Chapter 5

It was past one when the train from Boston rolled into Grand Central, Hawkeye Pierce stumbling out of it, swinging around his bulky leather suitcase. It’d been a gift from his father, a high school graduation present that had traveled more miles in the last two years than it had in any of the last sixteen. Primarily on trains to New York.

Margaret, as expected, was waiting for him under the clock, spreading her arms out wide to hug him, letting out a lilting laugh that he’d missed so very much. He breathed in her lavender shampoo, squeezing tight enough that she squealed.

An arm thrown around her shoulder, they walked east, beneath the bright Kodak Coloramas that had thankfully replaced the garish war bond ads that haunted him though undergrad. They slipped out of the station and into the humid city streets.

“How was Boston?” Margaret asked, leaning into his embrace.

“Fine,” he shrugged.

He’d already thrown his jacket in the suitcase and loosened his tie, but the heat still permeated through his shirt.

Margaret raised an eyebrow. “Just fine? Not good? Not grand?”

Hawk was too sweaty and too tired to keep up any charade. Already, he was second-guessing the impulsive decision of committing to a hot New York summer. “A lot of history for one trip,” he flashed an award-winning smile.

They walked towards the UN, weaving through a sea of professional young men. Hawkeye squeezed Margaret close to him, despite the heat, and allowed her to guide them towards a luncheon spot they both favored.

“How’s work been?” He hummed, giving an opening for her favorite topic: Complaining about her coworkers.

“Convincing Flynn to switch shifts was like pulling teeth,” she rolled her eyes. Before his first visit, Hawkeye had already received three separate letters that detailed complaints, a running list he’d made a point to keep track of.

“Like you haven’t taken half her holiday shifts in the last year.”

“She tried to make me take her Fourth of July!”

“Some people,” he rolled his eyes.

“But thankfully,” Margaret shook off her anger. “I managed to convince her.”

“You don’t have to pick me up every time,” Hawkeye rubbed her shoulder. “I can find my way home without you.”

“What are you talking about? Of course, I’m going to pick you up.”

They made it to their usual place, a cozy spot on 48th and Second with fresh deli sandwiches, and sat by the window, a weak air conditioner thrumming next to them.

“Margaret,” he got serious, setting his menu flat on the table. He always got the same thing, anyway. Pastrami on rye. Hold the pickles.

“Hawkeye,” she raised an eyebrow over the top of her own laminated sheet.

“I have to tell you something,” he swallowed.

He’d been thinking and overthinking the entire train ride. He’d almost told her, last night on the phone, but he needed to do it in person.

“So tell me,” she hummed, eyes flicking back down.

“Margaret,” Hawkeye repeated, pulling her menu down, looking right at her.

She was especially beautiful today, in a smart white button-up and charcoal gray slacks. An independent woman. 

Margaret rolled her eyes at him, but still she interlaced her fingers and set them down on the table. “I’m listening.”

“You have to promise that you won’t tell another living soul.”

She rolled her eyes again.

“Margaret, I’m serious.”

Now, she studied him, stiffening her upper lip, that little number eleven appearing between her eyebrows.

“Okay,” she nodded. “I promise.”

He swallowed, taking a deep breath. Inspiration. Expiration.

“I’m having an affair,” he confessed.

Their waiter, who had been approaching the table, quickly turned away, back behind the counter.

Margaret studied his expression. “She’s married?”

He sighed, tapping out a rhythm on the table. “He is.”

~

“Hawkeye?” A honeyed voice had called out to him two weeks earlier.

Returning to the city of his medical residency, Hawkeye was bound to run into former colleagues, especially at a hospital as prestigious as Boston Mercy. The voice that rang through his ears, though, was not one he’d met in Boston, but on the other side of the world.

Hawkeye turned, pushing down that horrible mess of dread, and smiled at the golden vision approaching him.

Blond curls. Warm brown eyes. A mischievous, crooked smile. Four years had gone by and still he looked the same.

“Trapper!” Hawk brightened, taking the man in his arms for a crushing hug.

He was lifted off his feet, just for a moment, and he laughed freely, heat rushing from his chest to his cheeks. Trapper smelled of something sweet and medicinal, branded soap rather than the GI-issued scent Hawk had remembered.

“God, look at you,” Trapper laughed, pulling back to examine him, resting a hand on his shoulder. He was smiling fondly, though Hawkeye felt disheveled, still exhausted from the trip, his hair wet from the shoddy hotel shower, and the buttons of his shirt straining at the waist, having last been worn in 1948.

“What are you doing down here?”

“Just needed a whiff of that Boston coal smoke.”

He laughed, again, patting his shoulder. It was surreal, seeing him again. From his white coat and pinned badge, though, it became clear that Hawk had walked into his territory, completely out of the blue.

“You want to help me with something?” Trapper immediately clued him in, holding up a yellow jug. Carpenter’s glue.

“Of course,” Hawkeye grinned, nostalgia already blossoming in his chest.

“Keep watch,” Trapper instructed, dropping to his knees, picking the lock of the office door between them.

Soon enough, he slipped inside, immediately getting to work, snickering at his own deviousness. Unfortunately, Hawk couldn’t see anything from his appointed post, though he still clapped exuberantly as Trapper slinked back into the hallway and secured the lock once more.

“Are you free for lunch?” Trap asked, leaning back against the door, affecting his usual air of confidence.

“Should be,” Hawkeye nodded, pressed against the wall, starting to feel like a teenage girl with a crush.

“Meet me at the Green Dragon? I’ll clear my afternoon.”

“I’ll be there with bells on.”

Trapper smirked and pushed off the door. He walked backwards, still smiling at Hawk. “Try not to leave me ringing.” Then, he turned, headed down the hallway, presumably to begin his rounds.

Hawkeye stared after him, chest pounding. He wondered, for a moment, if he’d hallucinated the entire exchange, as if he hadn’t buried away his feelings, tucking them away into a box labeled DO NOT OPEN.

Four years and it was like no time had passed at all. There he was, racing to Kimpo Airbase, his heart in his throat. No note, no nothing. Save for Radar’s peck on the cheek.

~

“Pierce,” Margaret had hiccuped, leaning her head back against the wall.

“Mmm?” He’d begun to feel dizzy, taking another swig of the whiskey bottle they were sharing, having given up on the cups about a third of the way through.

“Have you ever been with a man?”

He coughed, nearly inhaling the booze in surprise.

They were cozied up on the daybed of her Tudor City apartment, with its wide casement windows and white French doors, television murmuring in the background as they’d blathered on.

This was late summer, back in 1954. She’d successfully pestered him into a trip down, a week spent in and out of restaurants and museums. They’d seen the new Hitchcock that afternoon, leaving the theater waxing poetic about Grace Kelly’s wardrobe.

“I’ve gone plenty of places with men,” Hawkeye recovered, passing Old Forester back to her. “Boston. Chicago. New Jersey, once.”

Margaret groaned, lightly shoving him. “You know what I mean!”

They’d gotten bold, hadn’t they? Hours of commiseration in the Officer’s Club had seamlessly followed their lives in the States, with only a few hours of train travel and some mild riling involved.

“What are we talking about, Margaret?” He laughed, feeling the warmth of the liquor pumping through his bloodstream. “Have I known another man in the carnal sense? Have I invited a member of the same sex to do some midnight calisthenics? To partake in irreligious missionary work?”

His heart had begun to race, watching her carefully, his tongue suddenly feeling fat and foreign in his mouth.

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Well? Have you?”

“Have you?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

And then, Margaret blushed.

“Margaret,” his eyes widened.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she frowned, shoving the bottle back into his hands.

He laughed, holding it tight to his chest. “Of course I have, Margaret,” Hawk smiled at her. “And you, Margaret? Have you been out muffdiving?”

“Don’t be gross, Pierce.”

“Margaret,” he pressed again.

“Hawkeye,” she glared back.

“Have you or have you not been making the mattress sing with members of the same sex?”

Her left eye twitched. Then, she tossed her hair back and straightened up. “So what if I have?”

He lit up, laughing with delight. “You have to tell me everything.”

“I won’t,” she promised, though she had, by the end of the night. 

~

Boston had the effect of making Hawkeye giddy. There was an immediate sense of freedom Hawk had associated with any trip to a city and, in his teenage years, his father had made an effort to take him on short visits into Boston, a whole journey involved in taking the Flying Yankee down from Portland. One birthday, his father treated him to a nice dinner in Back Bay before a gripping vaudeville show. Dad had been thrilled when he’d chosen residency so close to home, visiting as much as he could. It was familiar in all the ways he’d forgotten, now coming back to him as he drunkenly stumbled along the Freedom Trail, clinging to Trapper John.

They had lunched on grand roast beef sandwiches and several rounds of whiskey, wobbling their way through the North End, strolling through Haymarket on a Friday afternoon.

“We should head down to the harbor,” Hawkeye crooned. “It’s a place steeped in history!” 

“I was there, y’know,” Trapper grinned, catching on immediately.

Hawkeye faked confusion. “You were invited to high tea?”

“It was the only way I could say I passed everything at Dartmouth.” 

“Lucky you,” Hawk elbowed him. “Those pesky Sons of Liberty wouldn’t admit me.”

“Why not?”

“They complained about the taxes and I told them the whole thing would boil over.”

Trapper barked out a laugh with his whole chest.

They ended up strolling through the stores, the way they used to in Seoul, in Tokyo. They walked down Scollay Square, seedier than ever, though already starting to change. Hawkeye’s heart nearly broke passing by the now-closed Old Howard. He’d been hoping they could catch a burlesque show.

Instead, Trapper led him into an adult entertainment shop. “They’ve got all your favorites,” he’d cooed, pulling him along to racks filled with all sorts of pin-up magazines. Modern Man, Playboy, Swank. They even had a small section of Tijuana bibles, sending a jolt of excitement through Hawk as he flipped through lewd drawings of Popeye and Olive Oyl. The two of them had amassed such a large collection in Korea, Trapper’s other parting gift having been leaving behind his share of the stock.

Hawkeye had no shame in his enjoyment of published illicit materials, though he’d had to spend many months battling against Frank Burns’ whines of protest. Hawk loved to spend a dull afternoon stretched out on his cot, ogling naked thighs and soft breasts on a glossy finish. Trapper had been more than happy to indulge with him, making sure to show Hawk all his favorites.

In their time together, Trapper had shared exactly what turned him on. He had a thing for long legs and fixated on manicured feet, on nice calves. When Hawk felt loneliest, he’d have to fight against the impulse to shave his legs in front of him, a method of seduction that had worked well on Janet Foster while in med school.

It was part of the games they played, knowing exactly what the other guy was into, classic locker room talk that alienated Frank, that would still probably earn Hawkeye a slap in the face if Margaret ever overhead, no matter how close they’d become.

BJ, however, was different.

He had been, at the start, committed to his fidelity, brushing off the few attempts Hawkeye had made in wheedling him about sexual interest, ignoring any snide remarks about his prudishness.

And then there’d been a lull on, the last of the wounded shipped out that morning. Here came the deafening boredom, long stretches of nothingness. And BJ, unsurprisingly, had chosen to spend their respite stewing over recent news of his patient in Tokyo: battling a post-op infection.

He was obsessive, Hawkeye had learned rather quickly. Mistakes did not wash off of his back but repeated over and over in his head, like a broken record.

“Beej, come on.” Hawkeye sighed, his peaceful reading time interrupted by BJ’s moping. “You’re gonna give yourself an ulcer.”

It was routine by now, the way Beej would fret. “I should’ve had that panel redone,” he’d groaned. “I should’ve known—“

“Woulda, shoulda, coulda,” Hawk had rolled his eyes. “We can’t change what’s been done, Beej. He’s in Tokyo now. Where they actually have decent supply and doctors that aren’t Frank Burns. He’s in good hands.”

BJ sighed, still, and Hawkeye groaned, completely annoyed. Just what this war needed, he’d thought sarcastically. More frustration over things we can’t change.

He was a hypocrite, sure, but this side of BJ had really started to annoy him.

“Here,” he leaned down from his spot stretched out on his cot, fishing out a magazine from the stack underneath. “Read this,” he tossed it over.

BJ caught it, frowning down at the cover. “Nudist Monthly?”

“It’s the beach volleyball issue,” he hummed. “That’s good stuff.” One of his favorites, actually.

BJ wrinkled his nose.

“Just use it to take your mind off of Peters and peritonitis.”

“With your pornographic paraphernalia?”

“I possess the pinnacle of priceless perverted printing, Beej. Partake, I beg of ye.”

BJ huffed.

“Please,” Hawkeye pressed, dramatically re-opening his copy of Persuasion.

He rolled his eyes, still acting annoyed, but BJ opened the magazine and began to thumb through it.

Hawk had just meant to find him a suitable distraction. A dirty magazine was innocent enough. Though, he had taken notice of how Beej always acted polite and mild, unless frustrated, and even then was apologetic after the fact. He was primarily bursting with toothaching sweetness, for some reason desperate to hide the flicker of mischief that was burning somewhere deep in his chest. A voice inside of Hawkeye begged to add fuel to that fire.

“Don’t let this man corrupt you,” Frank had told BJ, that first week.

BJ had smiled, big teeth and all. “I’m doing my very best, sir.”

Across the tent, BJ let out a small, soft laugh as he stared down at the page.

It was then that Hawkeye had realized his horrible mistake.

Hawk had read the issue five times over, at least. Meaning he knew exactly what page BJ was reacting to: A woman with perky breasts, her blonde hair flowing, lunging through the sand, the volleyball successfully bouncing off her forearms.

He hastily tried to turn his attention back to his novel, but Austen struggled to capture him the way the shudder of BJ’s breath did. Sneakily, he watched as BJ flipped through the images, studying his reactions, his hums and haws. The way his nostrils flared, the way his breathing deepened. He felt dizzy as he watched BJ bite his lip at a page of two well-hung men lifting a small brunette in the air, in celebration. Sweat built at the back of Hawkeye’s neck. His throat went dry.

He knew better, was the thing. Especially after Trapper. But, well, he had eyes.

Drunk as he was, Hawkeye hadn’t been able to avert them that first day, when they’d stumbled to the showers and BJ had stripped off his muddy Class-As to reveal that hairy chest, that athletic build. Hawk had joined him, belting out what he could remember of Carmen’s Habanera, scrubbing the war off of him, and desperately trying to dampen stray thoughts about the bar of soap they shared. He recognized the train of thought as a bad idea, needing to reign it towards something platonic and fraternal. He was freshly heartbroken, whether he could admit to it or not, and had no intention of repeating the mistake of chasing after his married bunkie, even if his favored method of getting over someone was getting under someone new.

But then BJ laughed, bright and bubbling, and Hawkeye melted, in spite of himself. Worse was the bathrobe BJ slipped on afterwards: Dangerously short, showing off his knees, his well defined calves.

Arousal coiled in Hawkeye’s stomach as he leered, BJ rapt in the glossy-coated paper. His train of thought was ready to go off the rails, into the explicitly banned territory of fantasy.

And then BJ caught him, glancing up to meet his eye. “Yes?” He tilted his head.

Hawkeye cleared his dry throat, sitting up, hoping his face wouldn’t flush. It was warm in the tent, the stove fighting against the early spring chill. “D–Do you like it?”

BJ laughed, smiling with his blinding white teeth. “It’s not bad,” he hummed, glancing back down at the contents.

“Good,” Hawkeye nodded, looking away, out the tent windows.

Nurse Charlie was out walking, chatting idly with Baker. A distraction. An excuse for the burning in his chest. 

“Susan!” He shouted, jumping to his feet.

“Jesus,” BJ flinched, dropping the magazine like it’d been on fire. A kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

It was cheap of him, truly, but Hawk had become hyper aware of the powder-keg inside of him, ready to explode.

“Sorry,” he smiled sheepishly, pulling on his jacket, already halfway out the door.

He needed to blow off some steam.

Hours later, when he returned to the Swamp eased and well-sexed, Hawkeye found the magazine lying gently on his cot. He looked over at BJ, who was wrapped in blankets, facing the other direction. The tightness in his shoulders told him that Beej was merely pretending to sleep.

“Hello, darling,” Hawk sang to the magazine, audibly fanning the pages before tucking it away carefully. “Good night, Beej,” he whispered, cheerily.

BJ said nothing back, though two weeks later he would wind up sitting on Hawkeye’s cot, peering over his shoulder at the Tillie-and-Mac Hawk had acquired in Seoul.

Crouched down over the small paper booklets in this cramped store in Boston, Hawkeye couldn’t help but search for something he knew BJ would like. A striptease flipbook, maybe. Shirts with zippers down the back. Maybe something for a more obscure clientele.

Trapper bought the one he settled on, grinning as he watched Hawkeye carefully tuck it away in his breast pocket. Onward, they went. It was time for dinner at the Imperial. 

~

“Oh, Dr. Houlihan!” An older woman quivered as he and Margaret stepped out of the elevator, onto the thirteenth floor. The widow from down the hall.

“Mrs. Foster!” Hawkeye smiled at her. “It's always a pleasure to see your smile.”

In his sporadic visits to New York, they’d passed each other in the hallways and ridden the elevator together many times, though they did not have a proper introduction until Hawkeye had discovered her fainted in the hallway, last October. 

He’d rushed to her side, thankful to find her still breathing, relieved as she began to open her eyes.

“Oh dear,” she’d blinked as Hawkeye slowly sat her up.

“Do you know where you are, ma’am?”

“I— Right outside my door,” she’d looked around, then back at Hawkeye, eyes focusing. “Oh, I know you!” She’d brightened. “You’re married to that cute little nurse.”

“I’m a doctor, ma’am,” he’d answered instead. “Can you stand up?”

He’d guided her into her apartment, setting her down on the couch, checking her vitals. Adeline Foster was her name, a rather sturdy woman with a frail voice. She’d just been coming home from lunch with her son, who paid for the apartment and worked at the UN.

“Have you been drinking enough water?” He’d asked her, frowning.

“Of course,” Mrs. Foster nodded, then she suddenly laughed, “Oh, Doctor, my fainting spell wasn’t medical,” she placed a hand on top of his. “I saw a mouse.”

“A mouse?” He repeated, a cold sweat down his back. “There’s mice in this building?”

She furrowed her brow at him. “A big man like you is scared of a little mouse?”

His face flushed with embarrassment. “Don’t tell my wife.”

The story took on a mind of its own, then. He’d spun up something about being a traveling doctor, leaving Margaret for several weeks at a time. They were saving for their future, after all. Now, they played it up in front of her, a little routine that Hawk couldn’t help but be fond of.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you last,” Mrs Foster shook her head, disapprovingly. “You mustn't leave your poor wife all alone. You ought to have had children already!”

“I’ve told you, Mrs. Foster,” Hawkeye sighed, though he continued to smile at her, warmth in his chest. “Our apartment is too small for children. It’s hard enough being apart from my wife for so long, I couldn’t do that to my son.”

“Or daughter,” Margaret chimed in.

“Or daughter,” he agreed.

Mrs. Foster nodded, taking in his words. “Well, I’m just glad you have such lovely women keeping you company, Margaret.”

He split into a grin. “Yes, I’m sure she’s got a revolving door of wonderful young women, doesn’t she?”

A sharp pain hit his instep: Margaret stomping on his foot.

“I’ll leave you lovebirds be,” Mrs. Foster smiled at them both, heading into the elevator as it arrived. “I hope to see you again soon, Dr. Houlihan.”

“You will,” Hawkeye nodded back to her, waving as the doors closed.

Margaret rolled her eyes, unwrapping her winter scarf as they walked down the hallway to her door. “I don’t see why you keep up the charade with her.”

It was February. His father, understandably, had grown weary and anxious over Hawkeye’s drinking and erratic behavior and had begged him to get out of the house, out of Crabapple Cove for a couple days. Margaret, and New York, had welcomed him with open arms.

“She means well,” Hawkeye defended her, fond of how much she reminded him of the old biddies around Crabapple Cove. “Besides,” he leaned against her apartment door. “We make such a beautiful couple.”

Margaret snorted, pulling out her keys.

“What?” He frowned.

“We’d kill each other.”

They nearly had, after the fallout of their ill-advised tryst. It had made sense, after all the teasing flirtation, all that pigtail pulling, and the fear that ran through their very bones while trapped behind enemy lines. They both had long been subscribers of the age-old coping mechanism of clinging to a warm body in the face of devastation, in some desperate attempt at survival.

But then, Margaret became someone else. Fretting over him. Gushing. Making herself a housewife. He was shocked at the way she became self-deprecating, the way she became so expectant of him. He loved Margaret, truly, but he hadn’t expected to suddenly be her darling. They cared for each other. Been afraid together. But romance was not in the cards for the two of them. Their friendship had been something far stronger.

“Well, sure,” Hawkeye shrugged as he watched her unlock the apartment door. “But we could have our independence, our own lives and relationships, then end up at home together. Companionship. A long life of arguing over the thermostat and how to make the bed.”

Margaret outright giggled as she pushed the door open, gesturing him in. 

“What, you don’t think we could do it?”

“It’s not about you,” she rolled her eyes, her heels clicking along the linoleum as she walked into the kitchen. “As enticing as that offer is, I’m looking for something a little more than our kind of companionship.” She grabbed the whiskey bottle off the shelf and set two glasses on the counter, pouring them each a drink.

“So you wouldn’t settle?” Hawkeye pressed. “Not for tax purposes? Not to have children? Not for me, not for anyone?”

“Are you kidding?” Margaret put the bottle back in its place. She wouldn’t look at him. “I already settled, Hawkeye. Why on earth would I do that again?”

If he ever ran into Margaret’s scumbag of an ex-husband, he’d be sure to do something far worse to Lt. Col. Donald Penobscott than merely leaving him in a full body cast on his wedding night.

“I still want love, Hawkeye.” Margaret sighed, handing over his glass as she maneuvered over to the couch. “I’ll keep holding out.”

He sat down next to her, sighing. “I’m starting to worry it’s too late for me.” 

“Is this your way of telling me you’re sick of being a bachelor?”

He made a strangled noise.

She sized him up and down, her gaze steely over her crystal glass. “Are you?”

Hawkeye stared down at his drink, not even sure where to begin. “Something’s wrong with me.”

“What do you mean?” Her voice had gone soft, gentle. More akin to her bedside manner than her usual role of critical confidant.

“I used to chase girls all over town,” he shrugged, sipping his glass. “But now? Nothing moves me.”

“The Hawkeye Pierce is no longer wasting his days chasing tail?” She raised an eyebrow. “Nothing’s wrong with you. You’re growing up.”

“Growing up?”

“You want a partner, right?”

He frowned. “I’ve never not wanted a partner—”

“Sure, for a dance or two, but not the whole night.”

Hawkeye sat up, glaring at her. “That’s not—” He shifted. “Sometimes I cut things short. Not always, but I do, I admit that—”

“You run away, Hawkeye.”

“Well if I don’t, they end up leaving me, Margaret. I don’t want to end up the only one left on the dance floor.”

“You’re going to be if you don’t get yourself out there.”

“That’s the thing, Margaret. I can’t.”

She scoffed.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me,” he frowned. “It’s not even— I don’t want sex. At all. I haven’t slept with anyone since that waitress in August.”

Even then, he couldn’t. The lovely girl had given it her all, too, but nothing would arise. Luckily, nobody had ever given her head before, and Hawkeye was easily an expert.

And the last time he could, his heart hadn’t quite been in it, either. It’d been back in Korea, with Nurse Bigelow, who had purred something about “for old time’s sake” but had likely just been trying to cheer him up. Hours earlier, he’d been wheeled back from the funny farm, only to discover that BJ was gone.

“So you’re sick of meaningless sex,” Margaret shrugged. “We just have to find you someone.”

“That’s the problem, Margaret. I’m not even seeking romance. All because I—” He cut himself off.

“Because you’re hung up on someone?”

She was sharp tonight. He hadn’t expected this. He thought they were going to watch The Women on Producers’ Showcase. He’d read it in the paper that morning and had already come up with all sorts of queeny lines about loving Shelley Winters as the town trollop but still preferring Joan Crawford in the role.

He glared at her. Margaret glared back.

“Something tells me it’s the same reason as to why you’re no longer returning mail.”

He smiled, sheepishly. She’d caught him.

“Hawkeye,” she frowned.

“It’s just— It’s hard, Margaret. The letters—”

“He’s really upset—”

“So am I! It’s not like I want to, but—” He sighed. “Nobody’s ever lingered in the doorway. When they’re gone, they’re gone. We said goodbye. He went back to his wife and kid.” 

“He’s worried about you, Hawkeye. I’m worried about you.”

“I have to stop thinking of him, Margaret.”

“He’s your best friend.”

“I can’t, Margaret—”

“What, cause you slept with him?” She was guessing. Months ago, he’d confessed about the whole Trapper ordeal, drunk together at some bar in the Village.

“It’d be so much easier if I had.”

She studied him, for a beat, and then her eyes softened. “You love him.”

“How could I not?” He sighed, throwing back the last of his drink. He fiddled with the glass, rotating it in his hand. “It’ll never be enough, Margaret— I can’t move on when I’m still clinging to pieces of him.”

~

Out on Milk Pond, everything was still.

“What’s the difference between a lake and a pond?” BJ had asked as he stepped into the canoe, gripping the gunwales and sinking into his seat.

“The biggest one’s a lake.” Hawkeye handed him their gear, loading the boat from the small dock he and his father had built together one spring. Twenty years ago, now. “Then, all around them are ponds.”

“I had a joke about a pond,” BJ hummed. “But it’s too shallow.”

Hawkeye shook his head, though he couldn’t help laughing softly. He carefully slid into the canoe, trusting BJ to keep the balance, and sat facing him, smiling.

“Wrong way, Beej,” he teased, motioning for him to face forward.

All settled, the two men pushed off the dock, paddling out into the water. Hawkeye inhaled a deep breath of morning mist, relaxing in the cool dawn.

BJ paddled forward, gaze twisting him around in his seat, eyeing the trees along the water. Tucked away, just up the hills, were houses owned by the elder population of Crabapple Cove. In a few years, they’ll all be sold to flatlanders. But for now, the pond was theirs. 

“Over that way,” Hawkeye pointed out a large property, one with a direct view. “That was my great aunt’s house. On date nights, when my parents needed a babysitter, I’d stay with her. Every night she made boiled chicken. But she grew fantastic asparagus. And she stocked the house with all the sugary treats a little boy could ask for. Oreos and Pepsi. Chocolate pudding. She’d make these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, they’d blow your mind.”

“I’m salivating,” BJ laughed, throwing his head back.

“It was the lap of luxury,” Hawkeye smiled. His heart thrummed, watching BJ take in the landscape of his home. “Geez,” he laughed. “I haven’t thought about this stuff in a long time.”

Eventually, they anchored somewhere shallow and well-covered, quiet for both them and the fish.

BJ was allowed to face him now, Hawkeye set up their rod holders, explaining the steps, looking up to check that he was watching. BJ nodded at him, focused intently. Hawk grinned.

“Pass me a beer?” He asked as he finished setting up.

BJ furrowed his brow, glancing down at his watch, now finally on Maine Time. “At seven in the morning?

“Vacation,” He smiled.

Beej took that as answer enough, pulling out a beer for each of them.

“Want a sandwich, too?”

“You’re learning well.”

“Turkey or ham?”

“I’ll gobble the turkey.”

“Then I’ll oink the ham.”

They settled in, tearing into their early lunch. Hawk breathed in the fresh air, listening intently to the birdsong.

Their little inlet was tucked away, near a run of empty houses, covered well by the trees. Hawkeye doubted anyone could see them, save for maybe Mrs. Richardson, a few houses over, who favored the loons, though they mostly called at night. He and BJ were essentially alone, for now.

They were out in the middle of the water. Hawkeye couldn’t run.

“Y’know,” BJ cleared his throat, crumpling up his sandwich paper. “I still mean what I said.”

“Hmm?” Hawkeye had asked, licking crumbs off his fingers. “What’d you say?”

“That you should move to San Francisco.”

At least he was polite enough to wait until they’d finished eating.

Hawkeye groaned. “BJ—”

“You could at least consider it, Hawk!” He raised his voice, tension in his throat.

“Why?” He scoffed a laugh.

“Why not?” BJ pushed. “You’re hiding out here.”

“Hiding?” Hawkeye felt an anger rise in his chest. “Hiding?” He repeated. “This is my home.”

“C’mon, Hawk. You’re rejecting invitations left and right.”

“I keep to myself! There’s no harm in that!”

“You’re suddenly terrified of what people think of you, Hawk. In a town where you can’t go for a drink without running into your childhood bullies.”

“I knew we shouldn’t have gone—”

“You’re hiding,” he repeated.

He loved Crabapple Cove. It was the place that birthed him, that raised him. He loved the smell in the air, the sound of birds and squirrels and dogs and deer and children and fishermen and ocean. All happy. He loved to be surrounded by familiar faces, to be told stories from thirty years ago by all the aunt-and-uncle types inside all the mom-and-pops. He loved to watch kids park their bikes outside the ice cream place, the whole gaggle of them pooling together all the loose change they could find. He loved that when he sat by the water he could remember his mother wading in, pants rolled up, teaching him how to skip stones. He loved that he could enter a room full of people he’d known his whole life and they would smile as soon as they saw him.

“I’ve always been one to stand out in a crowd, Beej. All the mothers in town used to say ‘that kid walks to the beat of his own drum.’ I’m pretty sure everyone thought I was playing the xylophone.”

BJ picked up the lure box, busying his hands, though their lines had already been cast. “I’d figure you carried that as a badge of honor.”

“Are you kidding? My whole life, all I ever wanted to do was leave this place.” 

It hung in the air, for a moment. BJ stared at him, waiting for him to continue.

He sighed.

“I used to wish my mother would whisk me away, take me back to her family in New York.”

“What changed?”

“Leaving home,” he shrugged. “They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“Because this is the only home you’ve known.”

Hawkeye blinked, staring at BJ. I know how you feel, he’d sometimes insist, and begin to attribute his feelings onto Hawk.

“You didn’t grow up in Mill Valley?”

BJ’s eyes widened, caught off guard. “No,” he admitted, a slight tremble in his voice.

“What about you, then?”

“What about me?”

“You fit in, didn’t you? Fraternities, varsity letters, and all that.”

“I tried,” BJ hummed, truthfully. “I tried so hard it made my stomach hurt. I was more a lackey than anything. But I got a lot of respect from the younger guys.”

“You, a lackey?” He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see it.”

“That’s cause now you’re my lackey.”

Hawkeye snorted.

“I found my home somewhere else,” BJ shrugged, then began to dig through their basket, procuring more beers.

“Well, my home is here,” Hawk watched as BJ worked the cans open with his church key.

“I just don’t believe that you’re happy,” BJ muttered as he handed the can over. It nearly slipped from Hawkeye’s grasp.

“What about you?” Bitterness burned inside him. “Aren’t you unhappy?”

Something flickered across BJ’s eyes. “What?”

“C’mon, Beej. You don’t have to pretend with me.”

“We’re not talking about me, Hawk. We’re talking about you.”

He ran his fingers along the steel can. “Margaret said you were upset.”

“You stopped writing to me. Without any explanation. Of course I’ve been upset.”

There it was.

BJ clenched and unclenched his fists. “I was worried, Hawk. I’ve been worried.”

“I couldn’t talk to you about it.”

“But you could talk to Margaret?”

“It’s not like—” He sighed, wetting his lips, searching for the words. “You have a family, Beej. You have responsibilities. I didn’t want to burden you with my bullshit.”

“I want you to. I want to help, Hawk, if you’d just let me.”

“It’s—” Hawkeye huffed, and stopped, staring at him.

Tommy was gone. He’d already made a new life without him. Carlye was married. She didn’t want the life Hawkeye had offered her. Trapper went home. He had to return to the life he’d left behind. But here was Beej, traveling coast to coast, desperate to carve out a place for him.

“I haven’t been good, Beej,” he admitted.

BJ blinked. The smoke rolling out of his ears slowly dissipated. He shifted in his seat, settling down, his voice going soft. “No?”

Hawk couldn’t keep fighting him off. They were out in the middle of Milk Pond, for chrissake. 

“I keep thinking I’ve made progress, y’know? That I’m getting over the way my life was completely blown to pieces, and then—” He paused, averting his gaze. He couldn’t look at him and those sad, pleading eyes. Instead, Hawk stared out at the trees along the water.

“Then?” BJ pressed, gently.

“My stitches pop,” he shrugged. “I lose my mind.”

BJ reached out, putting a hand on top of his knee. Hawk smiled, weakly, and placed his hand on top of BJ’s.

“Sidney used to tell me things would be easier once the war was over, and sure, some things are, but it really— It sunk its teeth in me, Beej. Little things. Fainting spells. Nightmares that I don’t even remember when I wake. Weeks where I just can’t eat. Hours of my day, completely forgotten. Landmines everywhere.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” BJ rasped.

“Are you kidding? Beej, all your letters were about how great things were. ‘Dear Hawkeye, my perfect life is so extremely perfect. My perfect wife is lovely, my perfect daughter is amazing, and my perfect medical career is better than ever.’”

December 1953. I’ve always dreamed of White Christmases. It rarely ever snows here. I’m sure that’s never been an issue in Crabapple Cove. I thought the miserable cold from the last two years would’ve done away with my longing, but here I am, picturing Erin playing around in the snow. I’ve sent you a gift in the mail. Hopefully it arrives on time. 

July 1954. It’s Erin’s third birthday today. I can’t believe I get to be here for it. I keep waiting for everything to break, like I’ll get called into an emergency surgery or something. For the cake, Peg finally made the perfect buttercream frosting, I’ll make sure she sends the recipe to your dad. I went a little overboard in buying gifts, but I’m just making up for lost time.

September 1954. We’ve finally finished the house on Stinson Beach. You’d love it, Hawk. You can sit on the porch swing and stare right out at the water. You really oughta come check it out.

BJ yanked his hand back, as if he’d been burned. “What did you want me to say?” His nostrils flared. “It’s not like your letters were any better.”

“How else was I supposed to respond? ‘Glad to hear about your perfect life, Beej, last night I drowned myself in whiskey and passed out on the back porch. My father thought I was dead.’”

He furrowed his brow. “Did that really happen?”

Hawkeye didn’t answer.

“Jesus, Hawk.” BJ pinched the bridge of his nose.

His head was starting to hurt. “See? I can’t talk about this with you.”

“No,” BJ shook his head. “No, you should. I want to hear it.”

He finished his beer, crumpling the can, and sighed, dropping it into the boat.

Hawkeye had hoped that in coming home, he would easily shake the hesitation he’d developed around children, that uneasy sickness and worry. There had always been an abundance of pregnancies and babies and little kids in Crabapple Cove, generations upon generations of Mainers all connected in a cozy woven tapestry. They all grew up together, going to the Crabapple Cove School, where two hundred children, from ages five all the way up to eighteen, spent the majority of their life.

He’d always been fond of children, too. In middle school, Hawkeye volunteered at the Owl Club, the children’s reading group. Every Thursday, he’d help a horde of six-to-seven year olds off the school bus and into the public library, spending the afternoon laying out snacks and reading in silly voices until after the winter sun had set, when parents would come to pick up their eager kids, each brandishing the book they wanted to read over the week. Afterwards, he’d check out three new books and walk to the Pierce Clinic, still downtown then, waiting for Dad to drive him home.

He’d done alright, for the most part. He no longer begged to hold babies, but he could get through an exam. His only difficulty had been with injections. He’d balked at his father’s insistence on his assistance to no avail. He’d even made it through the first few kids without immense struggle, but then five-year-old Freddie Casco had started crying as soon as he entered the exam room. Hawkeye couldn’t conjure the clown, he couldn’t even make a joke. He knew perfectly well that many children had a fear of needles, that it was his job to calm Freddie down and to provide him with treatment, and yet the icy fear would not escape him and he’d stumbled out of the exam room, trying not to cry, begging Michael to take over for him.

“Last December,” he began, avoiding BJ’s gaze, instead staring at the water. “This nine-year-old kid, Timmy Sheffield, was sledding down Hermitage Hill.” He swallowed. “He lost control and slammed into the big oak. Fractured both tibia and fibula.”

“Jesus,” BJ cringed.

“The way he screamed and cried—” He shook his head. “Michael managed to calm him down while I dry heaved in the snow.”

BJ’s hand made it back to his knee.

 “I really— I was doing better, but this—” It was difficult to talk about, still. But BJ’s hand was grounding, a warm weight. “Michael wouldn’t let me drive. So, I had to sit in the back with this kid, holding his hand, waiting for the morphine to kick in as he tried to be brave, crying out in pain. It’ll be okay, Timmy, I had to keep telling him.”

“Was he alright?”

“He was fine,” he shrugged. “He stopped crying, eventually, and then we got to the hospital and he went into surgery. He’s already walking fine, now. But it—” He looked back at BJ. “I spiraled. I went for a swim.”

He only remembered parts of it. He’d been blindingly drunk. Big wet tears clouded his vision. His head was pounding, was screaming. The air by the sea had been frigid and Hawk had wandered into Crabapple Cove. A part of him had wished to be taken by the sea. He felt the weight of it in his body, as he pushed deeper into the freezing waters. There was yelling. From his own head. Maybe from someone else, as well. Hawkeye submerged himself, sunk into the cool, dark ocean, and he’d relaxed into his fate.

“Hawk,” BJ’s voice broke, tears welling in his eyes.

“I’m fine,” he insisted, looking away again. “It was— Dad and I had a lot of long talks.”

Dad had been upset.

Dad was still upset, months later.

As a little boy, Hawkeye had always confessed his secrets to his mother. He’d always be whispering in her ear. His father, once, had looked across the table and frowned. Don’t you have any secrets for me, Hawkeye?

“Why?” Dad had cried, squeezing Hawkeye’s hand as he laid out on one of the Pierce Clinic’s four beds, covered in blankets, taking an IV of warm saline. “Why have you never been able to tell me what’s going on?”

“He asked me to stop writing,” BJ mumbled. “In a letter to my wife. Between pie recipes and book recommendations.”

There’d been a night in January. Dad had walked into Hawkeye’s bedroom and found him deliriously drunk, crying horrible, wet tears, hot against his face. BJ’s letters were scattered all over the floor.

Dad had dragged him to bed, letting Hawk watch as he packed the letters back into their box, tucked away under his bed. Then, he kissed his forehead and ruffled his hair.

As a kid, Hawkeye had been told he was an old soul. Despite the childish sense of humor, he’d always wanted to get an In with the adults. Six, going on sixteen. Thirteen, going on thirty. Now he was thirty-three, going on seven.

He’d been trying to write a letter. Writing BJ used to come easy. Little anecdotes. Nothing big, no real emotions. But now, everything he had only made him sound worse. Today, I fainted in the grocery store after seeing a kid with a bloody nose. Smacked my head hard against the linoleum. Came-to with my head in Dad’s lap, felt just like I was a kid again. I just— He’d crumpled each draft into a ball.

“I can’t, Dad,” he’d croaked, trying to explain it to him. “I never have the words for him.”

“You can always tell me the words,” Dad had coaxed, holding his face. “You can dictate to me. Or I can tell them things, in my letters.”

He shook his head. “I’ll ruin it.”

“How will you ruin it, Hawk?”

He’d let out a wet sob, burying his face in his father’s chest. “I love him,” he’d whined so pathetically, snot dripping out his nose, his dad’s shirt fully soaked. He was drunk and ridiculous and far too vulnerable.

“I don’t blame him,” Hawkeye sighed, knocking his ankle against BJ’s. “You would’ve kept writing if he hadn’t.”

BJ blinked at him, taken aback.

“Of course I would’ve.” He squeezed Hawkeye’s knee. “I care about you, Hawk. That doesn’t just stop.”

“C’mon, Beej.” He scoffed.

“What?” BJ frowned. “I do.”

“It was war. We were cogs in a senseless killing machine. We needed each other.”

“Okay,” BJ nodded. “And I still need you.”

The idea was ridiculous. What could Hawkeye provide him?

“I’m an alcoholic,” he scoffed.

“So am I.”

“I’m a terminal bachelor. I’m a slob. I always have to get the last word in.”

BJ rolled his eyes. “I know all this, Hawk.”

“You have a family—”

 “Aren’t we family?”

Hawkeye’s breath hitched. 

“Don’t you get it, Hawkeye?” He ran both hands through his hair, tugging at it. “You’re important to me! I think about you constantly. I worry about you all the time. I can’t help but think that if I was there— I want to be there, Hawk! If you’d just let me help! If you’d just—” He broke off into a frustrated huff.

Their eyes met, across the distance of the canoe, Hawkeye’s heart thrumming loud in his chest.

And then, suddenly, BJ lunged forward.

Hawkeye flinched, falling back off his seat. The entire boat rocked, a flash of panic riveting through him. He couldn’t handle someone he loved pushing him in again.

But Hawkeye didn’t go overboard. Instead, his ass slammed into the bottom of the boat, his legs propped up by the wooden seat. BJ had grabbed his face between his hands and now, leaning over him, kissed him fervently.

Hawk’s hands flew up to touch him, to cradle the back of BJ’s head and press their faces close. He couldn’t let him slip away.

He gasped into BJ’s mouth and laughed as their teeth clacked together. He sucked on BJ’s bottom lip, scraping his teeth along it, drawing out a sigh. He melted into the longstanding, aching want that lived deep in his bones. 

BJ pulled back, hands still on Hawkeye’s face. “Is this—? Do you…?”

“Yes,” Hawkeye nodded, tugging him back into the embrace.

He could taste the beer they were drinking and the mustard from the sandwiches. He’d hoped his lips weren’t too chapped, that his mouth wasn’t too wet, a teenage accusation of slobbering stuck to his mind. But BJ chased his kiss eagerly, hungrily. He forgot that he’d ever been out of practice, that there had ever been a time in his life that he wasn’t kissing BJ Hunnicutt in a canoe on Milk Pond.

BJ broke the kiss first, pressing their foreheads together as he panted, his hands now securely at Hawkeye’s waist, fingers slipping under the fabric of his cotton tee. He looked down at their mess of tangled limbs, at the way his own shins pressed against the wooden board that served as a seat. “Are you comfortable?” He asked, almost confused.

“Not at all,” Hawkeye confessed, throwing his head back with a laugh. 

They shuffled around the boat, shifting towards the middle, angling themselves to be comfortable and still largely out of view. “Don’t want to get caught in Mrs. Richardson’s binoculars,” Hawkeye joked, laying atop him.

His fingers threaded through the hair at the back of BJ’s head, the part where it curled up. He’d studied the length for months, the different ways BJ would cut it down, the way Hawkeye would watch him rub his fingers there, complaining of needing a haircut.

BJ tilted his head, kissing him sweetly, and Hawk struggled to process that this was real, not some vivid dream. They could spend hours like this, kissing instead of talking. Instead of fighting.

And they did. 

Until there was a tug on the line.

Hawkeye sat right up. “Oh my god.”

“What?” BJ’s eyes widened, panic flashing over his face.

He patted BJ’s chest hurriedly. “We’ve got one!” 

They fumbled around the boat, rocking it precariously, until Hawkeye managed to grab hold of the fishing rod affixed to the gunwale, the spinning wheel whining.

“Christ,” he swore, the fish tugging and tugging, the rod nearly snapping. BJ grabbed hold of him and the rod, pulling him back, trying to help wrangle. The fish thrashed wildly and fought against them, but they tightened their grip and waited until eventually, the fish tired out, and Hawk could reel it in with a cheer.

BJ laughed, unbelievably light, as they pulled out a huge smallmouth bass, nearly eighteen inches. “What a beaut!”

Hawkeye lifted the fish up, posing as BJ mimed taking a photograph. He laughed, too, and realized suddenly that he’d felt lighter than he had in months. 

He’d tired out, himself. Here BJ was, reeling him in.

He placed the fish in the antique Pierce creel, a woven basket that had been passed down multiple generations. It was well-loved, the wicker starting to wear, and was allegedly used by Tombstone Pierce in trading with the Abenaki. He settled the basket in the boat and watched as BJ lifted the tackle box and occupied himself with the task of attaching fresh bait, carefully affixing a worm.

“What?” He furrowed his brow, catching Hawkeye staring.

His mouth went dry. He swallowed, putting on a little smile. “You’re quite the catch, Beej.”

BJ snorted, dropping the line back in the water. “I’m a little hooked on you.”

Damn Mrs. Richardson, damn anyone else who might spot them out on the pond. They could say whatever they wanted, Hawkeye didn’t care anymore. He grabbed BJ by the lapels of his flannel and kissed him once more.

~

A bell chimed above the door at the Imperial Grill, announcing Hawkeye and Trapper to the din of the Friday night dinner crowd. They stumbled in, faces rosy and smiling, and immediately faced recognition.

“Do my eyes deceive me?” A man with a big bushy beard called from behind the bar. “Did Hawkeye Pierce just walk through my door?”

Hawkeye turned his head, catching those green eyes across the way.

“Bobby Levy, you beautiful son of a bitch,” he rushed to the end of the bar, pulling the man into a hug. 

Throughout Hawkeye’s entire residency, Bobby had been the bartender at Duke’s, three blocks from Brigham Hospital. He had seen Hawkeye at some of his worst and drunkest moments. When Carlye Breslin had smashed his heart into pieces. The three-day-bender he’d gone on while celebrating getting the cardiothoracic fellowship. The day he got his draft notice.

“You’re back in town?” Bobby looked him over, flashing a smile with that charming little overbite.

“Dropping in on some old friends,” Hawkeye corrected, motioning back toward Trapper.

“John,” Trapper reached out to shake his hand.

“Bobby,” he shook it.

“We’re in for dinner,” Trapper gave a charming smirk. “Think you can hook us up?”

“Of course!” Bobby patted both their shoulders. “Nothing but the best for you fine gentlemen.”

Trapper grinned like the cat who got the cream.

The two of them hit it off with the guy drinking alone next to them, a redheaded man named Luke who had been happy to join in on their merriment.

“What are you celebrating?” He’d asked the two of them, caught in their infectious laughter.

“We just got married!” Trapper shouted, throwing an arm around Hawkeye.

“Don’t tell my father,” Hawk faux-whispered.

“Ah,” Luke nodded with understanding. “Shotgun wedding, I take it?”

“Oh, yeah,” Trapper agreed. “He’s drinking for two,” he laughed again, then rubbed the front of Hawk’s belly.

It shocked him, Hawkeye’s face suddenly flushing at the image. Luke wouldn’t know about the time Hawk had gotten lost in the hazy arousal of being fucked into a shelf in Supply and begged Trapper to put a baby in him. At the time, Trapper had laughed, not mockingly but in surprise. And then, he took the cue, running his mouth filthily about filling him up.

Luke slapped cash onto the bar, shocking Hawkeye out of the memory. “Another round for the newlyweds!”

They were hammered. Dinner, though hearty and filling, was no match for rounds after round of hard liquor.

“There was this guy in our unit,” Trapper had swayed in his seat.

“Frank Burns,” Hawkeye sneered.

“We tortured the poor bastard.”

“He deserved it!”

“He did,” Trapper agreed. He set his glass down on the bar. Bobby immediately refilled it. “The guy was a weasel.”

“A real Ferret Face,” Hawk added.

“This one time, we really baited him. We tricked him into thinking this phony stock company would really hit it off. The guy sold his entire portfolio for it!” Trapper, drunk and homesick, had threatened to go AWOL before that prank had him in tears, falling over laughing. Hawk immediately tried to forget that.

“My favorite was when we put him in that crate,” he grinned.

“Oh, and remember when we convinced him there were gold deposits all around the camp?”

“God, and the time we put a toe tag on him and he ended up at Battalion Aid— What did that tag say?”

Trapper furrowed his brow, still swaying. “I must be too drunk to remember that.”

“We both were pretty gone at the time, and you— ‘Emotionally exhausted!’” He remembered, suddenly. “And morally bankrupt!’”

Trapper continued to frown. “I can’t believe I don’t remember—”

“Oh shit,” Hawkeye laughed suddenly, face flushed, liquor melting any working part of his brain.  The drinks were catching up to him at a rapid pace.

“What?” Trapper leaned in.

“That wasn’t you, Curly,” he chuckled, trying to ignore how the room began to spin. “It was Beej.”

“Beej?” He repeated.

“The guy after you.”

He couldn’t make out Trapper’s face, wishing to read the expression he conjured. “He was good, then?”

“Oh yeah,” Hawkeye nodded. “He was great. He was…”

BJ was like a dream he’d made up. He’d gone and learned how to play every one of Hawkeye’s heart strings. He wanted to kick himself for running away. But he couldn’t think about that. Not right now.

“He was what?” Trapper’s knee pressed against his. Luke had already lost interest in them, chatting up the other bar patrons.

“We got on well,” Hawkeye’s voice cracked. “He— He became really important to me.”

Trapper blinked. He must have been expecting a joke about how much he’d missed him, about how much better Trap was than his replacement. “That’s good,” he nodded, finishing off his glass. 

“Yeah,” Hawkeye agreed, finishing his.

~

Sometimes, while sleeping a crick into his neck on Margaret’s daybed, Hawkeye would have nightmares.

The dream had started relatively innocent, with Hawkeye out on the pond behind his house, sitting on the dock with Tommy Gillis, kicking their bare feet into the water. It was mid-summer. Hawk was newly fifteen. He’d only just been ungrounded from sneaking out past curfew, his arguments with his father having gotten far worse by then.

Hormones, Dad would scoff into his breakfast.

In some act of rebellion, Hawkeye would rarely eat the scrambled eggs and bacon his father labored over. Some mornings in Korea, when the worst spells of homesickness came over him, he’d become awashed with guilt over all the food he’d wasted in the midst of petty spats. Most mornings, he’d’ve given anything to have one more breakfast with Dad.

Tommy was smiling, mouth open as he laughed at something stupid one of them had said. Tommy, with his blond hair and blue eyes, his string of constant jokes that kept Hawk on his toes. Hawkeye, a rush in his chest, leaned over and kissed him. 

They’d become friends over childhood afternoons of lounging in each others’ bedrooms. Hawkeye would recount books he’d read, telling him about Histoire de Babar, trying to teach the other boy French. Tommy was more interested in rambling on about baseball cards. He made Hawk buy Goudey gum so he could double his efforts, scrounging for a Bambino.

As teenagers, they ran amok in Crabapple Cove in the evenings, when they were free from the expectation of school and summer jobs. The summer Hawk turned fifteen, Dickie and Toby had found a cave down the coast, where they’d invite girls to drink and smoke cigarettes behind their parents’ backs. Hawkeye couldn’t stay in there more than a few minutes, pale and clammy, panicking.

“This place gives me the creeps, guys,” Tommy had whined to their friends. “I don’t want to spend my summer in some damp cave. Do you, Hawk?”

“God, no,” he scoffed, dramatically.

He’d done it for Hawkeye’s benefit, dragging him out of there before his claustrophobia could be outed to all of the town’s cool teens. He had a nagging fear that someone would catch on and decide to stuff him in a locker.

And so he and Tommy had further splintered off from the friend group that summer and Hawkeye, having already slept with Lisa Albright (from the grade above them) and Sierra Wilbur (from Brookline, though she had a summer house in Crabapple Cove), discovered the more complicated sexual feelings that began to arise when he and Tommy tackled each other to the ground just a tad too rough.

Tommy returned the kiss, in the dream, just as he had in his memory.

Hawkeye largely remembered that summer as dangerous. Becoming sexually adventurous with your best friend was not a task taken lightly. Come Fall, they each had found a girl to pair off with, new objects of affection. And if there were moments where the two of them were alone, sneaking alcohol and cigarettes before stumbling into one another, they never spoke of it. Not to anyone. Not even each other.

After high school, Tommy had been an amorphous fixture. In and out of Hawkeye’s life, plucking at heart strings that were supposed to be safely tucked away. There was one Christmas that had made his head spin, that had left him with fantastical ideas about Chicago, a post-coital haze. A month later, Tommy was married.

That had been the end of it. Would have been the end of it, too. But then Tommy chased a story. All the way to Korea. Hawkeye didn’t know if he could ever forgive him.

In the dream, as he and Tommy kissed, he was held firmly by the shoulders. He gasped as Tommy slipped his tongue in his mouth, as he kissed the daylights out of him, until the two of them fell back, crashing into the water.

One of these days, he was actually going to drown in Milk Pond. 

They’d laughed about it, in his memory. But in his dream, the water shifted. To Lake Michigan in October. They were naked. Tommy had kissed him, again, before splashing him with a big wave. Hawkeye went under.

It shifted again, to a setting more familiar to Hawk’s nightmares. The Charles River. When they lived together, Carlye often shook him awake from dreams of drowning in the toxic sludge. Her voice echoed through the river, but he couldn’t make out any words. He opened his mouth to speak but began to choke. He grasped upwards, desperate to hang onto something.

He was overtaken, dragged further into the deep, pressure pushing against his bones. He gasped in pain, black muck beginning to fill his lungs.

And then, he was in the Yellow Sea. BJ was holding his head underwater.

Hawkeye thrashed, pushing himself up and out of the water, shoving BJ hard. BJ fell back, landing on his ass in the shallow part of the cove.

His mouth was open, his head thrown back, his teeth blindly white. His hat, the patched one that had once been Trapper’s, had fallen off. It was starting to get swept by the sea.

It was just the two of them, at that beach north of Incheon. It was far warmer than the Gulf of Maine.

“You asshole,” Hawk yelled as BJ continued to laugh, clutching his stomach.

“God, you should see your face!” There were tears in his eyes as he laughed.

He stood back up, heading back towards Hawkeye, his laughter stilling as he caught the look on his face.

“Hawk?” He frowned, suddenly, and reached out to him

“Don’t touch me,” Hawkeye hissed, batting him away.

“Okay.” BJ held both his hands in the air. “Are you alright?”

He breathed in deep. In, then out. “I’m fine,” he grumbled through gritted teeth.

“You’re sure?”

BJ affected a softness in his voice that Hawk couldn’t help but recognize as Dr. Hunnicutt, with that impeccable bedside manner.

The steam died out. “Yeah,” he sighed, standing up, out of the water. “Sorry, I— Yeah.”

BJ reached out to grab his elbow. Hawkeye let him, grounded by the warmth of his touch.

“One day,” he smiled, eye crinkling. “You and I will go to Stinson Beach.”

“Yeah?” Hawk felt his own smile begin to grow.

“Yeah,” BJ promised.

A violent wave hit, and he fell forward. BJ’s hand caught his forearm, gripping him tight. They were drenched.

“God,” Hawkeye shivered.

“It’s alright,” BJ told him. “The storm will pass soon.”

Hawkeye nodded, trusting him.

Another wave hit, this one even stronger. He grasped at BJ, hands at his hips, fingers hooked in his belt loops. Hawkeye kissed him briefly. Half a second or so. And then, his ankle was grabbed by the riptide.

“BJ!” He screamed, as he was pulled back out to sea.

He woke up, panting heavily in Margaret’s living room. Her kitchen radio sang out some tinny jazz.

“Hawkeye?” Margaret’s soft voice called out, through the French doors.

“Sorry,” he cringed. “ I’m fine, I—”

She’d already gotten out of bed, pushing the doors open and blinking at him, in the dark, splayed out on the couch, shirtless and sweaty, still panting.

“Bad dream?” She was in a sheer nightgown, her hair in curlers.

“Yeah,” he puffed, making room for her to sit down next to him. “Go back to bed, I’m fine, really—”

“No,” Margaret shook her head, taking a seat. “How about I tell you a bedtime story?”

“About nurses?” Hawkeye begged, playing up his pleading eyes.

“Alright,” she smiled. “About nurses.”

Her voice soft with nostalgia, Margaret began to tell her tale, painting a picture of Fort Benning, down in Georgia.

“My roommate, we had been at the same nursing school. I had always admired her from afar, but I— I didn’t think she’d remember me.”

“Who could forget you?” He frowned.

She pushed him lightly, a shy smile on her face. “Well, she did remember me. Actually, she’d traded rooms with another girl so she could bunk with me.”

“Helen, right?” He’d remembered those months Helen Whitfield had spent at the 4077th, mainly because Margaret was always at her side, the two of them leaning together, laughing together. It was the happiest he’d seen her, the entire war.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “She— We became close. She taught me a lot of things. Like being a rebel.”

“You, a rebel?”

“I wanted to impress her, y’know? We used to cook meals on a hot plate in our room. All the girls would come over and trade us lipsticks and hair products and booze just to have a decent meal. We had to bribe the Head Nurse with a chili dog.”

She told him about Helen picking azaleas for her, about going out on the town in Columbus and dancing to the jukebox, remembering the swish of Helen’s skirt against her calves.

“You should visit her,” he urged, resting a hand atop Margaret's.

“Maybe I should,” she smiled, warmth in her cheeks

~

Hawkeye’s hotel room in Boston was Cheap. Capital C. He had a tiny full bed with a mattress that was both lumpy and hard, something wrong with the springs. The wallpaper was peeling. Last night, he could hear mice in the walls. But it worked, for now.

He and Trapper found themselves there, opening a fresh bottle they'd bought from the liquor store around the corner.

Hawkeye sat on the edge of his bed, tugging off his shoes. They were far too dressy for walking around the streets of Boston, now further scuffed, his feet left sore. He was happy, though. And pleasantly drunk.

Trapper poured them both a round, setting the bottle on the table before joining him on the bed. He’d told his wife not to wait up, having called before they’d even had lunch, while he was clearing his entire afternoon.

They cheersed, downing their booze.

“Glad to have you back, Hawk,” Trap mumbled.

“This was nice,” Hawk grinned. “I’m glad we could catch up.”

“Me too,” he nodded.

They sat together, quiet for a moment.

“Ah, hell,” Trapper sighed, then closed the distance between them, kissing him.

Hawkeye dropped his empty glass, listening to it roll across the carpet as he froze, as everything short-circuited. Here was the Trapper that still lingered in his mind. Sweet, hot Trapper John and his tongue. That mouth. Warm and wet and wanting. His hands went to Trapper’s broad, gorgeous shoulders remembering how good it could be.

At some point, in the midst of the lice and the dysentery, the dead and the dying, the countless suffering of children he was forced to bear witness to, Hawkeye finally had something to commit to besides his work: his survival. Magazines. Booze. Sex. Soliloquies on carnage. Pranks against the ever-prejudiced Frank Burns. Laughter that eased the dull ache in his chest. Whatever little rebellions he could manage. Trapper, in his role as designated best friend, made sure Hawk was never lacking.

It would be so easy to just give in, to let Trapper peel off his clothes and fuck him into the mattress, the way they used to tangle together some nights on R&R, under a half-mumbled excuse of saving money. Like the late nights in Supply, when the nurses were too sore with either of them. Like those few times behind Rosie’s, the bruises on his knees he’d never forget.

And really, Hawk should’ve let things happen, should’ve pushed the tangle of emotions aside to let Trapper give him an expert handy, at least. Orgasms were still his favorite stress-reliever.

He whimpered as fingers pulled at the buttons of his shirt, sucking kisses and teeth scraping against the soft skin of his neck.

“Trap,” he whined, hands settled on his shoulders, lightly pushing him off.

“C‘mon, Hawk,” his breath ghosted over Hawkeye’s ear. “You can’t pretend you only like this in times of war.”

He was tempted, Trapper’s hand traveling across the front of his pants, sliding along his length.

“I’ve met someone,” Hawk croaked instead.

“And?” Trapper’s hand rested on his thigh.

“What do you mean ‘And?’”

He rolled his eyes. “I have a wife. I’m still here.”

Hawkeye moved a hand to his chest, keeping him at bay. “I’m serious, Trap.”

Trapper blinked at him, brow furrowing. “Really?”

Suddenly, he felt nauseous. He stood up, pushing off of the bed, and began to pace the hotel room, embarrassingly half-hard in his jeans as his mind wouldn’t quiet, as everything buzzed around him.

“We should talk first,” Hawkeye told him, though the moment he’d gotten to his feet he knew they weren’t going to have sex.

“Talk?” Trapper sat up, frowning. “You’re drunker than I thought.”

“Trap,” he insisted, cutting through the bullshit.

He’d gotten lost in that warm glow in his chest, the sweetness of nostalgia and the years he had spent missing him.

“What’s eating you, kid?” Trapper blinked at him with those soft brown eyes, confusion settling on his face.

Hawkeye sighed, running a hand through his hair, a sea of emotion churning inside him, tangling with frustration and grief and the feeling that every thought of his was ridiculous.

“You left,” he answered, a tension building in his throat. He cleared it, trying to make it stop. He couldn’t cry right now. “Without a goodbye.”

It had hurt him more than he could ever explain.

Trapper just frowned. “We tried to reach you, Hawk.” Twenty-four hours straight, Radar had said. 

“Not hard enough.”

“I didn’t want you to cut the trip short. You— You needed the R&R, Hawk. You were a little more sideways than usual.”

He’d been on the Henry Blake Memorial Geisha Crawl, filling the week with sex and alcohol, numbing himself of any knowledge that he was seven thousand miles from home to work as a cog in the war machine, a part of the incredible unending destruction of human life, under oath to do his very best to heal, to fix, to prevent. No, Hawkeye had gone to Tokyo, seeking women, seeking men, seeking anesthetic. 

Trapper, probably because he too protested the war as a salacious soak, couldn’t follow Hawkeye’s mania, had stared on in horror at a tirade Hawkeye had been on in the Officer’s Club, words that he hadn’t remembered but were enough to get a week of R&R from Frank Burns, at Margaret’s insistence that he had to leave the camp.

“You could’ve left a note,” Hawkeye insisted.

“What, you wanted me to pour my heart onto some letter that Radar would peek at?”

“I wanted a goodbye,” he shook his head. “It means something to me, Trap,” He sat back down on the bed. “I raced to Kimpo to find you. But you were already gone.”

“I’m here now, Hawk,” Trapper slid close to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We don’t have to say goodbye.”

Hawkeye snorted. “We will when you go home to your wife.”

“Ah.” Trapper pulled his hand back. Hawk nearly whimpered, but he suppressed it, staring at the seam of the hotel wallpaper.

“You didn’t even write.”

“I had to put it behind me,” Trapper swallowed. “For my girls, Hawk.”

“Well, I couldn’t put it behind me, Trap.” His throat burned against his words. “I was still there.” He laughed, but it caught in his throat, and quickly his laughter morphed into gasps, into sobs as he couldn’t stop the tears from spilling out.

“Hawk,” Trapper’s eyes widened. “You’re really upset about this?”

“Of course I’m upset!” Big, wet teardrops rolled down his face. “Henry died, Trapper. If you’d died on the way home, would we have even gotten a letter?”

“I didn’t die on the way home!” Trapper grabbed his hand, squeezed it tight between both of his. “I’m right here. Right in front of you.”

And Hawk shook his head. It was already over.

He couldn’t find the words for Trapper. Whatever they had, it changed forever on the day he left. Because for two more years, Hawkeye was stuck in Korea. 

He’d been embarrassed to cry, though Trapper didn’t judge him, and they sat on his bed, an awkward shade of drunk, and decided to talk. Hawkeye had begun to pick at the big nasty scab. It’d been itchy.

~

Margaret, sitting in the air-conditioned nook of their little lunch spot, frowned at him.

“Trapper?” She asked, eyes widened.

He cringed. “Don’t get me started on that.”

Her eyes flicked across his face. “You were in Boston.”

“That’s not an affair, Margaret. That’s— It’s a complicated friendship.”

“We have a complicated friendship; you two have an affair.”

“Okay, fine, it was an affair. Was. But we— That wasn’t why I was in Boston.”

“Why were you in Boston?”

“Because I was flying home.”

“Flying home?” She pressed. “Where were you?”

He swallowed. “San Francisco.”

Margaret’s eyes widened like saucers.

She raised her voice, which echoed through the restaurant, likely further scaring off any server meaning to come by.

“BJ?”

Hawkeye wasn’t sure if they’d ever be able to eat here again.

~

A dam had broken.

He could no longer keep BJ Hunnicutt at arm’s length.

They laid together in that canoe, in the warm, late spring sunlight, kissing until their lips were swollen. 

Hawkeye had bunched up the hem of BJ’s t-shirt, fingertips brushing bare skin. All the daydreaming he’d done, all those dreams he had hoped to forget, all of it was rewritten by a firm reality, by the taste of BJ’s mouth.

“Hawk,” BJ whispered, pressing a kiss behind his ear, at his mastoid process. 

“Mmm?” He was awfully dazed by now, hazy and warm from the affection. They weren’t even kissing anymore, merely laid out in a tangle of limbs, breathing each other in.

“My back is killing me.”

They both laughed. The canoe was anything but comfortable. 

Hawkeye agreed to paddle to shore. They were out of sandwiches, anyway. They had a fish to cook up, too.

As they paddled back, as they dragged the canoe up the hill, as they secured the gear in the garage, BJ kept looking back at him. Smiling. 

Late spring was finally beginning to touch summer, the ovenbirds singing over and over again. The light bounced off BJ's hair, now cleanly trimmed. He almost looked how he did when they first met, though the grays at his temples gave him away, the war leaving its mark.

The Chevy was still in the driveway, but the house was quiet as they entered.

“Dad?” Hawk called from the front entryway.

No response.

“He take your bike?” BJ joked, following him into the house.

They stepped into the kitchen, Hawkeye setting down the creel. On the counter, next to their cheeky “Gone Fishin’” note, was the yellow-lined notepad, marked up in his Dad’s script.

Gone Bowlin’, it started. Craig’s hosting after. Denny’s driving me. Have fun.

“Guess we’re on our own for dinner,” he hummed, stalking over to the fridge. “Can you cook?”

“Are you kidding?” BJ leaned against the counter. “I was Mill Valley’s Top Home Chef of 1954!”

Hawkeye turned back to him. “You’ve barely touched a stove, have you?”

He smiled, sheepish. “I can boil some water?”

Thankfully, Dad kept a well-stocked fridge. Hawk began to pull ingredients out onto the kitchen worktable. Buttermilk, lemons, herbs. White wine. He briefly slipped into the pantry, returning with rice and bouillon cubes. Shallots, too.

“What on Earth are these?” BJ pointed to a carton of spiraling fronds.

“Fiddleheads, Beej.” Hawkeye flashed a smile, flitting around the kitchen as he gathered their supplies. “The people of Maine have been eating them for centuries.”

From one of the drawers, he pulled out a small box of recipes gifted to him by Aunt Eloise. He flipped through the handwritten cards until he found what he was looking for. Risotto al limone.

BJ peered over his shoulder, frowning at the scrawl. “You know Italian?”

Hawk turned back to him, baring a grin. “Amor, ch'al cor gentile ratto s'apprende / prese costui de la bella persona / che mi fu tolta; e 'l modo ancor m'offende.”

Beej looked at him unbelievably fond, making something in his chest unlatch, warm in his heart.

“Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona, / Mi prese del costui piacer sì forte, / Che, come vedi, ancor non m'abbandona..."

BJ clapped as he finished, laughing softly. Hawkeye bowed.

“That’s Dante,” he explained as he pulled out the cutting board. “Bisnonna, my great grandmother, came over from Italy just before the turn of the century. She learned English, but she would only ever speak to me in Italian. Pazienza, piccolino! She used to tell me. Chi troppo vuole, niente ha!”

“What’s that mean?”

“He who wants too much gets nothing.” He handed BJ two pots. “Fill these both with water and light them on the stove, will you?”

BJ did as he was told. 

“I don’t know it as well as I should,” Hawkeye continued on as he heard BJ working behind him. “I’ve tried to keep up with it, but she was the only one who spoke it with me and she passed when I was seven.”

“I’m sorry, Hawk.”

“She was old.” He shrugged. “My mother bought me as many Italian books as she could. French, too, since she spoke it. I can read them both more than I can speak them. I tried to learn Polish, too. Back in undergrad, to feel closer to her or something. But it didn’t work out.”

“Too much work?” BJ appeared behind him, waiting for his next task.

“No,” he shook his head, huffing a small laugh. “I slept with the tutor.”

They slipped into a routine, BJ following his exact direction. He boiled, he minced, he zested. He watched Hawk with rapt attention, as he filleted their grand bass, then set it in a bath of buttermilk, before it was seasoned and placed in the oven.

They laughed together as they cooked, BJ on a roll of horrible cooking-based puns. Why did the pepper shaker go to jail? For a-salt with a deadly weapon! Hawk felt lighter and lighter as time went on, face warm from all the smiling.

He had BJ set the kitchen table, watching as he rummaged through the credenza, pulling out dinner napkins that were probably only used once a decade.

“God, it smells amazing, Hawk,” BJ swooned as he placed the sides on the table. Lemon risotto and sauteed fiddleheads.

Hawkeye followed him, setting down their bass. It had come out far better than he’d expected.

“Ta-da!” He sang, gesturing with jazz hands.

“Well done, Hawk,” BJ complimented, watching as Hawkeye began to load up their plates.

“I couldn’t have done it without my trusty sous.”

They ate together, peacefully. BJ had set the table so they were kitty-corner, rather than across from one another, meaning Hawkeye could press their knees together under the table.

He was proud of the meal they’d made, was elated to see the pleased expressions on BJ’s face as he ate, as he cleared his plate.

“Have you always been this good of a cook?” He asked, helping himself to more risotto.

“God, no.” Hawk shook his head. “I used to be terrible, just scraping by. Pasta dishes and things. Takeout.”

His first few years on his own, Hawk subsisted on whitefish from Sol and Sol’s Delicatessen and deli sandwiches from the corner store across from his shoebox apartment.

“But when I came home… It was hard to eat.”

Three years of picking away at camp food, of subsisting on expired jars of martini olives. He was unbalanced, coming home. He’d gotten so good at ignoring his own hunger that when he did eat, starvation would catch up to him, his mouth bigger than his stomach, and he’d end up making himself sick.

“My dad— He put his foot down. I needed routine, he’d said. I was in charge of making breakfast.”

“The best reason to get out of bed each morning,” BJ nodded, repeating Dad’s words.

“He’d started doing it when my mother got sick,” Hawk nodded. “Responsibility is one way to start your day.”

BJ nodded, politely. His seconds were already finished by now.

“What about you, Beej? You’ve never been a cook?”

He shrugged. “There was one summer, back in undergrad, where I took a course in Monterey, living in a shack by the water. I’d never been alone that long. It was strange. I mostly subsisted on burnt grilled cheeses,” He laughed. “But I was independent, y’know?”

“Yeah,” Hawkeye nodded, picturing a young BJ cursing at his tiny, shoddy stove. He didn’t talk much about his life before college. Hawkeye, who talked non-stop about his father, didn’t know a thing about BJ’s parents. Nothing that ever sounded like more than a joke. But Hawkeye wasn’t going to ask. He couldn’t risk scaring him off.

His next thought wasn’t any better, though. Because after leaving behind the Stanford dining halls, BJ wouldn’t have had to cook for himself. He had a wife.

Somehow, he’d let himself forget that sticker plastered on BJ’s forehead, the one that read MARRIED.

“How about some dessert?” He stood up, grabbing their plates, suddenly nervous. He brought them to the sink, running the water. “I think we’ve got some vanilla ice cream in the freezer.”

“Hawk,” he heard BJ get up from his chair, approaching behind him.

“I think I have a jar of caramel somewhere,” he continued to rant on, making sure to fill their used pots with soapy water. “And if we go blueberry picking tomorrow, I can make us some cake. There won’t be enough for a pie, but it’s a good recipe, and—”

“Hawk,” BJ repeated, a hand on his arm. Hawkeye turned to him, embarrassment flaming his cheeks.

“Yeah?”

BJ pulled him into a kiss.

His shoulders relaxed. The panic petered out of him. He brought a hand to BJ’s cheek, still wet and a little soapy.

BJ breathed into him, slowing everything down. He could get used to something like this.

~

“Nice room,” Trapper hummed as he poured them each another round. The room was nice. Soft-bedding. Air conditioning. The shower head was actually taller than him. BJ and Margaret had done a good job in picking the location.

“Thanks,” Hawkeye smiled as Trapper handed him the glass, standing over him.

His throat felt dry. All day, he’d been all over Trapper. A hand, firm on his chest. Laughing, louder than he needed to. Footsies, under the table at dinner. They’d exchanged that same mischievous glance they always had. It was an old habit that was easy to fall into.

“So,” Trapper’s weight creaked as he sat back on the hotel bed, twisting his empty glass around. “What’s the deal with this Beej guy?”

Hawkeye had left the curtains open, the Chicago skyline twinkling in the night, lights stretching out around them before giving way to the dark, expansive waters of Lake Michigan.

“What do you mean?” Hawk asked, playing coy.

“Why do we hate him?”

“We don’t hate him,” he quickly corrected, defensively. “He just—”

“You’re in a fight,” Trapper deduced.

“It’s that obvious, then?”

“So, it’s him?” Trapper looked beautiful, illuminated by the light from the window. “That’s the guy?”

“Beej?” Hawk forced out a laugh, standing up to get the bottle. “No, he—”

His hand shook as he poured. Trapper placed a hand on top of his, steadying him. Hawk pulled back, as soon as the glass was filled. He held onto the bottle.

“Y’know,” Trap hummed to himself, a little bit pleased. “He was flirting with me at the bar.”

“Who?”

“Beej,” he said through his nose, a light mockery of Hawk’s voice.

“What? No he wasn’t.”

“He was,” Trap laughed, his eyes narrowed, that smirk plastered on his face. “Before you showed up.”

“He was not.”

“Hawk. I think I know when someone’s flirting with me.”

He spluttered, not even bothering to give the thought real weight. “I don’t believe you.”

Trapper continued to laugh. “Look at you. You’re absolutely frothing!”

“Trapper—“

“C’mon. A well-tailored blond? That’s just catnip for you.”

“He’s married,” Hawkeye insisted.

“Like that’s ever stopped you.”

This entire weekend was starting to feel like a mistake. Why had he agreed to any of this? He could feel himself starting to sweat.

“Y’know,” he glared at Trapper. “I’m beginning to feel a lot less hospitable.”

“C’mon, Hawk,” Trapper continued on, like he was desperate for Hawkeye to give him a fat lip. “You’re always going to chase the married ones. You don’t have to commit to someone who’s already committed to someone else.”

“You really have no idea what you’re talking about,” he growled.

“Are you kidding? We lived together for a year, Hawk. I know you better than you know yourself.”

Whatever flame that had been flickering in his chest suddenly burst into an inferno, anger clouding his vision.

“Nuh-uh,” Hawkeye shook his head. “Hold on a minute, buster. You don’t get to act like you know me, Trap. Not when you never even reached out.”

“We’re back to this again?”

“Of course we’re back to this again!”

Trapper shook his head. “We had what we had when we had it, Hawk.”

Now, he was really pissed.

“Then it’s a good thing it’s over now, huh?”

Trapper scoffed, reaching for the bottle, for a top off.

Hawkeye stood up, suddenly, holding it close to his chest. “You think you can just insult me and then drink all my booze?”

“You spent the day all over me, Hawk! It’s the least you can do for my blue balls!”

“Your blue balls?” Hawk scoffed. “Is that all I am to you? Someone to fuck?”

“Oh, come off it, Hawk, you know that’s not true—“

“Do I?”

“I never hid from you that I was married, I never pretended we had something more than what it was—”

“I thought I meant something to you!”

He had spent so much time fixated on what he could do to make Trapper laugh, what he could do to make each day easier for the both of them.

“Of course you did, Hawkeye!” His voice cracked as he yelled. “You meant a great deal to me. But I had to go home! I had to put the war behind me!”

Hawk couldn’t blame him for that, no matter how much it hurt.

He opened his mouth to speak, to quip back something else in anger, but he was interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Hmm?” Trapper hummed sarcastically. “I wonder who that could be?”

“Hawk?” BJ called through the door, knocking once more. “C’mon, I know you’re in there.”

Hawk cringed, heart caught in his throat.

Before he could say something, before his mind could catch up, Trapper made a beeline across the room.

“Trap—” He shouted, chasing after him.

Trapper was far more athletic, and he had a head start. He reached the door, whipping it wide open with enthusiasm.

“BeeJay!” From the tone of his voice, he was grinning impishly. “What a surprise!”

BJ, on the other side of the door, squared off against him.

“Trapper,” he smiled, all teeth. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“He was just leaving,” Hawk interrupted, shooting a glare at Trapper before catching BJ’s eye. He was less flushed, his hair a little mussed. He’d missed a belt loop in getting dressed.

“Take my drink,” Trapper pushed his glass into BJ’s hand, barely a finger left. “Goodnight,” he gritted at Hawk, storming off down the hall, back to his room.

They both watched him, BJ flinching at the slam of the door.

“Trouble in paradise?” He recovered, a cruel tease.

Hawkeye’s glare fixed back at him, not in the mood. “Are you coming in or not?”

BJ nodded, stepping into the room, bringing Trapper’s glass up to his lips. Hesitantly, he began to drink.

Hawkeye closed the door, leaning back against it with a huff. He was unbelievably tense.

“Can we talk?” BJ asked, voice softened.

He pushed off the door, crossing the room back to his glass, bottle still in hand.

“Yeah,” he said, pouring himself another drink. This was how they talked.