you."
There's no winning against him. "Fine." Putting around the mess that is his dad's house, Hawkeye grabs the tiny metal trashcan from the downstairs bathroom. There's a few tissues and paper towels in there, but there's still plenty of room for BJ to toss all of his identity inside. "Go for it. But I want it on the record that I'm not taking part of it."
"You just need to watch."
"Watching," Hawkeye mutters, keeping his arms crossed for a few moments before he gets too antsy and retrieves Henry from the living room floor. He protests with a meow, but once Hawkeye arranges him to be more comfortable against his chest, he settles. It's probably best that he keeps the cat securely out of the line of literal fire that's about to go up in his dad's house.
He keeps a close eye on BJ striking the match—not that he's worried about BJ accidentally burning himself or anything equally as stupid, Hawkeye's just doing his duty as a witness. That's all.
The plastic from his numerous IDs plus the coating on his passport makes the flames shine a brilliant color, and for a moment, Hawkeye can't even believe that BJ went through with it. Taking some ridiculous metaphor and turning it real, setting his lies ablaze in front of Hawkeye and a random cat he found on the side of the road. He can almost, almost, understand that BJ is doing this for him. Almost.
And then the fucking smoke alarm goes off, because of course the one thing that's actually functional in his dad's old house is the goddamn smoke alarm.
"Shit," Hawkeye hisses, bending to let Henry out of his arms when he starts squirming with the knives that he has attached to his paws. "You couldn't have opened a window?" He asks, voice raised over the sound of the alarm.
"It's raining!"
"All the more reason to- get the door for me."
BJ doesn't move outside of trying to fan the fire out. "What's your plan?"
"Bring it outside, let nature run its course."
"It's made of metal! It'll burn you."
"I'll use oven mitts. Just get the door!"
The following minute is alarmingly similar to what Hawkeye imagines participating in a three ring circus would be like, both of them grimacing from the noise, trying to avoid inhaling smoke, and attempting to protect themselves from the onslaught of rain when BJ opens the door. At least one thing goes right, though, and once Hawkeye drops the trash can unceremoniously on the front porch, the fire's out within seconds.
The smell alone is reason enough for Hawkeye to leave it outside, and when both of them get back in, cold and shivering, Hawkeye makes the mistake of looking up at BJ.
It was a truly ridiculous plan that made no sense and was formed exclusively for Hawkeye's benefit and he kind of wants to laugh and kind of wants to punch and definitely wants to kiss BJ for it, but that's how Hawkeye got into this entire mess in the first place, so instead he turns on his heel and looks out at the destroyed gallery wall.
"I'll get the alarm," BJ says, already looking at the ceiling to find the source.
Luckily, it only takes him a few minutes to pull the batteries out of the fire alarm—yet another thing that Hawkeye's going to have to find and fix before his dad comes home—and then they're plunged back into the relative quiet of rain pelting the roof of an otherwise silent home. "You're insane," Hawkeye says, because he can't stand the quiet for more than a few seconds.
BJ doesn't deny it. "That's not the only thing I brought."
"Jesus Christ, BJ. Did you come with an itinerary, too?"
"No," he replies, sounding exactly like someone who actually does, in fact, have an itinerary. "But before I- do you have any spare clothes I could toss on? Between waiting out on the porch and our last stint in the rain I'm kind of. Soaked."
Some petty part of Hawkeye wants him to shiver. "Sure, yeah. Yeah, I'll grab something for you." That part of him was never going to win out. Before he heads up the stairs, he glances at Henry. "Keep an eye on him."
"I will."
"No, I was talking to the cat," Hawkeye corrects, not bothering to wait for BJ's response as he heads up the stairs. The upper half of the house could almost be mistaken for being in good shape, exclusively because Hawkeye hasn't gotten his hands on any part of it yet. Two more days out here and he knows that his childhood bedroom is going to join the list of casualties.
As he rummages through the hastily packed suitcase that Hawkeye made up two weeks ago, he tries to not think too much about what he's doing. There are pros for being the same size as your partner, such as almost always being able to fit in each others' clothes. There are also cons, such as almost always being able to fit into each others' clothes which means Hawkeye doesn't have anything left in his closet that hasn't been on BJ's frame at least once. When trying to run away from said partner, it makes things a fair bit more complicated.
In the end, Hawkeye pulls a Columbia sweatshirt and one of the two pairs of jeans that he packed. The plan of not thinking too hard about what he's doing instantly goes out of the window when he goes back downstairs and BJ immediately begins shedding his clothes.
BJ is an objectively good looking man, there's no doubt about it. While Hawkeye had initially fallen for BJ because of his uncanny ability to match him one for one on quips and quotes, the fact that he was also built like he was chipped from a piece of marble certainly wasn't a downside. And though logically Hawkeye understands that it's kind of, somewhat, to a degree, the same person in front of him, he feels more like a voyeur watching a stranger change in his dad's living room than a partner enjoying the show.
Henry, the minx, doesn't seem to share any of Hawkeye's anxieties and is content to sniff the new pile of wet clothes on the ground.
Hawkeye hates how BJ looks in his clothes, which is to say, he can't get enough of it.
Crossing his arms, he makes himself meet BJ's eyes. "So what now?"
"Now," BJ says, reaching for the pockets of his discarded pants, "This."
With thinly veiled curiosity, Hawkeye watches as he grabs a piece of paper from the pocket and unfolds it, spots wet from the rain dotting the corners of the page. He can tell that there's printed words on one side of it, but he's not close enough to quite make them out. "Which is…?"
When BJ reads the top of the paper, he isn't even looking at it. "Thirty six questions to fall in love."
"No."
"Hawk-"
"Absolutely not."
"Hawkeye."
"What are you playing at, huh?"
"I told you I'm here to fix this-"
"And so you brought the questions from our first date?"
"All to be answered truthfully."
Hawkeye just scoffs back. "What's the goal here? To have me fall in love with the version of you that's real?"
"It's still me. There's a couple of… I don't know, white lies in there, but as a whole I'm still me, and that hasn't changed."
"A couple of white lies?" Hawkeye incredulously echoes back. "You lied about every last thing!"
"But that's the thing, I didn't! Please, can we just go through the questions? And then I promise I will get out of your hair. And if you never want me to come back, then I won't."
There's nothing for Hawkeye to say. How the hell is he supposed to say no to him? Better yet, how the hell is he supposed to say yes? Whatever half-cooked up, janky plan that BJ made, he looks so damn earnest about it all, as if he actually thinks Hawkeye could still be in love with him.
He wants BJ out of his life for good, but at the same time he doesn't want to watch him leave with the knowledge that he'll be gone forever. He wants to forget all about BJ but can't imagine his life without him.
How the hell did he even get stuck in this position in the first place? Damn him for falling in love easier than a pair of main characters in a rom-com.
Looping figure eights around Hawkeye's ankles, Henry meows up at him. "I know," he mutters in agreement, though he'd be willing to bet that they aren't thinking about the same thing right now. Looking up at BJ's anticipatory face, he asks, "What time is it?"
Clearly not expecting the question, it takes him a moment to glance at his watch and answer, "Almost seven. Why?"
Some part of Hawkeye gets pissed off at the fact that BJ, whoever the version of him that stands in front of him is, anyway, still wears his watch the same way: clasped to the inside of his wrist so the face points inward. Pushing the thought from his head, Hawkeye scoops up Henry and replies, "It's about time for Henry's dinner."
"And what about you?"
"Hm?" Excited, Henry squirms in his arms, demanding to be let down when Hawkeye makes it to the kitchen and pulls open the cabinet containing the cans of tuna that Hawkeye bought during one of his numerous runs into town. "Calm down," he murmurs, gently nudging Henry with the side of his ankle so he doesn't dump the tuna directly on top of him rather than the plate that Hawkeye's been using as a cat dish.
"When's your dinner?" BJ clarifies, in the same tone that Hawkeye had become accustomed to over the years. "I should hope that you're eating well enough to keep up with all of your housework."
Henry attacks his food with fervor, as if he hadn't eaten in millennia.
"What's it matter to you?"
Frowning at him, BJ replies, "I know you well enough to know that you have a propensity to not eat when you're stressed."
"And whose fault is it that I'm stressed, huh, Beej? Because honestly, if it weren't for my partner lying about every single thing ever, I don't think I'd be having any worries at the moment."
BJ doesn't try to argue with him, instead moving further into the kitchen and tearing open cupboard doors. "Let me make you something."
"That's really not necessary."
"My treat."
"This is ridiculous."
"If this ends up being the last night I ever see you, I'd like to cook for you one last time."
"Thinly veiled begging doesn't look good on you." Hawkeye mutters, only to get BJ arching his eyebrows back because they both know it's not true. "Do whatever you want."
Clearly pleased with the offer, BJ fills a saucepan with water, already pulling out ingredients to put a bit more gusto into a jar of store-bought marinara. He has to step over and move around Henry multiple times, but neither of them seem that bothered by it.
Hawkeye watches BJ putter around the kitchen, offering exactly zero help to find anything, before growing bored and perching himself on the edge of the table. He's not convinced that any of the chairs would continue standing under his weight, so he's not exactly sure what that's going to mean for dinner, but that's a problem for future him. Besides, it's insane that he's even thinking about dinner like it's something normal.
Dinner with a stranger. Thirty six stupid questions with a stranger. At some point, Hawkeye's got to get it in his head that that's all BJ is to him, now. That BJ himself does not exist, and never has. Everything that existed to back-up Dr. Hunnicutt being real went up in flames less than thirty minutes ago.
The three years of living in a world that felt too good to be true, gone in an instant. Hawkeye huffs to himself with the thought. Of course it felt too good to be true- that's precisely what it was. Nobody out there has ever actually clicked with him, loved his idiosyncrasies, put up with all of the things wrong with him. A man had to be fabricated, built on lies to humor him. To fall in love with him.
When Henry finishes his dinner, he chirps underneath Hawkeye's swinging feet until he gets raised up to the table, as if he didn't jump up there himself a moment ago. He walks back and forth on Hawkeye's lap, tiny paws putting a truly incredible amount of pressure on his thighs as he refuses to settle down, no matter how much Hawkeye pets him.
Underneath his breath, he looks at Henry and asks, "This is a mistake, right?" Of course he has sympathy for the pathological liar.
Unsurprisingly, he doesn't get an answer back, and a moment later, Henry grows bored and jumps back down.
As his restlessness grows, Hawkeye follows suit, hopping off of the table. Keeping a careful berth around BJ, Hawkeye gathers up a pair of plates and forks, wordlessly setting them down on the counter next to the stove.
Testing the waters, BJ asks, "What are you doing?"
"Getting stuff to set the… table," Hawkeye slowly answers, trailing off as he realizes the weight of his answer. "I don't know why. That's weird." And far too domestic, between that and BJ making them both food with a cat meandering around the house.
"I don't know, it's kind of like a weird first date."
And just another reminder that BJ isn't the real person standing in front of him.
"Which, you know, we could have a drink with."
"Uh huh."
"Do you have booze up here?"
"There's a bottle of whisky I was planning on making my way through at some point," Hawkeye dryly responds, knowing full well what BJ's playing at. "But did you- uh. Did you want gin?" Hell, he'll play the same game.
"Do you have gin?"
"Somewhere in here, assuming it didn't shatter last night from the storm."
"Then I think it's only fitting."
This is a mistake. "I'll grab it." If nothing else, it's a good excuse to go to the opposite side of the kitchen to his dad's liquor cabinet. He crosses paths with Henry, heading toward BJ and ever the instigator.
While he dusts off labels, Hawkeye can hear BJ murmur on the other side of the kitchen, and when he glances over, he's looking down at the cat. "You're not a whiskey drinker, are you?"
Henry doesn't answer.
"No, you keep your wits about you."
What a BJ Hunnicutt thing to say, coming from a man who isn't even BJ Hunnicutt. Because, as Hawkeye seems to constantly have to remind himself, BJ Hunnicutt doesn't exist.
But there's a man making him dinner in the kitchen who's slouching just like BJ, and he's giving a soft smile to an animal just like BJ would've, and he's concerned about Hawkeye's eating habits like BJ was, and all of it makes his mind spin.
Without any usable chairs, the two of them end up settling down on the rug in the living room, surrounded by the two dozen different projects that Hawkeye had started and failed to finish in his dad's house. In front of each of them is a plate of shelled pasta over old sauce and gin in a martini glass—no vermouth nor olives to make an actual drink—and it looks precisely how their first date began.
And of course, to add to the deja-vu, BJ unfolds the paper he had shoved back in his pocket and lays it out between the two of them.
"The truth, this time," BJ says, staring at Hawkeye and refusing to look away until he meets his gaze.
"The truth. For educational purposes only. I'm not falling back in love with you." That, of course, would require him falling out of love in the first place.
BJ doesn't acknowledge either halves of Hawkeye's statement, instead bringing his martini glass up to his lips, and starting, "Question one: Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?"