(no subject)
Title: "When the Wind Blows the Stars"
Author: Aura218
Pairing: Hawkeye/B.J., B.J./Peg
Genre: PG13, romance, coming out, 50s, postwar, San Francisco
Summary: Go back in time to the years right after the war, before B.J. and Hawkeye were Gentleman Doctors, when B.J. was very confused and looking to discover himself. Part 1 of a 4 part arc.
Timeline: 1954-55
Part of the Gentleman Doctors series
Part 1/4 of the How it Happened arc
Read: Part 1
Ch 2/2
"When the Wind Blows the Stars"
They drove for forty minutes -- while three sequential radio stations whined in and out on the dial -- until Hawkeye psychically knew to turn into the trees onto a narrow lane. B.J. could hardly tell there was a road as too-close twigs snapped off the grillwork and the gravel petered out to dirt. A less trusting man would consider that this was a good place to dump a body. But then, up ahead, the road opened up to a clearing, lights, and strains of music. Hawkeye pulled over beside another car. B.J. could hear a highway on the other side of the woods. They were parked before a clapboard building that illustrated every 'hunting shack' B.J. had ever imagined in his more savage mystery novels, save the glowing beer signs in the windows.
Hawkeye led him inside with a hand on the small of his back. Mostly men crowded around the tiny bar, or sat together at tables. There were women, too, in dresses or trousers, clearly together as couples. Through the smoke, B.J. could see a lot of closely cut denim and flannel, suits and skinny ties on the younger guys (and girls), shirtwaist dresses. Casual. He wasn't underdressed without his jacket. Someone mournful sang on the jukebox.
Oh. It was a bar for . . . those types of people. That was fine. It was . . . different. A little warning would have been nice. B.J. patted his pocket where the reassuring lump reminded him that if his emotions got out of hand, sweet lady Valium could get him under control.
B.J. turned to say as much to Hawkeye, but to his panic, his friend was gone. But no, there he was, returning from the bar already.
Over the music and chatter, Hawkeye said, "Scotch okay?"
B.J. nodded. He leaned close to Hawkeye's ear. "This is a bar for homosexuals."
"No flies on you," Hawkeye said. "Table or bar?"
B.J. looked around. Guys were flirting at the bar. Touching, hips brushing, laughing at each others' jokes. A woman in a dress leaned in and kissed a woman in a tuxedo. B.J.'s brain fizzled as he tried to put the images together. Hawkeye indicated a table to one side. B.J. realized he didn't have to worry about being seen; the windows were blocked with décor or cardboard.
"How about there?"
B.J. nodded in relief.
Hawkeye sat beside him, not across, and draped his arm across the back of B.J.'s chair. B.J. knocked back half his drink and twirled his glass on the table, watching Hawkeye watch the crowd. Hawkeye wasn't often attentive in the one-on-one sense when there was a crowd to perform for. He liked Hawkeye's gregarious charm -- sometimes. Other times, nights at Rosie's, B.J. found himself jealous that other people got to eat up so much of Hawkeye's energy. Hawkeye's brilliant comedy and performance was a gift he gave everyone but he only had so much to give, and B.J. wished he could hoard a little more for himself, because he knew that when Hawk gave his gifts away, he was giving away little parts of himself.
"You must know every watering hole within a hundred miles," B.J. said.
Hawkeye turned his gaze back on him, in a way that made B.J. feel warmer. "Not really."
B.J. fiddled with a coaster. Hawkeye tilted an eyebrow. B.J. nodded. Message received.
Hawkeye's grin broke out again. "So tell me, Dr. Hunnicutt, is this your first time surrounded by homosexuals?"
Now that he had taken in relaxing quantities of Scotch, and oriented himself to the crowd, B.J.'s nerves were quieting. He knew this song playing on the juke -- it was popular in the last war when he was in college. Nothing strange was going on here, except the men danced with the men and the women danced with the women. All right, that one fellow was a little loose in the joints, a little . . . well, he was weird. Was he like that all the time? Didn't he get harassed? The man he was dancing with looked normal, masculine.
"They're just people," Hawkeye said quietly. "There's nothing going on here that wouldn't happen at a boys-and-girls bar. In fact, it's a cleaner joint, because Lou the owner has the cops keeping watch on him like a pit-bull on a t-bone steak."
"Why did you bring me here?" B.J. said.
Hawkeye shrugged. "I wanted you to see what you're contemplating getting into."
"I didn't say --"
Hawkeye covered B.J.'s hands with his and leaned forward so his bright blue eyes filled B.J.'s field of vision. "I want you to see that it's okay. If you want to go this route, you won't lose yourself. There's no monsters here and no one will force you into anything you don't want to do. Savvy?"
B.J. knocked back his whole glass. His brain stem burned and his ears fizzed. "Yeah. I think so." His heart pounded in his ears. "Do you -- would you want to dance?"
Hawkeye smiled. "Love to."
The number was light, jazzy, Nat King Cole asking the universe to let there be love. Everyone knew this song.
B.J. held Hawkeye in the customary way, but two men holding one another at the waist led to circular dancing the Coriolis Effect. Hawkeye wanted to lead, of course. The Lindy, like all Western European dances, requires that the man goes forward and the woman jumps backwards in high heels. On the first turn, Hawkeye kneed B.J. in the thigh and B.J.'s big clown foot clopped down on Hawkeye's toe. Hawkeye yelped, spinning away.
"I'm sorry!" B.J. cried, rubbing his thigh.
"No, no, are you okay?" Hawkeye reached for him.
"How do they do it?" B.J. gestured to the graceful men dancing around the Two Stooges comedy hour.
Hawkeye pulled B.J. close again. "Look, how about this? I'll take the Lindys and you can have the waltzes, sambas, and anything else I don't know, all right?"
B.J. laughed, following Hawk's jerky dance steps, watching his feet. "At last recall, that was everything that doesn't allow you to look like an epileptic centipede trying to jitterbug on a hot skillet."
B.J. laughed. Hawkeye dipped him, sort of.
The number ended. Hawkeye, B.J., and those who remembered bandstands applauded the juke out of Pavlovian training. Something soft came up, a song B.J. didn't know. Couples were coupling. The air buzzed as he and Hawkeye looked each other over. What kind of night was this? What kind of night did he want it to be?
"Coming through!" A blonde James Dean with a laden tray balanced high over his head paraded through the crowd.
B.J. searched for a waitress or an opening at the bar. What was he thinking? Even if Hawkeye frequented this kind of place, that didn't mean he brought him here for canoodling. Obviously, if Hawkeye was interested, any . . . 'romance' (if you could call what two men did 'romance') could have happened in the privacy of his own house. Meanwhile, Hawkeye was taking off for a clear table, telepathically designating B.J. drink fetcher. It was a habit they had at Rosie's when tables were few.
When B.J. returned to the table, Hawkeye was sitting with an older man who resembled Walt Whitman, the later years. His beard almost met his third shirt button. B.J. was about to introduce himself, but he'd hardly set the drinks down when someone took his hand.
"Hey, skyscraper, you want t' touch the clouds?"
Hawkeye laughed into his glass. B.J. turned. A tall, broad, darkish man wearing a flannel shirt -- a lumberjack of a man -- was holding his hand. Asking him to dance. B.J. had adjusted to the idea of being inside the walls of a bar for homosexuals, dancing with his best male friend, and being in proximity with other homosexual people, thereby forcing his own self-revelation. But he hadn't considered participation.
"He's alone," Hawkeye said.
B.J.'s head snapped around. What was he, meat?
"Go," Hawkeye said. "Play. This is your big night."
"I promise they don't bite unless you say please," the bearded poet said.
B.J. hesitantly twined fingers with the lumberjack. He liked that zing of connection. "Sorry about them, they're, ah, veterans."
The lumberjack smiled. "I'm Luke."
"B --- uh." His fear of disclosure was swallowed up in the crowd.
The man led him to the center of the dance floor. This was wrong. It was good. B.J.'s mind changed as he found himself engulfed in a pair of bear arms. It wasn't unpleasant. Just not what he expected when he thought of going dancing.
"You don't have your queer bar name, B?" Luke rumbled above him.
"Beg pardon?" B.J. pulled back to look him in the eye. He was even taller than B.J.
"The name they put on my paychecks isn't Luke," he said. "And your friend Hawk goes by a different name in town. So what do we call you?"
B.J. rested his chin on the soft flannel. "Anything you like."
*
Hawkeye's elderly friend was Ezra and he was a terrible flirt. Hawkeye and he played tic-tac-toe on napkins while they drank gin and watched the younger people dance.
"You're an idiot," Ezra said.
"Thank you," Hawkeye said. "That means a lot coming from a man who always starts with the bottom center square."
"Don't know how you can play with your eyes on that boy's tokhes," Ezra said.
"What eyes? I have yet to eye, my dear sir." Hawkeye drew a twelver this time, big game on the playground at Crabapple Cove Elementary.
"It is a fine behind." The older man eyed B.J. around his glass. "How did it look in khaki trousers? I always did love a backside in uniform."
"I didn't notice." Hawkeye tapped the napkin with his prescription pen. "Your turn."
"The German uniforms were most smart, you know. Russian, very nice too, if a bit ceremonial. The English looked like a sack of potatoes, but then, that's an Englishman for you. . . ."
Hawkeye eyed him. "If you're not going to play --"
Ezra set his glass down on top of the playing board, as it were. "Ben, I am not here to play games with you when you should be over there with your hands all over that boy showing him an American night."
Hawkeye laughed. "No one's shot the archduke, Ezra, he's not shipping out tomorrow."
"My boy, you think you've gone hollow inside. Whether you believe it or not, your heart is still beating like anyone else's."
Hawkeye betrayed no emotion as he stubbornly selected another napkin and drew a grid. He placed his X in the corner.
Ezra grunted and put his O in the middle. "Think you're so smart. Show me your crystal ball and I'll crack it over your thick skull."
Hawkeye smiled, affection wearing him down. He cupped the old madman's cheek. "You would, too."
Ezra took Hawkeye's hand in both of his. "You make your own destiny, Ben. Why aren't you over there with him?"
B.J. was holding court with Luke the lumberjack and a few of his friends. He'd been asked to dance twice and hadn't paid for a drink in an hour -- as far as Hawkeye could tell, he hadn't been staring at B.J. all night or anything. Of course the boys liked him -- B.J. was fresh blood, all the way from California, tall and handsome, a heroic veteran, if he was playing that angle. The night was his. As it should be. Every homo should have that one coming out night that makes him feel like a queen. The rest of his life was going to bite him in the ass soon enough.
Hawkeye shook his head. "Do you remember him? My bunkie?"
"Trapper?"
"B.J."
"Aha," Ezra said. He patted Hawkeye sympathetically. "The married one."
Hawkeye bitterly watched Ezra make three O's in a row. "Don't say it like that."
Ezra's bushy eyebrows were doing the caterpillar jig. "Don't accuse an old man of anything untoward. Can I help take notice he doesn't seem so much married tonight?"
Hawkeye gestured for the waitress, a nice guy dressed like Deanna Durbin. He felt Ezra's disapproval when he ordered another gin and tonic. He didn't look the old man in his rheumy eyes until the waitress disappeared.
"He says they're getting a divorce," Hawkeye said.
"Sooner than he thinks, I'm sure," Ezra said. B.J. was dancing to 'Til Then' with Phil, the cop who went by 'just Jake' here. Phil had an appendix scar and turned off his CB if you could get him to stop you at a secluded road.
Yeah, B.J. was attractive. But he might not even be queer and if he was, he was Hawkeye's best friend. It was complicated. There are messes Hawk had learned not to stick a toe in. A certain terminally married soldier boy had taught him a thing or two about the price of adultery.
But what if he is queer, Hawkeye's mind sadistically nagged him. That revelation had almost dropped him like a stroke. How many times had he thought . . . no, he wasn't going that route now. He shouldn't have gone that route before, not in his idle ponderings or his hottest fantasies, no matter what kind of aura B.J. sometimes seemed to give off in Korea. No, B.J.'s revelation hadn't been that surprising. But guys like B.J. had a long way to go from "do you want to dance?" to "let's misbehave." Hawkeye was impressed B.J. had made it through the front door.
The crowd was starting to hop. B.J. was jitterbugging with four guys in the center of the room. He caught Hawkeye's eye and waved. Hawkeye smiled and raised his glass as a salute: I'm glad you're having fun. B.J. gestured, beckoned, mimed a Lindy: Come dance with me? Hawkeye shook his head and gestured to his glass: No thanks, I'm too drunk.
"Idiot," Ezra pontificated.
"He's not divorced yet," Hawkeye said.
*
Just before closing time, Hawkeye kissed Ezra goodnight and poured B.J. into the car. His friend hadn't had much to drink -- for them -- but he was wild as a hare. Hawkeye would have put the top down, but feared he'd chop off B.J.'s floating head.
"Hawkeye, Hawkeye! That was amazing. I didn't know places like that existed!"
"They must have one or two queer bars in San Francisco," Hawkeye said.
"I suppose -- like that? You think? How did you find out about that place?" B.J. lifted his arms into the summer air as the car bumped through the country. He was going to lose a digit if they went under a low bridge. Hawkeye felt like he'd made a monster.
Hawkeye skritched the hair at the back of his neck. "I dunno, I know a few guys. Hands inside the vehicle, cowboy."
B.J. stared at him. Hawkeye squirmed in the bucket seat. "What?"
"You mean guys you've gone with," B.J. said.
He meant had sex with. "Yeah," Hawkeye said. Why lie?
"Oh." B.J. looked away. "Wow."
Hawkeye glanced at him as he drove. B.J. went quiet as he looked out into the forest. His sudden somber mood was making Hawkeye nervous.
"What's it like?" B.J. said.
Hawkeye almost laughed. "Well, when a man and a man like each other's bodies very much --"
"C'mon, Hawk."
Hawkeye sighed. Part of his job was giving patients the Sex Talk, usually to confused kids who were headed for abortions or abscesses; and, on one occasion he wished was less memorable, one elderly woman who was still admirably 'romantically inclined' . . . but never a grown man.
"It's good -- usually," Hawkeye said. "It's like sex with women, sometimes it's good and sometimes it's good enough. Rarely, it's great."
"That's not what I mean," B.J. said.
Hawkeye smirked. He pulled the car over. They were going to have this talk. It wasn't that B.J. didn't know what these things were -- oral sex, anal sex, rimming, how to use lube -- it was that he didn't really believe that two men could or did actually have sex. For real, outside of books or dirty jokes. He kept saying, 'do people really . . . ?' B.J. didn't need to know how, he wanted to know that he wasn't a freak or a pervert, and if he did get into bed with another man, he wouldn't be laughed at or arrested.
The moon was setting when B.J. ran out of questions. He was staring ahead into the trees in a sort of information coma. Hawkeye, elbow on the seatback and cheek in his hand, poked him experimentally.
"You okay?"
B.J. snapped to. "Yeah." He spread his hands over the dashboard. "How do you know -- I mean, for sure -- that it's right. And you're not just messing up your life?"
"To be with a man?" Hawkeye said. B.J. nodded. Hawkeye shrugged. "I don't. I just have a feeling and I go with it. I don't really choose anything, I don't see it like that. Maybe that's why I don't like to commit."
B.J. nodded. "I think . . . I think it's a choice for me. I mean, I think if I met the right person, and it was another woman, I think I could chose to be with her, if I really wanted to."
Hawkeye thought of four or five ways to say 'that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,' but for once, declined. There were some things a guy had to find out for himself. And who was he to tell B.J. how to love? He'd never chosen a successful long term relationship in his life.
On the long ride home, Hawkeye felt for B.J.'s hand on the seat. He gave it a squeeze. B.J. squeezed back. When they got into town and the sodium lights flooded the car, Hawkeye put both hands on the wheel. B.J. moved closer to the door.
At home, B.J. disappeared into his room. The house still hadn't cooled off. The air smelled like rain that would break the heat, but far off, maybe by dawn. Hawkeye went around the downstairs floor in his shorts opening windows.
"Beej?" he called. "Want to open your window? It'll feel better if -- oh."
B.J. appeared in his doorway, naked save his shorts. The watery light from within lit him like some furry Adonis, all golden skin and muscled lines. His bare foot itched at the inside calf of one long leg. He leaned his hip against the doorjamb and Hawkeye couldn't not look at the shadows where his cock was pushing against the flat front of his shorts. He was speaking, but Hawkeye could only hear the blood in his ears. Dear God, had Beej always looked like an Olympic gymnast when he folded his arms?
"Hawk?"
"Hm?" Look at the face, look at the face.
"I said my window's jammed. Is there a trick to it?"
No, not really. Just use your manly muscled arms to force it open.
"I don't know," Hawkeye said.
"Want to come look?" B.J. turned into the room. Ohh, Ezra, I didn't need your editorial comments on the subject of B.J. Hunnicutt's rump roast.
Hawkeye followed him. B.J. stood beside the bed expectantly. Lots of things can happen on a bed, Hawkeye thought as he knee-walked across the mattress to the window. He gave the window a few experimental whacks. If B.J. hadn't gotten it open, he knew he didn't have much of a chance. He shoved at the sash, but it didn't budge.
The bed dipped. B.J. was heavier than he was. Those arms Hawkeye had just been staring at (salivating over) came around Hawkeye. The muscles flexed as B.J. braced his palms under the sash.
"Let me help you," B.J. said.
" . . . 'kay."
They struggled with the window rather more than necessary. B.J. had Hawkeye thoroughly trapped up against the window, and every time he shoved, his chest or hips brushed Hawkeye's back. When Hawkeye pushed at the sash, his ass moved into B.J.'s stomach and the inside of B.J.'s thighs rubbed against Hawkeye's. Their feet were tangled up, toes flexing into soles. Hawkeye could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead as he tried to breathe normally.
With all that pent up energy, when the window finally opened, it flung to the top of the track in one smooth movement. Hawkeye yelped, almost falling through. B.J. grabbed him around the waist. Hawkeye felt himself pulled backward. Into B.J.'s lap. His back pressed warm against B.J.'s chest while those strong arms captured him.
"Oops," B.J. breath was hot on his ear. "You almost fell."
"Thank God you caught me. That's a long two and a half feet to the porch," Hawkeye said.
B.J.'s bare chest and stomach hitched in his laughter. His thighs shifted under Hawkeye's lowers. They were both practically naked. In front of the window. B.J. dropped the shades. Hawkeye felt his eyebrows doing the Groucho thing. It was so obvious. When B.J.'s hand came down, Hawkeye caught it. Their heads tilted, Hawkeye twisted in B.J.'s lap. They kissed.
It was a good kiss. Excellent. B.J. was warm and sturdy, always so reliable. He lowered Hawkeye onto the bed and was then a hot weight on top of him, kissing him. Hawkeye loved that press of man firm above him. He held B.J. in his arms, ignored the clanging bells, told himself it was fine, this was fine. B.J.'s hands were at his sides, very comfortably, doing things to his belly that made little pleasant squiggles happen below Hawkeye's diaphragm.
It would have been one of the three best kisses of Hawkeye's life. But it wasn't right.
"Beej," Hawkeye whispered.
"Hawk," B.J. said around Hawkeye's tongue, "I'm trying to do some good work here."
"Beej. Let me up." Hawkeye tapped at those muscled arms. Jesus Mary Joseph what was wrong with him, turning this man down.
B.J. sat back. Hawkeye scrabbled off the bed. B.J. had kiss-lips and sex-hair, an erection, and his nipples were hard. Hawkeye moaned and stood behind the desk chair for protection.
"What's the matter?" B.J. said.
"B.J. . . . I can't. We can't. You're still married."
"I don't believe you." B.J. reached out, to reengage or to make his point.
Hawkeye wriggled into the corner by the armoire. "No, really, you are!" He giggled maniacally.
"Hawkeye --"
"Beej, please. Don't think I don't want to. Especially -- my God, did you always have abdominals?"
B.J. followed him into his corner. Hawkeye made himself skinny into the wall like some sort of house beetle.
"Hawkeye," he whispered. He touched Hawkeye on the back of his neck, playing with the ends of his hair.
Hawkeye closed his eyes. He loved touch. It had been so long since he'd been with someone who knew him and liked him anyway, for all he was and all he wasn't. Hawkeye let himself be kissed.
He'd never known B.J. the lover. This version of his friend zinged with energy. His hands were everywhere, strong on Hawkeye's arms, hips, down his back, easing tension with confidence. He'd fantasized about kissing B.J. before, of course, in a hazy, windmill tilting sense; but that was nothing to the skin-sliding reality of the sexual creature in his arms whose fingers were carding through his hair. Every kiss brought Hawkeye to new explorations of hedonism, as if his mild-mannered friend was packing red kryptonite. B.J. had always let it all go when he decided to let go. Hawkeye suddenly flashed on a very erotic, very unhelpful image that he hoped he'd carry in the back pocket of his mind for years to come: B.J., head tossed back in ecstasy, entire body tensing in the moment of release.
Hawkeye knew it was a bad idea when B.J. stuck his thumbs in the waistband of his shorts and pulled him back to bed. He went anyway.
Later, Hawkeye told himself his acquiescence was at least fifty percent altruism: he wanted B.J. to have a sensitive first time with a man he trusted. Later, when it all fell apart, he regretted ever convincing himself that sex with a friend was inherently less cruel.
B.J. had their shorts off so fast, Hawkeye would have thought he'd planned it. Maybe he had. It was all so fast, he couldn't really look at B.J. like he wanted; he'd seen him naked, but not like this. B.J. was -- a-ha -- a well grown boy, grinding against Hawkeye's hip. Nice. But it was his hands Hawkeye had always admired, as he captured one and entwined their fingers. Light in their touch, but strong and confident, the hands of an intelligent, capable man. B.J. had begun touching Hawkeye daily as the war ravaged his nerves; Hawkeye hadn't complained, had even -- he admitted to himself now -- encouraged those half-seconds of intimacy.
B.J.'s mouth and hands were quick now, almost furtive with manic energy. Hawkeye had expected to be driving this boat, but B.J. wasn't unsure and he didn't need a diagram. In a trice, he was nipping Hawkeye's lower lip while he thrust their erections together. Hawkeye hooked his heels around B.J.'s hips and reached down between their bodies to get a grip on the situation, as it were.
B.J. gazed at him as he thrust. Sweat pooled between their bellies. It felt like they were making love. Hawkeye looped one arm around B.J.'s neck and leaned up for a kiss. The bed was shaking and B.J. was thrusting harder, faster, as Hawkeye thrust up to meet him. It felt more intense, more personal than the last memorable women he'd been with, whoever those girls had been. B.J.'s body curled up like a C and he gasped. His face was in shadow as he came, so Hawkeye reached up to touch him. To feel his release in his expression as well as the wet heat between them.
B.J. collapsed down as a dead weight. Hawkeye closed his arms and legs and held him tight. It felt so good to hold him, even if he was frustrated. Heat came off the man in a swampy, mushroomy wave. Sweat prickled under the small of Hawkeye's back. They hadn't gotten around to cooling off the house.
"You didn't --?" B.J. said.
"It's okay --" Hawkeye said.
But B.J.'s hand was on his cock. Hawkeye hissed. B.J. was clearly used to doing this by himself, just getting down to it. But he had a firm grip and a sure hand.
"I want to see you," B.J. whispered.
Hawkeye gasped and arched like a salmon the moment it's pulled from the river. His hips rose off the mattress as cried out as he came over B.J.'s hand. He felt a hot mouth on his neck as B.J. stroked him to completion. When his eyelids fluttered open, B.J. was smiling. He shifted on the mattress, uncomfortably hot. B.J. wiped his hand and Hawk's cooling belly with the sheet, shoved it down by their feet, and settled beside Hawkeye. It was a narrow bed, but they didn't need more space than their own trim bodies.
They kissed, touched, hugged, snuggled, did the things lovers do when they feel ridiculously connected and safe. B.J. was quiet, perhaps thoughtful. Hawkeye could usually stay awake after -- as a veteran of many fuck and run affairs -- but he knew a lot of men turned into lead post-orgasm.
"Why me?" Hawkeye said softly, looking over B.J.'s ear through the gap in the curtains. Mars was touching the trees.
B.J. was busy lining angel kisses down his jawline. "Hm? I don't know. Because you're you, isn't that good enough reason?"
Hawkeye tried to think of another time he'd been pursued, and failed. His habit with women was the old let's keep this light, I work too many hours to hang my doctor bag in anyone's closet. With men, it was hardly that they liked him or even knew him. He was here, they were here, if all parties wanted to make it before the cops came, they had better couple up and move on. It was as personal as a bank transaction and he liked the simplicity of it.
Hawkeye moved the curtain away from the window to let in more air. Was it getting hotter in here?
"Listen," he said, "don't take this the wrong way, but I'm beat and it's really too hot to sleep like fish in a barrel, you know?"
"That's an interesting choice of phrase."
"Huh?"
B.J. propped himself up on his elbow, looking down on Hawkeye with his palm on Hawkeye's chest, feeling his panicky heart. Hawkeye realized the moon made the room as bright as midafternoon. He wriggled out from under B.J.'s considerable reach.
"Did I offend you?" B.J. said, lips quirking. "Is it my breath?"
Hawkeye bussed him a quick one on the mouth. "No, no, really. I'm just beat. I'm just going to sleep in the living room. Sorry, Beej, but you know how it is when you're over thirty. You get used to sleeping in your own -- um. Couch."
Hawkeye knew he had no reason to feel guilty. He was just making a clean break. It wasn't his fault if B.J. thought making out like kids meant they were moving in or picking out china.
Hawkeye tripped on B.J.'s suitcase while he tried to pull on his shorts. "Sorry. I just."
B.J. observed him from the bed like the professional he was. "You're scared."
"What? No. Of course not. Look, Beej, I just don't think -- I mean. You're still married."
B.J. got out of bed and pulled on his trousers. "You don't have to say it like it's a disease."
It occurred to Hawkeye that as unfamiliar as lover-boy B.J. was to him, he'd forgotten than Hawkeye-in-love was just as foreign to B.J., too. Unless, of course, B.J. had been listening in the last time Carlye had had some choice words for the Piercian relationship disaster department.
"Beej, I'm sorry, but I'm just no good at this, this -- what you do."
"What do I do?"
Hawkeye flung his arms all around. "Have sex with people you care about! And -- and not hate each other! Listen, if we're going to be friends, this didn't happen, okay?"
"No, it's not okay. Hawkeye, that meant something to me. I'm not asking you to run away with me, but you're my best friend --"
Hawkeye groaned. "Can't you just have a one night stand and not get all gushy? The night's not even over!"
"Can't you operate in a romantic situation without turning into a horse's ass?" B.J. shot back. He got back in bed, flipping the blanket angrily over his legs.
Hawkeye had his hand on the door, one foot in, one foot out. B.J. kicked at the sheets. The bed squeaked. Hawkeye turned.
"Beej." He sat on the edge of the bed. "Of course I love you, you're my best friend. You kept me alive, kept me sane, picked me up off the floor when the bombs were louder in my head than for real. That's why we just have to pretend this didn't happen. You still have a home to go to."
"I really don't," B.J. said into the pillow.
"Look, it'll get better. You've just got battle fatigue of the heart -- marriage fatigue. You just have to wait it out." Hawkeye was aware he was repeating the same words, and heard them clanging in his head. Who was he trying to convince?
B.J. didn't answer. Taking it as agreement, Hawkeye crept off to sleep alone. He felt like he was taking the coward's way out.
*
For the remainder of his stay, Hawkeye showed B.J. all the sights Crabapple Cove had to offer. There were crab bakes, fishing trips, bingo nights. For three days, Hawkeye kept them surrounded by people who had known him since he was a pup. B.J. couldn't think of anything except small town life and nationalistic pride. He couldn't think.
Their conversations were short, stilted, thankfully often truncated. It was as if that first night was an old war memory no one dredged up in polite society. A week later, they sat in Hawkeye's car before the endless sea of shining concrete that was the tarmac. The top was up; they'd woken to a cold, nasty, overcast day.
"You'll come see me soon?" B.J. said. "Erin wants to meet her Uncle Hawk."
Hawkeye thumbed a scratch on his car. "Of course. Call me when you get there." He looked up. "And anytime you need to talk. And keep writing."
B.J. hefted his bags. "I will."
Hawkeye hugged him with stiff arms. "Listen . . . a week after you get home, you'll be telling me how things are back to normal. It'll sort itself out. It'll just --"
"-- take time." B.J.'s expression was grim.
"Well." Hawkeye checked his watch. "I guess --"
"I'll see you, Hawk."
Hawkeye watched B.J. walk away, get on that plane, and fly out of his life.
They didn't speak again for a long time. When next they did, very much had changed.
~*~
End part 1 of the How it Happened arc
To be continued
Read more of my MASH fic at ficbyaura218