Chapter 4

He was dreaming when Hawkeye woke him, ankle deep in the Pacific Ocean, chasing after Erin, who ran through the water with bright yellow floaties pushed up her arms. She rushed along the shore, splishing and splashing her way over to Hawkeye, who wore one of those fishermen's rainslickers, a matching bucket hat pushing down his mess of black hair. BJ had considered the look to be odd, given that it wasn’t raining, but large waves of water followed Erin as she ran, soaking the man. Hawkeye, dripping wet, mobility impaired by the coat, threw his head back and honked, laughter gasping out of him. It was a sound BJ had missed over the last two years, echoes of it in the back of his head when he’d land a worthy punchline.

They would be teetering along the edge of exhaustion, finding themselves moments from falling into absolute misery, and then the two of them would rally their stupid jokes back and forth. Something about the clothes, their bunkmates, illicit camp gossip. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the two of them finding a rhythm, keeping it up until they were interrupted or, better yet, until a line struck gold and chests that had spent countless hours pumping blood in and out of their bleeding hearts would heave with laughter, and Hawkeye would honk. Sometimes it was more intoxicating than the gin.

“Wakey, wakey,” Hawk sang at his bedside.

BJ could barely open his eyes, but he tried, squinting up at him. And then he closed them again, trying to imagine Hawkeye picking up Erin and spinning her around, trying to pull himself back into the safety of the dream.

“Beej, c’mon,” Hawkeye whined, a mild annoyance straining his voice. 

He groaned, his limbs weighing hundreds of pounds, pinning him to the uncharacteristically soft mattress.

“Get dressed,” Hawkeye commanded, pulling the pillow out from underneath his head. BJ blinked up at him, catching the blues and greens of Hawk’s flannel. He didn’t get much of a look, though, as Hawk whacked him with the pillow. “We’re going out to eat.”

BJ groaned again, hungry but unenthusiastic about what horrors awaited them at the mess tent. Still, he turned away from Hawk and pulled himself to the edge of the bed.

Floorboards creaked under him.

There was birdsong from a nearby tree, a buzzing “dee, dee, dee” that had to have been that of black-capped chickadees, not the chaotic trills of skylarks.

Not the Swamp, he realized, still waking up.

He was in Maine. Crabapple Cove. A long way from Uijeongbu.

He felt a flash of embarrassment at his confusion, as if this weren’t the first time Hawkeye had shaken him awake anywhere else. Post-OP and the Mess Hall, maybe. The scrub room on a bad day. Tokyo, once or twice, on a three-day pass. 

BJ ran a hand along his chin, stubble already beginning to develop into a scruff. He hadn’t shaved since the morning of his flight. He’d been jetlagged that first night. And drunk last night. “I need to shave,” he complained.

“Don’t you dare,” Hawkeye chastised, coming off as almost offended. Maybe he was, BJ suddenly remembering a moment from the night before, how Hawk had run a hand across his cheek, soppy in his sloppiness. I like you like this, he’d grinned, then tugged at the hair along BJ’s temples, complaining about him having cut it. BJ had tried not to blush, searching for a way to tease Hawk back, but he struggled to find the words and instead stumbled out a self-deprecatory joke that annoyed Hawkeye and forced a change of subject.

The floorboards behind him groaned, followed by the stairs squeaking under someone’s weight, indicating that Hawkeye had left, finally satisfied with BJ’s state of wakefulness.

BJ picked his watch up from the nightstand, glancing at the time as he strapped it on. Quarter till five, Mill Valley time indicated. Nearly eight, in Maine.

Would that be enough time before Dr. Pierce had to be at the clinic? Why hadn’t Hawkeye woken him sooner? 

The nausea of inconveniencing Hawkeye’s father fought out the nagging worry about his unkempt appearance. BJ fished clothes from his suitcase, his morning fogginess at least assisting in the muscle memory of hurriedly dressing.

He bounded down the stairs to a Hawkeye that leaned against the front door and smiled at him with a “Good morning, sunshine.”

“All set,” he smiled at Hawk.

“Are you?” He raised an eyebrow, staring down at BJ’s chest.

BJ looked down. His shirt buttons were entirely crooked. He mentally kicked at the part of him that shuddered from embarrassment, putting on a smile. “It’s the new look,” he recovered.

“My apologies, Monsieur Dior,” Hawkeye bowed dramatically, hand sweeping out in front of him.

“Though I don’t dislike the old style,” he thumbed at the top button.

“Me neither,” Hawkeye agreed. “Some things get better with age.”

“Like whiskey,” BJ tee’d up.

Hawkeye smiled fondly, “Talk about old-fashioned.”

BJ reached to unbutton his shirt, but Hawkeye batted his hands away, beginning to do it for him.

This was a typical routine in the Swamp, the two of them helping one another become presentable on the odd occasion it was required, especially when it came to dressing in their Class-As. But now, in Hawkeye’s home, it felt achingly domestic. Like Peg fixing his tie in the front entryway, just before he left for work.

His breath was warm and smelled of coffee. How long had he been awake? Early enough to have already showered, the smell of pine soap clinging to his skin. He hadn’t shaved, either. BJ fought a smile as Hawkeye’s fingertips brushed against his undershirt. It would be a mistake to let Hawk know where he might be ticklish.

Hawkeye straightened the shirt, tilting his head as he scrutinized. Then, buttoned him back up, patting BJ’s chest when he finished.

For some reason, BJ had forgotten how to breathe. He blinked, swallowed, and tugged at the academic part of his brain. Inspiration, he reminded himself. The diaphragm contracts, the external intercostals lift the ribs, and the abdominal organs push down. The intrathoracic volume increases, the intrapulmonary pressure decreases. Oxygen rushes into the lungs. He breathed in, focusing on Hawkeye's flannel collar. It had flipped up in the back.

Expiration. The diaphragm and external intercostals relax. The intrathoracic volume decreases, the intrapulmonary pressure increases. Carbon dioxide is expelled from the lungs. BJ breathed out. He wanted to reach out and fix it, but he wouldn’t be able to handle whatever odd look Hawkeye might give him.

Inspiration, he breathed in. Expiration, he breathed out. He focused on it, and as Hawkeye turned around, opening the front door, BJ reached out and fixed it. The cycle repeated on its own.

“All set, Birdie?” Daniel Pierce sat on the front porch swing, a crossword puzzle in his lap. He could just picture Hawkeye like this, thirty years down the line. Glasses and all.

“All set,” he nodded.

“Then let’s hit the road, boys,” he grinned, getting to his feet.

“Birdie?” BJ began to tease, though Hawk just waved him off, walking down the gravel drive.

They piled into the back of the Chevy, a mess of long limbs from the twelve feet between them. There was a joke about fooling around in the backseat, resting on the tip of BJ’s tongue, but he left it unsaid, hesitant to lean into that humor while confined to a small space, especially when Hawkeye’s father was bound to overhear.

A light drizzle had just begun to come down as the car pulled into the parking lot of a structure not unlike a small cabin, its wide windows overlooking the titular cove. A large hand-painted sign hung over the front door, reading The Clubhouse. Hawkeye scoffed at it.

“What?” BJ furrowed his brow, a bell ringing as the three men stepped into the cozy breakfast spot.

“He’s upset by the name change,” Dr. Pierce chuckled. “They changed it when he went away to college, and he’s never forgiven them.”

The place was near empty, with no hostess up front, and Hawkeye led them to a table by the window, a small awning keeping the rain from streaking the glass.

“It was called Keep’s. I take major offense that the name itself wasn’t for keeps,” Hawkeye complained as he opened the menu.

A waitress fluttered over, mugs and coffee pot in hand. “Hiya, Hawkeye,” she smiled, batting her eyelashes as she poured his cup. 

She had warm brown eyes and waves of golden hair, her smile polite and beautiful. Hawkeye always had a thing for blondes.

“Hiya, Holly,” Hawk flirted back.

“I see we’ve brought a friend,” she nodded at BJ. “Is this the elusive visitor from California?”

“Ah,” BJ smiled. “News really does travel fast in a small town.”

“Beej, this is Holly Matthews,” Hawk introduced them. “A damn good waitress and the best junior prom date a guy could ask for.”

“But not the best senior prom date?” BJ raised an eyebrow

Hawkeye played up a look of woe, clutching his chest. “My own best friend, Dickie Barber, stole her out from under me.”

“So what brings you to Crabapple Cove, BJ?” Holly interrupted, ignoring Hawkeye’s bait.

“Vacation,” he answered, flashing a smile.

He wondered, briefly, if the spat he’d had last night in Cap’n’s had become local gossip. Though Hawkeye’s insistence on ignoring the behavior likely meant the news came from a different avenue. They had, after all, spent some of the afternoon with fourth-grade teacher Amy Clark, walking through the halls of the Crabapple Cove School.

It had not been the one-room schoolhouse Hawk had once joked it to be, though all thirteen years of schooling were taught in one singular building. In the entry hallway, there were photographs of each graduating class, posed as a group somewhere near the cove. Hawkeye’s class was posed on the playground, with Hawk and another boy hanging upside down off the structure. BJ had leaned down to read the names inscribed, but Hawkeye grabbed him by the shirt-sleeve and tugged him down the hallway, off to behold the sights.

They spent considerable time finding each locker Hawkeye had used throughout his schooling. It’d been renovated some since his last visit, which meant Hawk got turned around in a few places.

“They moved the second grade!” He exclaimed, staring at the doors in the elementary wing.

Amy laughed, patting Hawkeye’s back. “Most of the elementary classrooms have moved around in the last few years, to accommodate bigger class sizes due to the baby boom.”

“Okay, this one was definitely my locker,” Hawkeye patted the metal door of a blue locker, identical to all the rest. “I gave Stinky two dollars to trade with me. I think.”

“Has he always been like this?” He turned to Amy, an eyebrow raised.

“The very same,” she smiled fondly.

They walked through the library, which connected the elementary school to the high school, and as they passed The Velveteen Rabbit on a shelf, Hawkeye grabbed it, showing BJ the paper card with Hawkeye Pierce, 2nd Grade, scrawled on it. His handwriting hadn’t improved by much.

In the high school wing, a large display case featured various sporting trophies and photographs of school clubs. 

“There we are,” Amy pointed to a photograph of a small group of students, smiling wide at the camera. The Crawler Staff, 1937. A school newspaper.

Hawkeye, bright-eyed, his eyebrows so faint they appeared non-existent. Amy leaned into him, her hair long enough to reach her belly button. Hawkeye had his arm around that same blond boy from the playground photograph. BJ had seen the face before, he realized, now that the young man was right-side-up. He was in several of the photographs in Hawkeye’s room.

Amy glanced over at Hawkeye, shifting her feet hesitantly. “Did you…”

“Did I what?” Hawk kept his eyes on the photograph

“Did you get to see Tommy? When you were over there?” She asked, nervousness scratching her voice. “Before…”

Hawk shut his eyes, taking a breath. “Yeah,” he nodded, turning back to her. “I got to see him.”

“Good,” she nodded.

BJ, desperate to break the tension, spotted another photograph of Hawkeye, this time in elaborate makeup.

“Oh?” He pulled Hawkeye’s focus. “What’s this?”

“The Vaudeville Show!” Amy’s eyes lit up. “He was a tap-dancing clown.”

“But what’d he do for the show?”

Hawkeye shoved him, lightly, though his laugh had been bright and warm.

Back at the Clubhouse, Holly took their orders: An omelet for Dr. Pierce, a fluffy stack of banana pancakes for Hawk, and biscuits and gravy for BJ.

“Despite the horrendous name change,” Hawkeye explained as Holly whisked away to the kitchen, “the food here remains phenomenal.”

“We used to come here every Sunday morning,” Dr. Pierce looked wistfully around the restaurant.

“While everyone else was at church,” Hawkeye added with a laugh.

Hawkeye’s father told them stories while they waited for their food, going on about the various restaurants that existed when he was growing up in Crabapple Cove and all the changes in town made while he was away, training to become a doctor. He insisted that Hawkeye was experiencing the passage of time normally, the way any boy leaving home might.

BJ swallowed, trying not to imagine the changes that must have occurred to his hometown. Was he attached to anything, besides the old movie theater? Maybe Moe’s Candystore, though he’d’ve outgrown it anyway. He had, however, discovered that places he’d loved in San Francisco had changed while he was in Korea. He told the Pierces of a date night that had gone awry when BJ discovered one of his favorite restaurants had closed four months prior. “That’s why you book a reservation,” Peggy had huffed, the two of them standing under an awning, while rain poured down around them. They had to make a run for the car, drenched in seconds, but the night hadn’t fully been sour as they stumbled into a warm, comfortable diner and ate their fill of good food, laughing about their situation.

As Holly swooped in with their breakfasts, she was accompanied by a clapping fanfare, both Pierces cheering her on. The food was spectacular, and both men were happy to share bites of their meals with him, a feast of masterful flavors that filled BJ with nothing short of contentment, relaxing into his chair. Hawk still sniffed at his food before taking bites, possibly a habit he’d always had or one he hadn’t been able to break since coming home. But he was eating, hungrily and happily, food that was great and warm and, according to Hawk, the pinnacle of Crabapple Cove.

Outside the Clubhouse’s wide windows, the storm began to rage. Boats rocked out on the docks as the light drizzle had become a downpour. An American flag whipped against the flagpole, tossed around by violent wind.

~

Across the table, Hawkeye was failing to stifle a laugh, obviously caught in a game of footsie with Trapper, the two exchanging these looks and smiles that BJ pointedly ignored. He tried to keep himself from frowning, an increasingly difficult task, and flashed a smile to Charles directly across from him. Charles, a little perplexed, politely smiled back.

BJ drank more of his water, nervous of the way Peggy had been watching him, eagle-eyed, since the hotel. 

She’d stood over him, Erin resting on her hip, as he had laid out on a sofa in the lobby, head spinning. “Did you talk to him?” She pressed.

“No,” BJ had huffed. “Trapper’s here.”

“Who’s Trapper?”

“Blond curls. Crooked smile. An asshole.”

“BJ,” Peg hissed. “Sensitive ears, here,” she gestured to their daughter.

“A butthole,” he corrected himself. Erin laughed.

He was considerably more sober now, after the walk to the restaurant and the three glasses of water he’d pounded since they’d sat for dinner. He was typically good at hiding how drunk he was, but he itched knowing that Peg knew all of his tells.

He’d been drinking a lot less over the summer. Three weeks ago, he’d shied away from a showering of kisses, Peg mumbling about her worries, thanking him for slowing down. 

The whiskey headache had faded, and by the time the entrees arrived, BJ felt like he could breathe again, jumping at the chance to do something with his hands, quickly going about cutting Erin’s meal into smaller pieces. 

“I’d like it if we could all go around the table,” Potter began, once everyone was served. “I’m curious as to how you lovely folks have spent the last two years. And how you’re planning to spend the next couple.”

Next to Potter, Hawkeye’s drunken syrupy haze hardened, the smile slipping away from his face. BJ’s throat suddenly felt tight; guilt that he’d further complicated the emotional minefield this weekend was.

Next to BJ, Margaret jumped at the chance to speak, beaming wide as she excitedly went on about how fulfilled she’d felt working at Bellevue, how everything just kept going well for her.

Most of this, BJ already knew. They’d kept up with one another, letters arriving in the mail each week. New York had been good for her, a city that balanced her hard and soft edges, a place she could call home. A real apartment, a real lease. Her routine had stayed rather militant, but her life, her world, had broadened so much.

“I’ve moved around my whole life, so it’s been really wonderful to put down roots somewhere. I’ve been able to take time to treasure the relationships in my life, the important people.” She paused for a moment, lost in thought. And then she smiled over at Hawkeye.

BJ’s nausea returned, the familiar stomach knot no longer loose from the liquor.

Last night, after Margaret had left them to their own devices, Hawkeye had denied reigniting that flame. “She’s my best friend.”

“I thought I was your best friend,” BJ had frowned. Jokingly, of course. Performative. Because it would be ridiculous to be jealous that Hawkeye had spent the last two months living with Margaret. Sure, he’d slept with her. He’d even kissed her, at the end of the war. But Hawkeye wouldn’t have lied to BJ. He didn’t lie like that, not the way BJ could.

”My bestest,” Hawkeye had smiled in response, resting his hand on BJ’s thigh. On the rectus femoris. His femoral artery pulsing beneath it. Below that, his femur, the strongest bone in the body.

He felt lightheaded remembering the physical trust he willingly gave to Hawk, without hesitation. I’m BJ’s doctor, Hawk had insisted, years back and though BJ hated examinations, hated being studied by someone else’s careful eye, he wanted Hawkeye to stick his fingers into that terrible stomach knot and go about untangling it, just how they would spend hours balling and skeining yarn back and forth. Hawkeye, the best doctor he’d ever met. He was warm and kind and made BJ laugh harder than anyone else ever had.

“I missed you,” he’d whispered, the two of them practically alone in the hotel bar.

“I’ve missed you, too,” Hawkeye had smiled, squeezing BJ’s thigh.

“Thank you for keeping us all updated, Margaret,” Potter found the place to cut her off. “I’m happy to hear that things are going so well for you.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” She grinned, satisfied by his approval.

“Hunnicutt,” Potter looked down from the head of the table. “I hear you’re working in a hospital now? I’d figured you were going into private practice.”

“Well, you know how plans tend to work out,” BJ laughed, tossing his head back. “When I got home, Peg threw me this great big Welcome Back party with all my pals from med school and residency,” he cut up pieces of chicken for Erin as he talked, gesturing around with the fork. “And y’know, I got into talking about some of the inventive stuff Hawk and I had to come up with over there, and the next thing you know I’m getting offered this general attending position with a great salary and a kidney research grant.”

The hours weren’t ideal, but he got along well with his fellow attendings, and he’d started to really enjoy mentoring the residents, especially the interns. More than anything, he was grateful to still work side-by-side with other doctors.

BJ wondered, sometimes, if Potter would’ve enjoyed running a regular non-army hospital. He was a damn good surgeon and an excellent boss; it would’ve been a pleasure to work under him in the States.

“Well done, BJ,” Potter flashed a big smile. “I’m sure they’re mighty grateful to have your point of view. And it was awfully smart of your missus to reconnect you with all those folks.”

“Thank you, sir,” Peggy blushed.

While BJ loved a party simply to party, Peg was a master of the social game. She was his date to every campus party and fraternity event, guiding BJ through a sea of preppy assholes.

“She’s a genius,” BJ agreed.

He glanced, just for a second, over at Hawkeye, who was whispering something to Trapper, who heartily laughed.

BJ stuffed himself with mashed potatoes.

Charles cleared his throat, happy to take his appointed turn, regaling the table about his work as Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Boston Mercy, though his pompousness was dulled by the presence of Trapper, who was happy to jump in and correct him on the details.

“Yes, indeed, McIntyre, you did assist in that surgery,” he’d huff, pinching the bridge of his nose.

If BJ hadn’t already resigned himself to hating Trapper, he might’ve laughed.

“Regardless,” Charles concluded, “there’s been a lot of exciting work in Boston as of late and I look forward to returning to my work on Monday.”

“That’s wonderful to hear, Winchester,” Potter nodded. “I wish you all the best.”

A small, shy smile blossomed on Charles’ face. BJ resisted the urge to tease him for it.

“Would you like to share anything, McIntyre?” Potter nodded to him, continuing the counter-clockwise motion of sharing.

“I would, but,” Trapper looked around the table. “I don’t think Charles will let me tell the condom story.”

“Pardon?” He raised a commanding eyebrow.

“Don’t tell me it’s something gross,” Margaret wrinkled her nose.

“Hardly,” Charles rolled his eyes. He sighed, resigning to tell the story before Trapper could. “We performed a bronchoscopy on a young woman who presented with difficulty breathing. When we discovered a foreign object in her lungs, we concluded that the young woman had aspirated a prophylactic.

Mrs. Potter leaned in, a confused look on her face. “How’d she do that?”

Trapper grinned, laughing. “She thought she’d swallowed it.”

Her face cracked into a smile, and suddenly Mildred Potter burst with laughter, clutching her chest. The rest of the table joined her, a howling fit of giggles rolling through them all.

And then, finally, there was one person who hadn’t shared.

“What about you, Pierce?” Potter’s attention turned to Hawkeye.

“I, uh,” Hawk shrank back in his seat, scratching the back of his head.

He was twitchy. Uncomfortable. It bothered BJ that Trapper appeared to take no notice of it; the man focused on eating now that he no longer had to hold attention

“Well, I was home for a while,” Hawkeye smiled. “Got to spend time with dear old Dad.” He looked down the table, trying to catch his father’s eye. Daniel Pierce, tucked in between Peg and Charles, smiled at his son. “Thanks for having me, Dad.”

He took another deep breath, not once looking over in BJ’s direction. “And now I’ve been traveling. Seeing where I might go. Seeing what might be the best career choice.”

“That’s great, Pierce,” Potter clapped his shoulder. Hawk flinched for a moment, but relaxed into the touch. “I’ve got a buddy at the University of Chicago I could get you an interview with this week, if you’re still planning on sticking around the city.”

“I’d really appreciate that, actually.”

“Consider it done.”

He felt Margaret tense next to him and watched as she poured herself more wine. BJ nudged his foot against hers, trying to gain her attention. She smiled at him, though it didn’t meet her eyes.

“Colonel,” she turned to Potter. “How are you enjoying retirement?”

The dinner continued on, in good spirits, stories traded across the table. Peg was fully immersed in conversation with Daniel Pierce, discussing a book she had recommended to him.

“Charles,” Margaret had taken the lead in guiding the conversation. “Now that you’ve worked with everyone here,” she sipped at her wine, narrowing her eyes. “Which of these yahoos is your favorite?” 

“Obviously, it’s me,” Hawkeye interjected, batting his eyelashes.

Charles chortled, shaking his head. “Pierce, you may be an excellent surgeon, but you remain a terrible coworker.”

BJ snorted.

“Don’t get too cocky now, Hunnicutt, I have a plethora of choice words saved for you in particular.”

“Say what you will, I’m still your favorite,” he grinned.

“Yes,” Charles hummed in agreement. “By the skin of your large teeth.”

Hawkeye honked with laughter. “Only because Charles doesn’t know half the things you pulled on him. God,” he whacked his arm against Trapper’s chest. “There was this one time when Charles was on R&R and Beej and I were going through his locker—”
“You’re gonna have to let sleeping dogs lie with that one, Pierce,” BJ intercut.

“Oh, yeah?” Hawk asked, daring him.

They stared across at each other, just for a moment.

Hawk was sharper, now. A bitter edge. “You want to tell Charles how we rang up those long-distance charges?”

BJ flashed a false smile and pleaded the fifth, returning his attention to eating, stuffing his face with hearty steak and mashed potatoes.

By the time everyone had finished dinner, Erin was nearly asleep. She’d crawled into his lap once she’d finished eating, her mother still engrossed in Dr. Pierce. BJ fussed over her, asking her questions about the afternoon’s shopping trip. She struggled to answer, exhaustion weighing her down, and Margaret leaned in to help prompt her, revealing that Peg had bought her three new dresses. On the credit card, he was sure.

He caught Hawkeye staring, on the other side of the table, eyes fixated on the ribbon Peg had braided into Erin’s hair. BJ’s stomach turned, trying to decode the expression on his face.

~

“You want kids, Hawk?” BJ had asked, one late autumn evening, the two of them peacefully alone in the Swamp.

“Yeah.” Hawkeye nodded. “A lot of them.”

“A lot of them?” BJ sat up. “You didn’t like being an only child?”

“I loathed it. Every day I begged my parents for a little brother or sister and they’d laugh in my face.”

“But really?” BJ pressed.

“No. It was fine. I had a lot of friends.” He returned to flipping through his nudist magazine, an old one. He liked the volleyball match on page 33. “Why? Are you not planning for more?”

“It’s hard enough not to screw up one kid.”

“Kids are resilient,” Hawkeye shrugged.

“You really want a lot of them?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I like children. I grew up around a lot of them. I think the world is always better with more kids in it.”

“I’m satisfied with just the one.”

He’d wanted to tell Hawkeye the truth. About Peg’s difficulties during pregnancy. About the unending fear that his daughter would resent him for having another child, for being there for a different kid but not for her. About the horrible, jealous feelings he still held for his baby brother.

“So,” BJ looked down at the magazine in his hands. “Do you plan on having these kids alone, or are you gonna have a wife?”

Hawkeye furrowed his brow. “What’s with the interrogation?

“Reader’s Digest,” he flashed the magazine quickly, as not to reveal that none of these questions appeared in the quiz.

“You’re really wondering about my opinions on marriage?”

“Well, you need a woman to make a baby.”

“Believe me, I know,” Hawk rolled his eyes. 

“Don’t you think one of these days you’ll let a girl tie you down?”

“Not recreationally?” Hawkeye joked. “Maybe. I’ve always planned on it.”

“Really?”

“Of course. But I—“ He paused, and BJ knew he was thinking about Carlye. “I put my career first.”

“I’ve had that fight before.”

“Really? Who won?

“Erin.”

“Ah.”

“I turned down a fellowship so I could be there for Peg.” He sighed, trying not to be crushed by the weight on his chest. “Pretty ironic, huh?”

The tent went silent, save for the quiet hiss of the stove.

“Sometimes I—“ He cut himself off, suddenly panicking at his train of thought.

“Sometimes what?” Hawkeye pressed. He sat up, facing BJ across the distance of their cots.

He sighed, closing his eyes, not wanting to look at him. “Sometimes it feels like I’m being punished.”

“What for?”

“Because I wanted things to be different.”

He shouldn’t have said anything, but here he was, words tumbling out of him. He didn’t know how to even begin untangling that knot, not truly.

“You didn’t want a baby?”

Maybe it would be easier if Hawkeye could just guess it, so BJ would never have to let the words leave his lips. Sometimes it was as if Hawk could read his mind, the way they fell into step, and he wrestled with that thought, whether he wanted Hawk to know the depths of what he felt. No, it was always easier for BJ to hide his feelings.

“I’ve always wanted to be a father,” BJ corrected. “But I didn’t think I was ready.”

“So, you think this is all punishment for having doubts?”

“You think it’s too conceited?”

“You won’t believe how long I’ve tried to find a reason for all of this, Beej. Maybe this is happening because I stole Stinky’s novelty pen in fourth grade.”

“Maybe this is all happening because I stole my mother’s lipstick,” he joked.

“What shade?”

“Cerise.” Peggy’s shade, actually.

“My mother was a deep crimson.”

“Nice.”

“My point is,” Hawk continued. “We’re stuck here, and it sucks, and it’s not because of anything we did besides becoming doctors.”

“I knew I should’ve become a gardener.”

“A gardener? You can barely keep a plant alive!”

“I guess people’s my only skill.”

Hawkeye laughed, throwing his head back and clutching his chest.

BJ smirked into the magazine he still insisted on pretending to read.

“Y’know, I was finishing a chest-cutter fellowship when I was drafted. I was thinking of leaving Boston.”

“Where were you gonna go?”

“The highest bidder.”

BJ laughed.

“I don’t know,” he clarified. “Somewhere different. I liked Chicago.”

“Is it nice there?”

“I like the lake. And the food. I used to have a friend out there, too.”

“That’s not a bad meeting point.”

“Chicago?”

“Middle of the country,” he hummed. “Instead of opposite sides.“

“Oh yeah?” Hawkeye laid on his side, head propped up by his arm. 

“If I can’t make it out to Maine. Or if you couldn’t make it out to Mill Valley.”

“You’ll meet me at the water tower?”

BJ smiled, a little shy. “Any time, anywhere.”

~

As they stepped outside the restaurant, having spent the last half-hour on a careful edge of fussiness, Erin burst into tears.

“Oh, Peanut, you’re tired?” BJ lifted her into his arms, securing her to his side.

“I’m nooot,” she whined, tears rolling down her rosy cheeks.

“It’s okay, baby,” he crooned, rocking her a little. “Daddy’s tired too.”

He’d been expecting this, having tried to rush them out of the restaurant after thanking Potter profusely for picking up the check. He had been done for the evening for quite a while now. But Peg and Margaret insisted on taking Erin to the bathroom, and BJ had to spend several awkward minutes making small talk with Charles, trying to ignore Trapper and Hawkeye joking with Potter by the bar.

“What’s going on there?” Charles hummed, catching BJ’s annoyance. “Trouble in Paradise?”

“We’re fine,” he insisted.

“Still that fight you had, before he came to Boston?”

“He told you about that?”

“No,” Charles grinned, suddenly. “I assumed. You just confirmed.”

“I really don’t want to talk about it, Charles,” BJ bared his teeth, smiling.

“It’s not like I care,” he rolled his eyes, lying. “I’m sure you’ll accidentally reveal it to me, sooner or later.”

“Buzz off, Chuckie,” BJ smiled sharply once more, turning around to face his family as they finally gathered to leave. Margaret insisted on tagging along.

Halfway down the street, BJ realized he’d been had.

“Oh shoot,” Peg stopped in her tracks, two blocks down. “I left my purse in the restroom. I’ll meet you back at the hotel.”

“We can wait,” he tried to object.

“Go ahead, Peg, I’ve got them,” Margaret butted in, grabbing BJ by his arm. “Let’s get Erin back, okay?”

He felt deeply bothered that they thought they were being sneaky. 

“I can walk fine on my own, y’know,” he huffed at Margaret as she escorted him down the street.

“Well, I don’t want to walk alone,” she fought back, though she smiled at him, cheerily tugging him along. 

Erin, with her face tucked into his neck, slowly began to doze off. BJ sighed, resigning himself to play the fool. “Alright, Dorothy. Let’s follow the yellow brick road.”

Margaret made a face of confusion, furrowing her brow.

“The Wizard of Oz?” He supplied.

“I’ve never seen it.”

BJ stopped in his tracks. “Margaret,” he gasped.

“What? I haven’t seen a movie, big deal.”

“It is a big deal! How have you never seen it?”

“I was an army brat; we never went to the cinema.”

“God, I’ve got to take you to see it one day.”

BJ loved the film. In high school, he’d taken Ginny Folsom on a date to see it. He hadn’t gotten the memo that high school boys only took girls to movies to kiss in the back row.

He remembered, fondly, stumbling into a bookstore in Crabapple Cove, seeking shelter from the rain. He and Hawkeye had just gotten out of Judy Garland’s A Star is Born at the Quimby Theatre, where they had politely ignored each other’s tears.

“Want to get something for Erin?” Hawkeye asked, walking further into the store.

BJ’s eyes were drawn to a blue and yellow book displayed close to the register, an illustration of a blonde little girl on the front.

“Blueberries for Sal,” the shopkeeper had smiled, catching his eye.

“Looks just like my little girl,” BJ had picked it up.

“Is she visiting with you?”

He blushed, once again caught as a tourist. “She’s back in California with my wife. She’s almost four. Right now, we’re doing a lot of Goodnight Moon.”

“She’ll like this, then,” he opened the book, showing off the illustrations, a young girl in overalls, following a bear up a hill. “It’s the perfect piece of Maine.”

“I’ll take it,” BJ grinned, flipping through the pages. 

The shopkeeper typed into the register, and Hawkeye, across the store, started yelling.

“Larry, don’t you dare finish that transaction!” He shouted, rushing over with another book in hand.

“What?” BJ furrowed his brow.

Hawkeye set his book on the counter, then fumbled for his wallet. “My treat,” he insisted, though he’d paid for the movie tickets and breakfast, as well as their dinner and drinks the night before.

“I’ve got it, Hawk,” he tried to insist, but Hawkeye had already handed over the money.

Larry wrapped up the books and smiled at them both. “Stay dry out there, folks!”

“We’ll try,” Hawkeye smiled back.

Thankfully, they had Daniel’s car, parked down the street, on the promise that they would pick up groceries and that Hawk would make dinner. BJ had not been looking forward to walking back in the rain.

“BJ,” Margaret tugged on his arm, pulling him from his thoughts. “What’s up with you?”

“I’m fine, Margaret,” he brushed her off, adjusting his hold on Erin.

“What happened last night?” She pressed.

“Nothing happened,” BJ insisted. “What are you talking about?”

“The two of you have been off all day.”

“Me and Peg?”

She gave him an annoyed look. “You and Hawkeye.”

“We’re fine.”

“You’re not,” she huffed.

He kept walking.

“BJ,” she whined. “Don’t you want to talk about it? Get everything off your chest?”

“No.”

“C’mon, BJ,” Margaret begged him. “I know.”

His stomach twisted. “Know what?”

“What do you think?” She raised her eyebrow. “Hawkeye told me. When he got to New York.”

“What?” He stopped, suddenly. “He had no right to—“

“Of course he did,” she hissed, trying to keep her voice low, wary of Erin in his arms. “Why, in all of your letters, did you never—”

“It’s none of your business, Margaret.”

“What are you talking about? You two have made it my business.”

He continued walking down the street, trying to ignore her.

“Do you always have to be honorable? Wouldn’t your daughter want her father to be happy?”

The knot grew tighter, and he could feel anger boiling in his chest. “I am happy,” he insisted

“Really? Cause I’ve got plenty of letters that say you aren’t.”

He shot her a glare. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Who are you going to talk about it with? Peg?”

He stopped, again, and cradled Erin’s head. He needed to get back to the hotel room. He was still only halfway through Charlotte’s Web. “Why can’t you just butt out?”

“Because I love you, stupid!”

Margaret, on some nights, was just like his sister Alice. Brassy and bossy. She fought for herself, more than BJ ever could, and she’d push him, sometimes physically, to speak his mind. When he was sixteen, she helped him buy the used Harley-Davidson RL 45 that he’d kept in his buddy Nicky’s garage until college. Clark Gable owned one just like it.

BJ looked around the Friday night bustle of downtown Chicago and sighed, tugging Margaret into an alley.

“I didn’t ask him to tell you,” he gruffed.

“No, you just asked him to move his whole life for you.” She crossed her arms, fixing a glare.

“Oh, that’s rich, Margaret,” BJ scoffed. “You can’t stand that he won’t stay in New York.”

“He has ties there!” She whisper-shouted. “He went to college there; his mother grew up there! Sidney is right there for him to talk to, and yes, so am I!”

“Maybe he doesn’t want to live in places still steeped in memory,” BJ bit back, pulling from a letter Hawk had written a few weeks back.

“Well, I’m not going to apologize for wanting him there. He’s my family.”

“He’s my family, too, Margaret! You don’t own him.”

“Neither do you.”

They stood there, glaring at each other, like children fighting over a doll. Again, he was reminded of Alice.

It hurt to be sore with her, truly. Margaret was one of his greatest friends.

He’d been hesitant around her, at first. He was friends with lots of women, but never was he close with them, save for Peggy, whom he’d considered his best friend. He and Margaret had been quick to take a liking to each other, but it took several months for them to become close. And then, one night, she walked in on him drinking alone in the Swamp.

“Can I get in on that?” She’d asked, referencing the still, clearly stressed over a letter from her fiancé. The mail had only arrived an hour ago, the truck delayed in a downpour that had only just lightened to a drizzle in the last half-hour.

She paused as she caught his eye in the low light, and he turned away from her, wiping the wetness from his cheeks.

“BJ, are you alright?”

 “I, uh— Erin took her first steps,” he’d managed, nervous laughter bubbling out as he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop crying.

“Oh, BJ,” she sat down beside him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “You must be proud, then?”

“Yeah,” he laughed for real, still sniffling and wiping at his face. “This is all the pride, leaking out of me.”

“I’m sorry, BJ,” she rubbed his back. He really had to commend her bedside manner.

“Sometimes it’s fine. But she was so small when I left, and now—” He let out another sob, suddenly feeling the pressure of having not cried for a while. A long time, at least.

“Hey,” she coaxed. “It means when you see her, she’ll run right up to you.”

“She will, won’t she?”

“And you know what?” She got off the cot, pouring them each a drink. “I traveled everywhere with my father, but sometimes he’d leave us on certain trips, for months. It was tough, but I hardly remember the pain of my father being away. Y’know what I do remember?”

“The gifts he brought home?”

“No,” she rolled her eyes, handing him a martini. “I just remember how good it felt to see him again.”

“Thank you, Margaret,” he smiled at her, blinking off the remaining tears.

“To Erin,” she lifted her glass.

To Erin, he’d agreed.

Deeper in the alley, someone stepped out of a stage door and lit a cigarette. BJ continued to glare at her, adjusting Erin’s weight on his hip, his own exhaustion creeping in.

“I’m not leaving San Francisco.”

“Nobody’s asking you to.”

“It’s his choice where he wants to be, Margaret. I’m not going to pressure him.”

“Good,” she nodded. “Me too.”

BJ doubted that, but he let it go. He let her walk him back to the hotel, the two of them doing their best to play nice, letting the steam die down. It seemed like, soon enough, Erin would be the only person not upset with him.

Back in his room, he changed Erin out of her expensive new dress and into her nightgown, tucking her in with a kiss on the forehead. He showered, furiously scrubbing as he tried not to think about Peg, back at the restaurant, asking to escort Hawkeye home. I could talk to him for you, she’d suggested earlier, and BJ felt nauseous knowing she would continue to meddle.

He settled into bed, debating whether or not he should pretend to sleep, desperate to avoid another conversation about Hawkeye. He turned to face his daughter, watching the rise and fall of her chest as she slept. He matched her breathing, in then out. Inspiration. Expiration. BJ kissed her forehead, again, and pulled her close to him. He would never be like his parents. Erin would continue to be the most important person, her safety and her happiness his priority, above anything else.

~

They pulled into the Wentworth’s parking lot at the same time a stock truck was pulling out, heading further up the coast to service towns even more remote. 

BJ had stared after it, suddenly curious about the other quaint towns littering the coastline. He wondered if the entire state had the same dreamy, friendly feel. Vacationland, all the license plates had read.

“Alright,” Hawkeye shut off the engine, turning to face BJ. His hair was still damp from the rain, sticking to his forehead. “Here’s the game plan,” he began, pulling a paper list out of his jacket. “You’re going to push the cart and keep us on task. I’ll do the navigating.”

BJ furrowed his brow, taking in the building. “It doesn’t look that big?”

“The aisles are only half the issue, Beej,” he handed him the list. “It’s navigating the townsfolk that will be the challenge.”

BJ’s first difficulty, once inside, had actually been the nauseating twist of the knot in his stomach, urging him to ram his shopping cart into the garish Memorial Day display of hot dog buns, beers, grilling equipment, and patriotic buntings. 

Hawkeye glided past it, without another glance, guiding BJ to the produce section. He followed obediently.

“Let me see the list,” he made a grabby motion, pausing in front of the lettuce.

“Taking my job already?”

Hawk rolled his eyes. “I just need to skim it.”

Instead of taking it from him, Hawk leaned in, the two of them holding the paper together. Hawkeye had rolled up his flannel sleeves, his bare forearm warm as it rested against BJ’s. He shivered, chilled by the grocery freezers, his arms breaking out in goosebumps.

“Need some help there, Hawkeye?” A warm, feminine voice cut in.

BJ turned around, meeting the eye of a brunette with big curls and a charming overbite. She almost looked like Gene Tierney.

“Hiya, Harriet,” Hawkeye smiled at her, glancing back down at the list.

“Hiya, Hawkeye.” She smiled at him.

“Beej, this is, uh, Harriet Mackey—Wilder, I mean.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Harriet Mackey-Wilderimean.” BJ bounced on his heels, shaking her hand. “Is that hyphenated?”

Harriet laughed. “It’s just Wilder,” she smiled, pressing a hand to her chest. “I’m guessing he’s with you?

“Of course.” Hawkeye let go of the list, grabbing a head of broccoli and placing it in the cart. “Harry, this is my good friend, BJ Hunnicutt. He’s visiting from California.”

“California?” She brightened. “What brings you to our neck of the woods?”

“Vacation,” he smiled.

“Are you joining us for our barbecue on Monday?”

“You know, Harry, it sounds really swell and all, but—“

“Your father told me he’s making a key lime pie.”

BJ looked down at the paper. Sure enough, the list included key limes and sweetened condensed milk.

“I really hope you’ll come. Toby’s been dying to see you, Hawk. And Scooter said you never even showed up to dinner with him and Faith.”

“I was sick.” Hawk started to sweat. “I apologized.”

“We’re just—“

“We’ll try to make it, Wilder,” BJ interrupted with a smile. “But we’ve got to get all the ingredients for Daniel’s pie first, don’t we?”

“Oh yes,” Harriet nodded, stepping back into politeness, a slight redness to her cheeks. “I’ll let you boys shop. But I really hope you’ll be there, Hawkeye.” She added. “And you too, BJ,” still forming her mouth around the name.

“So long,” Hawkeye waved his fingers.

They pushed on, BJ gathering the key limes.

“Are we going to that?” He raised an eyebrow, curious.

“Do you want to go?”

BJ shrugged. “They’re your friends. Don’t you want to spend time with them?”

“I don’t know. They treat me like I’m made of porcelain.”

“Why is that?”

Hawkeye stayed silent.

“Hawk,” BJ needled.

“Mrs. Brown!” Hawkeye shouted instead, catching the eye of an elderly woman as they pushed towards the meat section. “BJ, this gorgeous woman was my first-grade teacher!”

Their trip to the store took, without exaggeration, over an hour, with Hawkeye pausing to speak to nearly everyone, BJ begging him to stay on task so they could finish the list.

When they finally arrived back at the house, BJ was completely drained, having been dragged into conversation with practically the whole town.

In the kitchen, they unpacked the groceries together, Hawkeye in the midst of telling him about an in-color television program that televised plays, rambling as he put elbow macaroni in the pantry.

“Do you mind if I take a nap?” BJ hummed as he shut the refrigerator door.

“Go ahead,” he’d smiled. “I’ll get started on dinner.”

The rest was fitful and dreamless, mainly BJ begging for sleep to overtake him as he shut his eyes, listening to the rain thrashing against the window. He’d left the door open, lulled by the sounds of Hawkeye whistling away in the kitchen. Eventually, he shifted awake and stared out, dazed, until his eyes focused on the cardboard boxes Hawkeye had left in the room.

The thing was, he and Hawkeye regularly broke into footlockers. BJ himself had broken into Hawkeye’s multiple times, usually to steal socks, and they’d brush it off with a laugh between them. Hawkeye knew BJ better than to leave something like that out in the open.

He pushed himself off the bed and walked over to them, sitting on the floor, his legs crossed, and pawing through the contents. They were keepsakes. Notes in Daniel’s handwriting. A paint sample card for Hunter Green. A velvet box with a lock of black hair. Dog tags. A photograph of Hawkeye’s mother, an image of a blond little boy exposed over it.

A large envelope, filled with a stack of papers. BJ started to pull it out. I, Benjamin Franklin Pierce, being of sound mind and endangered body, hereby decree this to be my last will and testament. He hesitated, then tucked the papers back in, setting them aside.

There were aged letters written in a bold, swooping cursive that had to have been from Hawkeye’s mother. There were envelopes open with the letters tucked back in them, from both BJ and Margaret. There was one from Carlye, as well. Three from Tommy Gillis.

BJ’s hands brushed over a wooden frame, near the bottom, and he pulled it out of the box, shocked to find his own family staring up at him. It was a photo of Peg, her blonde hair pulled back, smiling as she stood over Erin in her crib. The photograph he kept at his bedside throughout the war. He thought he’d lost it in that final Bug Out. In fact, Hawk had told him to stop looking, as he’d be with the real deal soon enough.

“Hey Hawk?” He raised his voice, calling down the stairs.

“Yeah?” He heard Hawkeye call up.

“Could you come up here for a minute?”

He heard Hawk move across the house, then start up the stairs. “I’ve just put dinner in the oven,” he called up. “It’ll be ready in under an hour.”

He reached the top of the stairs, that third step squeaking, and arrived in the doorway of the guest bedroom.

BJ looked up at him, watching the panic spread across Hawkeye’s face. He sat there, the contents of the box splayed out, and held up the frame. “You stole this?”

“Don’t be mad,” Hawkeye crumpled, leaning into the door.

“I’m not— Why did you take it? I would’ve given it to you.”

“I couldn’t just ask you for it.”

“You could’ve,” BJ insisted.

Hawkeye stared at his keepsakes, scattered all over the floor. “Did you really have to go through all of this?”

He shrugged. “You left it out.”

“Let’s put it away, then.”

Hawkeye got on his knees, starting to put things back. BJ helped him, slightly tinged with guilt. Yet, he’d become sick of this dodginess, tired of waiting for Hawkeye to spring everything on him. 

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened to Tommy Gillis?”

Hawk sighed, weary, and dropped the letters in the box.

“He was over there, too?”

“He was a journalist, writing a book from the front lines. Though he—” Hawkeye squinted his eyes shut, breathing in. “He died before you ever got there.”

“He was shot?”

Hawkeye nodded. “The bullet shredded his aorta. This was before the nurses learned triage. He never should’ve been on that table.”

“Yours?”

“Yeah,” he croaked.

“Hawk, I’m sorry.”

“It was the first time I cried, y’know?” He sniffled, turning away. “And then I had to get back to work, back onto the assembly line. So I just buried it. Way deep. Enough to forget.”

“You forgot?” BJ pressed.

“The wonders of my atypical mind.” A tear rolled down his cheek. BJ fought the urge to wipe it away. “I couldn’t touch it, Beej. I mean, that kid was one of the few people in my life who understood me. He was the only person I could talk to when my mother died. My whole life I’d been waiting for my medical career to start, and here I was, a cog in a machine of total destruction, unable to do anything as my best friend died in front of me.”

“I can’t imagine dealing with that.”

“I couldn’t either,” he chaffed. “So I didn’t. And then it hit me. In the middle of my welcome home party. The whole town was there. Suzanne White, the first girl I had a dirty movie date with, was there. With her husband, this fisherman, Donny O’Connor, and all three of their kids. Harry and Toby were there. So were Dickie and Holly. Scooter, Stinky, Dexter. And then Mr. and Mrs. Gillis walked into the backyard.”

He sighed, heavy on his shoulders.

“They still live up the hill right behind the movie theater, y’know?” he smiled wetly, remembering. “Tommy and I— We’d stamped out a path through those woods, all the way down.” 

BJ put his hand on Hawkeye’s shoulder, a small act of comfort.

“I don’t know what happened after that. When I came to, I was in my bed and my father was staring at me. The look on his face—” He blinked away a few more tears. “Every few weeks I take a train down to New York. I spend some time with Margaret, go see a play, check out some of my old haunts, and then I visit Sidney Freedman.”

“Does that help?”

“It makes being here easier.”

Hawkeye picked up the double-exposed photograph. This ghostly image of a towheaded little boy, pale arms stretched out wide, in a landscape, with his fingers tangling into the hair of a portrait of Hawkeye’s mother knitting in one of the living room chairs.

“When I first saw this print, I bawled my eyes out, thinking I’d ruined one of our last pictures of her. But now…”

He stayed quiet, listening.

“I wish the nostalgic haze hadn’t burnt out. A part of me, the person that I was before the war, was entwined in him. And I’ve lost it now. I don’t know how to reckon with what’s left.”

Do you know what I mean? He wished Hawkeye would ask.

“Anyways, the whole thing sucked.” Hawk sniffled, straightening up. “Let’s, uh—” He wiped the tears out of his eyes, rapidly changing the subject. “I was thinking we could go fishing in the morning. Out on Milk Pond, down the hill behind the house.”

“Okay,” BJ nodded, squeezing his shoulder. “That sounds great.”

The front door opened, soon after, with Dr. Pierce stumbling in. “Jeezum Crow!” His voice carried through the house. “It’s raining cats and dogs out there! I almost stepped in a poodle!”

Hawkeye had honked with laughter, some of the tension in his shoulders finally releasing.

~

That first night, BJ had caught up with Hawkeye and Margaret at the hotel bar. He’d been exhausted from travel, the anxiety clinging to him, but his nerves were calmed by the martini Hawkeye pushed on him, after the exchanges of hugs, flashing him that warm, mischievous smile.

He drank it, letting himself relax to the timbre of their voices, Hawkeye lecturing Margaret about the appropriate level of vermouth in a martini.

He’d spotted them from the lobby, just as he’d come in from the taxi, along with his wife, his daughter, and Daniel Pierce. They’d met up with him at the airport, carefully timed out by Peggy. Erin had been fussy all day, uncomfortable on airplanes as much as her father was, and Peg wasn’t much better, struggling to keep up a cheery smile.

“There they are,” BJ had smiled as he spotted them. He waved.

Margaret and Hawkeye waved back.

“You want to join them?” Daniel had asked. 

“I don’t know,” he smiled sheepishly, turning back to his family.

“Go ahead,” Daniel nodded. “I’ll take care of your girls.”

And so, their little trio gathered at a table in the bar, a scene so familiar that BJ had half-expected the bartender to turn around and reveal himself as Maxwell Klinger. Although Klinger would never wear a vest so poorly tailored.

Much to Hawkeye’s chagrin, Margaret brought her leather notebook, begging for BJ to help confirm logistics. He obliged, of course, though he made sure to tee up plenty of jokes for Hawkeye, who had also made it a mission to distract Margaret with anecdotes.

An hour later, the three of them were bursting with laughter, nearly crying over a story of Hawkeye’s harrowing evening drunk on the subway.

Margaret, growing tired, turned down another round and excused herself for the night, smacking a wet kiss on each of their foreheads.

They stayed for one more, chatting softly under the lowlight.  

“How’s your back after crashing on Margaret’s couch the last two months?” BJ had asked, sipping his whiskey.

Hawkeye groaned. “I really should’ve rented my own place.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t think I would stay.”

“And are you?” He pressed.

“Am I what?”

“Staying.”

“No,” Hawkeye answered, sipping his drink.

“Good,” BJ nodded.

“Good?” Hawkeye repeated.

“Yeah. Good.”

They stared at one another for a moment, smiling.

“I’ve got a bottle in my room,” Hawkeye had hummed as BJ finished off his drink.

BJ set his glass down, then reached across the table, picking up Hawkeye’s martini, finishing it. “Let’s go, then.”

He paid their tab, tipping the bartender extra, in the hope that he might buy a better vest, and followed Hawkeye to the elevator.

“Your room, sir,” BJ bowed as the doors opened.

“Cozy,” Hawkeye grinned as he stepped in.

“It even comes with a fringe lamp,” BJ pointed at the attendant’s epaulets.

The attendant huffed a small laugh, cut off by Hawkeye honking in BJ’s ear, clutching his arm to stay steady.

His face felt hot, not just from the alcohol, and he let himself relax into the warmth of Hawk, pulled at his side.

They walked arm and arm down the hallway, neither of them stumbling, neither having had enough to brush off the gesture as drunken support, though the halls were empty as they walked to Hawkeye’s door.

He’ll forget the sound of Hawkeye’s key fumbling at the lock, the moment stretching on forever, until the door clicked open and they could finally step into the room.

BJ locked the door as he was pressed against it, Hawkeye pouncing, kissing him.

It was electric.

He was electric, warm under BJ’s hands.

He tasted good, still, with just a hint of salt lingering on his tongue. All the martini olives.

“God, I’ve missed you,” he’d pawed at BJ’s shirt, unbuttoning it with remarkable speed. He was absolutely giddy, grinning from ear to ear, and BJ kissed that smile, pulling him closer by the waist.

Hawkeye had similar ideas, using the fabric of BJ’s unbuttoned shirt to pull him taut against him, for a kiss that was searing and ravenous, making up for lost time.

Hawk was a fantastic kisser. It was a known fact at the 4077th, the same way everyone knew about Frank and Margaret’s affair, the same way you knew there was no chance of checking Supply in the middle of the night.

“Shouldn’t we talk first?” He’d tried, pulling aside to breathe heavily in Hawk’s ear, other hand splayed out on his chest, barely keeping him at bay.

“After the second movement,” Hawkeye insisted, pressing ticklish kisses all along BJ’s jawline. “Depending on how many are in this sonata, of course.”

An embarrassing whine passed through BJ’s lips, leaning into the embrace, his hand still on Hawkeye’s chest but not using any pressure to push him away.

“C’mon, Beej,” Hawkeye begged, nose rubbing against his cheek. “Haven’t you missed me?”

Of course. He’d missed him more than anything. He’d missed his laugh, his smile, his horrible slouch. The slender fingers that fumbled at his belt buckle. That smart mouth of his and how it kissed him, how it ravished him. Somehow, impossibly, he’d missed him more in the last two months than he ever did in the last two years.

“I guess I could spare some time for an interlude,” he cracked, letting Hawk have his way. What was there to talk about that couldn’t wait?

“I need you,” Hawkeye whimpered, pulling BJ towards the soft hotel mattress.

Any words died on his tongue. All he could think was Hawkeye, Hawkeye, Hawkeye.

The first time he’d felt it had been in Korea, something in his chest boiling hot as he sat in the Swamp, watching how the sweat stuck Hawkeye’s shirt to his chest. He was perched in his chair, without pants, using Frank’s razor to shave his legs.

“There, the wool coat is gone,” he’d smiled as he finished, admiring his handiwork. “Feel my legs, Beej.”

The heat had gotten to him, sinking deep in his bones, and before he knew it, he’d reached out, hand gliding along the surface of Hawkeye’s freshly bare legs. “Smooth,” he nodded with a laugh.

He caught Hawk’s eye, a glint in the look that burned. There was a half-second impulse to slide his hand further up, to test what he might be able to get away with under such an innocent excuse. But the other half-second was a flash of guilt. The only shaved legs he should touch were his wife’s. He pulled his hand back, snatching up a paper fan resting below the still, fanning himself. He’d needed to cool down.

In Chicago, the walls weren’t netted. The door had a lock. The bed was more than just a cot. They had privacy. He could touch Hawkeye freely.

BJ stepped out of his trousers, getting pushed back onto the mattress as Hawkeye continued to undress him with fervor. His clothes rapidly disappeared until Hawk had reached his socks, “BFP” embroidered into them.

“I knew you stole a pair!” Hawkeye had laughed, just as BJ planned, and he tugged them off, tossing them elsewhere, into the room.

Naked, BJ stared up at him, Hawkeye taking the opportunity to make a big show of stripping. His belt snaked through each loop before being thrown across the room. His shirt, unbuttoned, slid down his shoulders. He shimmied out of his pants and stood on one foot to carefully peel off his socks. He snapped the waistband of his shorts, just for dramatic effect, before stepping out of them and striking a pose. BJ laughed harder than he had in years.

Once bare, Hawk crawled into BJ’s lap, pulling him into slow, open-mouthed kisses. He was beautiful like this, raw, giving himself to BJ. Letting BJ give himself over to him. He wanted, desperately, to stay there forever, locked in the soft skin of Hawkeye’s bare arms. He could barricade them in the hotel room and they’d never leave. He could—

Hawkeye’s hand tugged on his cock, pulling focus. He was lining them up, taking them both in his hand. BJ moaned into Hawkeye’s mouth, who laughed against him, dragging his hand up and down.

BJ reached for the lube Hawk had set out on the nightstand, ever prepared, but his fingers fumbled at the tube, knocking it over. Hawkeye laughed again, possibly BJ’s favorite sound, and he scrambled to the side of the bed, dangling off it to swipe the tube from the floor, bare ass and long, pale limbs on display. He’d barely gotten sun this summer.

Hawkeye sat up triumphantly, lubricant secured.

“Get over here,” BJ had beckoned, pulling him back into his lap.

Hawkeye, back to his task, rested his free hand at the junction where BJ’s neck met his shoulder. Along his sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles. If his fingers moved up, he’d be able to feel BJ’s carotid pulsing, racing beneath him.

He’d had a fantasy, a few weeks back, of laying Hawkeye out on a bed and counting all 206 bones, kissing each one, memorizing the shape of his body. It was a rehash of a dream he’d had in undergrad, an era of heightened erotic confusion and intense anatomy courses, but it’d stuck with him nonetheless.

Hawkeye’s other hand, now slick, worked between them, a gasp catching in BJ’s throat, drawing out a moan, a wave of pleasure rolling through him. “Hawk,” he whined, melting like putty.

“That’s good,” Hawk coaxed, voice so sweet. The pace of his wrist quickened, jolting through BJ. His cock twitched against the warmth of Hawkeye’s, both already leaking. He rested his forehead on Hawkeye’s shoulder, crying out again, a sickening want to bury himself in Hawk’s warm skin.

“I want you,” BJ choked out, grabbing desperately at Hawkeye’s hips.

“What do you want?” He pressed, breathless from his hand working them both. “My mouth?”

“Yes,” he nodded, suddenly dizzy and desperate.

“You want me to do that thing you like?”

“Please,” he whimpered.

Hawkeye laughed, melodic, and kissed BJ again. “Only ‘cause you said ‘please.’”

He shifted down the bed, hands running across BJ’s upper thighs. A chill went down BJ’s spine, watching him stretch out between his legs, taking BJ’s cock in his mouth.

Hawkeye was good at this, too, and he knew it. He gave a few tentative bobs, warming up, before eagerly taking all of him down his throat.

BJ inhaled sharply, a hand tangled in Hawk’s hair. He sat up against the headboard, so he could watch, but the pleasure was overwhelming and watching only made him more aroused, seeing Hawk drool down his cock, hand twisting at the base of him.

Hawk took breaks to breathe, where he’d press wet kisses to BJ’s cock, where he’d mouth gently at his scrotum, drawing out shaky gasps.

And then Hawk’s teeth sunk into BJ’s inner thigh. BJ meant to complain, to make some joke about it, but he moaned instead, gasping as Hawk apologetically nipped and kissed the spot, his cock twitching, aching, leaking. It was going to leave a mark.

Breathless and dizzy, BJ pulled at his hair, shivering as Hawkeye moaned with BJ’s cock in his mouth.

Hawk bobbed and sucked, he hollowed his cheeks and twisted his wrist, he looked proud of himself the whole entire time, drawing out the loud gasping moans that BJ could barely control.

“Hawk,” he rasped, twisting his fingers in Hawkeye’s hair. “I’m close, I—“

He pulled back on BJ’s cock, his hand pumping up and down as just his tongue pressed against the head. In a dizzying flash, BJ imagined covering Hawk’s face in his cum, the wicked smile he'd break into, pulling BJ into a kiss.

A groan was escaping him, rocking through his body. Hawkeye licked a stripe up his shaft with that warm, wet tongue.

“Hawk,” he cried out, blood pumping in his ears, head swimming, pushing him there, right there.

And then Hawkeye pulled away.

That thing you like, Hawk had called it, and BJ now wanted to kick himself for ever admitting to it. For begging for it, when it’d already been so long.

BJ whimpered miserably as his cock twitched desperately, shocked by the sudden absence of touch.

Hawkeye crawled up the bed, pulling himself into BJ’s side and bringing his face close, peppering him with apologetic kisses. His jaw, the corner of his mouth, his nose.

“Jesus,” BJ sighed, still gasping and catching his breath. 

“You were so good,” Hawkeye told him, still pressing kisses. His chin, his eyebrow.

BJ caught his lips, then grabbed his waist. “Want me to do you?” 

“How about you help me prep?”

“Yes,” BJ breathed, head rushing, nodding enthusiastically.

It was sweet, the way Hawkeye squeezed the jelly onto BJ’s fingers and guided him, trusted him. It was thrilling, the way he gasped as BJ pressed in, whining as he worked him open. He shined with sweat, beautiful under BJ’s gaze. BJ kissed his neck, feeling Hawk’s vocal cords vibrating with each moan. He left a bitemark on Hawkeye’s collarbone, a bit of payback for the one on his inner thigh, both of them marking territory in areas no one else would see.

Once Hawk was ready, they untangled, shifting around the bed and setting pillows in the right places. Hawkeye got on his knees, leaning on his forearms, with BJ behind him, groaning as he coated his cock in lube.

Hawk looked back at him, over his shoulder, a coy little smile on his face. “D’you get lost back there?” He teased, with an air of impatience.

“Just appreciating the assets,” BJ answered, squeezing a cheek.

Hawkeye yelped, laughing as he settled back down, humming pleasantly as BJ’s hands ran along the small of his back, along his hips and ass.

BJ pushed in, reveling in the groan beneath him. With one hand steadying his hips, the other ran along Hawkeye’s chest, tweaking a nipple just to make him cry out.

“I’ve missed you,” BJ cried in his ear, folded over his back, already slick with sweat. He breathed him in, leaving a kiss between his shoulder blades.

They became feverish, like rabbits. Nothing slow and drawn out. No, they crashed into each other. Hawkeye gasped and whined and babbled underneath him, skin burning as he begged for it.

He was absolutely obscene, his hands gripping the bedsheets tightly, his head thrown back as he cried out. Every Oh, Beej was music to his ears, jolting through BJ as he gripped Hawkeye’s hips tighter, as BJ buried himself in him with abandon.

The pressure built, fast, BJ starting to feel himself fall apart. “Fuck,” he’d stuttered out, trying to keep rhythm.

“I want to see you,” Hawkeye keened, wrecked and nearly collapsed.

“Yeah?” BJ breathed heavily, slowing the rock of his hips.

“Let me get on top,” he begged. “I need to see you.”

BJ couldn’t say no to that.

He pulled out, lying down next to Hawk, taking a breath for just a moment before they shifted, BJ propped up against the headboard, and Hawkeye, facing him, sinking down on his cock.

“Oh my god.” Hawk leaned back, fully seating himself, exposing his own weeping cock, which BJ took in hand. His hair was a complete wreck, strands sticking up all over from the sweat and BJ’s not-quite-gentle tugging.

“Kiss me,” BJ begged, unable to stop himself in the heat of it all. He wanted him, all of him. How had he ever been able to deny it?

Hawkeye obliged, taking BJ’s face in both his hands. BJ sucked at his top lip, focused on the scar there that drove him insane. BJ had hungered for him, had craved him. When Hawkeye moaned, throwing his head back, BJ kissed the skin he’d bared, then buried his face in Hawkeye’s chest, a hand at his waist, another pumping his cock. 

“I’m close, Hawk,” BJ whimpered, quickly overwhelmed by how much he truly liked this. Hawkeye, fucking himself on BJ’s cock, clutching him and moaning his name.

“Come in me,” Hawkeye begged, hips rocking desperately, holding BJ’s other hand to his waist.

“Y-yeah?” He was near delirious, wrapped in the giddy haze of endorphins.

“Please, Beej,” he whined.

“Okay,” he agreed with a nod, lightheaded and lovesick. “Only ‘cause you said ‘please.’”

Hawk, outright mewling, kissed him again, biting down on BJ’s bottom lip.

And suddenly, he came.

It was intense, the built-up tension of months apart, the tension of the orgasm Hawk had nearly brought him to earlier. He cried out, burying himself deep as he spilled, eyes shut as his vision went white, jerking and twitching, coming harder than he ever had before.

Hawkeye whimpered, and as BJ collapsed, reached his own orgasm, spilling over BJ’s hand, all over his chest.

They wrapped their arms around each other, panting, and BJ nuzzled his face into the crook of Hawkeye’s neck, breathing him in. Ridiculously, he’d missed his smell. The air conditioner thrummed in their silence, cooling the layer of sweat between them.

BJ ran his fingers through Hawkeye’s hair again, now gently massaging, apologetic. He could easily fall asleep, letting the rest of the world fade out. But then, he remembered he couldn’t. He had to spoil the moment.

“Shower?” He croaked

“Sure,” Hawkeye hummed, sleepily sitting up. He was beautiful like this, run ragged. The sweat made him glow, his messy hair an added charm. BJ wished he had a camera, just to remember him like this.

They stumbled in together, holding one another under the hot stream of water, passing the bar of hotel ivory soap between them, hands roaming as they lathered each other up. Hawkeye, ticklish, giggled in his ear.

“I’ve dreamt of this,” he mumbled into BJ’s chest as they stood under the spray. “Me and you, in the camp showers. In the middle of the night.”

“Oh?” BJ looked down at him, unable to stop smiling.

“It always sounded good in theory,” he shrugged. “But my knees would be so sore after,”

“I’d kiss them better,” BJ sank to his knees, eliciting a bubbling, cackling laugh from Hawkeye. He pressed kisses to Hawk’s kneecaps, Hawkeye cradling his head, shaking with laughter.

They dried off together, BJ wrapping Hawk in the fluffy, white hotel robe and pulling him back towards the bed, still kissing his face.

“I oughta find my clothes,” he hummed in Hawk’s ear.

“No need to be modest at this point, Beej,” he teased.

He found his shorts, near their feet, and let go of Hawkeye to put them on. “Care for another drink before I go?”

“Before you go?” Hawkeye’s moony look melted away, taking a half-step back. “What, you’re not gonna spend the night?”

“No,” BJ laughed, like an idiot. “I’ve got to get back to Peg.”

“I’m sure she’d understand,” Hawkeye tugged at BJ’s waistband. “We’ve got a sonata to finish.”

“I can’t.”

He should’ve been more resistant. More insistent that they should talk.

Hawkeye’s face fell. “Why not?”

“Why do you think?”

“She doesn’t know?”

“Of course not.” BJ frowned. “Why would I tell her?”

“I don’t know, because you’re planning on leaving her?” Hawkeye balked.

BJ began to look around for his clothes, not wanting to look at him any longer.

“You are leaving her, right?”

He huffed, picking his pants up off the floor. “So you’ve made an actual decision, then? You’re moving to San Francisco?”

Hawkeye paused. He swallowed. “I didn’t say that.”

“Okay. Then, great.” BJ started to pull them on. “You don’t get to judge me.”

“I don’t get to?” His eyes went wide. “I don’t know, Beej, I think the fact you were just inside me allows me some judicial power.”

“Why is this so hard for you to understand? I’m not leaving San Francisco, Hawk. My daughter lives there.”

“So does your wife.”

BJ pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not going to blow up my life if you’re not going to follow through.”

“Blow up your life?” Hawkeye repeated, raising his voice.

“You know that’s not what I mean—”

“Oh, I think I know exactly what you mean.” Hawkeye picked BJ’s shirt up off the floor, tossing it at him. “You’re going to spend the rest of your life in some sham marriage if I don’t agree to marry you in her stead?”

“It’s not a fucking sham, Hawkeye!” BJ raised his voice, fists clenched.

“Whatever you have to tell yourself,” he huffed. “I’m not your plaything, Beej. I’m not your mistress, your whore, your little chew toy.” He picked up BJ’s belt. “And I’m most certainly not your wife.” BJ dodged the throw, thankful that Hawk lacked athleticism.

“And these are my socks!” He yelled as he picked them up, tossing them onto the bed instead of at BJ’s face.

“Hawk,” he tried. “Darling—”

“Don’t,” Hawkeye bit. “Get out.”