Ooh, fic!
My first piece of BJ/Hawkeye slash. Post-War. From the POV of Daniel Pierce. Edited to the best of my own abilities, so I'm sorry beforehand. Heehee. Enjoy, my lovlies.
It is eight months after the war - the police action - when BJ shows up at the Pierce home in Maine. He comes with a child grasping his hand, a battered suitcase still dressed in Korean tags, and a face drawn and pale. His moustache is gone. His skin is smooth but marked with the bruises of sleepless nights.
It is not Hawkeye who opens the door to this man and his daughter, but Daniel Pierce who is elderly but not fading, who smiles like his son but lacks something in the eyes. Something that Hawkeye has an abundance of. Or had. The BJ who shows up on the paint-peeling white steps of the Pierce home cannot remember whether or not Hawkeye retains his glisten-madness, laughter.
Daniel Pierce invites the strangers in, but knows they are not truly strangers. He fixes BJ tea, tells him that Hawkeye is in town (“Bryan once spoke on the church steps…”), gives the child - 4 and dirty blond - a peanut butter sandwich. “So this is Erin,” he says, like a friendly uncle and BJ smiles sadly.
Daniel Pierce never asks why they have come. He shows them pictures of Maddoc. Pictures of Ben as a child. BJ coos at the right photos, and in the right tones. Erin eats her sandwich with the casual suspicion of a child being given food by a man she doesn’t know, in a home she has never visited.
At seven it begins to get dark outside and the rickety kitchen chairs do little to comfort a toddler trying to sleep. Daniel carries her upstairs to the singular guestroom and BJ objects quietly and without conviction. When Daniel returns, his guest is looking at pictures of adult Ben with a hand resting at his throat.
“He won’t be expecting you,” says Daniel carefully.
“I know,” says BJ, looking away from the photographs and Daniel’s eyes.
“I’ll leave it to Ben, then, to ask why you’ve come here,” says Daniel.
“Thank you,” says BJ, who seems grateful that Daniel chose to call Hawkeye Ben and not Hawkeye.
Daniel simply nods. He has patient reports to look at. He still practices three days a week. He has no need for another broken young man in his home, he has no need for a little girl, but he will take them in anyway. He will do it for Ben. He will do it because while he has no need for them, he needs to keep them.
“Ben will be home soon,” Daniel says. “I’ll be in my office upstairs. It’s the one next to where your little girl is sleeping.”
BJ doesn’t respond and Daniel says: “Okay, son?” He doesn’t regret the familiarity when BJ nods slowly and answers with an okay of his own.
The hour of seven o’clock is a long hour. It drags onward with the tick of the clock by the front door and whir of the metal fan in the kitchen window. It drags onward in minutes, in the scratch of Daniel’s pen, in the sigh of the album pages as BJ turns them, and in Erin’s sweet and shallow breathing as she sleeps soundly in a foreign room.
Amidst his case reports, Daniel wonders after her mother for a moment and then eight o’clock comes with the squeak of the front door and the sound of a chair scratching across the kitchen floor as it is pushed hastily backward.
The prodigal son returns, thinks Daniel.
He hears sock-covered feet slide quickly toward the front door and he hears his son drop his leather medical bag hard onto the floor. He hears the rustle of cloth. He hears the slam of bodies as they, too, hit the floor. Daniel hears his son exclaim something loudly, joyously. The sound cuts off abruptly and although Daniel doesn’t want to imagine it, he can see BJ - the unusually haunted (in a different way than his Ben) man who arrived suddenly this afternoon - pressing his lips to his son’s to mute the sounds, taste the skin, and keep his tiny daughter deep in slumber.
Daniel sighs. He puts away his papers, and goes to his son’s bedroom to turn back Ben’s bed on both sides.
The past cannot help but return to us, Daniel thinks.
It is eight months after the war - the police action - when BJ shows up at the Pierce home in Maine. He comes with a child grasping his hand, a battered suitcase still dressed in Korean tags, and a face drawn and pale. His moustache is gone. His skin is smooth but marked with the bruises of sleepless nights.
It is not Hawkeye who opens the door to this man and his daughter, but Daniel Pierce who is elderly but not fading, who smiles like his son but lacks something in the eyes. Something that Hawkeye has an abundance of. Or had. The BJ who shows up on the paint-peeling white steps of the Pierce home cannot remember whether or not Hawkeye retains his glisten-madness, laughter.
Daniel Pierce invites the strangers in, but knows they are not truly strangers. He fixes BJ tea, tells him that Hawkeye is in town (“Bryan once spoke on the church steps…”), gives the child - 4 and dirty blond - a peanut butter sandwich. “So this is Erin,” he says, like a friendly uncle and BJ smiles sadly.
Daniel Pierce never asks why they have come. He shows them pictures of Maddoc. Pictures of Ben as a child. BJ coos at the right photos, and in the right tones. Erin eats her sandwich with the casual suspicion of a child being given food by a man she doesn’t know, in a home she has never visited.
At seven it begins to get dark outside and the rickety kitchen chairs do little to comfort a toddler trying to sleep. Daniel carries her upstairs to the singular guestroom and BJ objects quietly and without conviction. When Daniel returns, his guest is looking at pictures of adult Ben with a hand resting at his throat.
“He won’t be expecting you,” says Daniel carefully.
“I know,” says BJ, looking away from the photographs and Daniel’s eyes.
“I’ll leave it to Ben, then, to ask why you’ve come here,” says Daniel.
“Thank you,” says BJ, who seems grateful that Daniel chose to call Hawkeye Ben and not Hawkeye.
Daniel simply nods. He has patient reports to look at. He still practices three days a week. He has no need for another broken young man in his home, he has no need for a little girl, but he will take them in anyway. He will do it for Ben. He will do it because while he has no need for them, he needs to keep them.
“Ben will be home soon,” Daniel says. “I’ll be in my office upstairs. It’s the one next to where your little girl is sleeping.”
BJ doesn’t respond and Daniel says: “Okay, son?” He doesn’t regret the familiarity when BJ nods slowly and answers with an okay of his own.
The hour of seven o’clock is a long hour. It drags onward with the tick of the clock by the front door and whir of the metal fan in the kitchen window. It drags onward in minutes, in the scratch of Daniel’s pen, in the sigh of the album pages as BJ turns them, and in Erin’s sweet and shallow breathing as she sleeps soundly in a foreign room.
Amidst his case reports, Daniel wonders after her mother for a moment and then eight o’clock comes with the squeak of the front door and the sound of a chair scratching across the kitchen floor as it is pushed hastily backward.
The prodigal son returns, thinks Daniel.
He hears sock-covered feet slide quickly toward the front door and he hears his son drop his leather medical bag hard onto the floor. He hears the rustle of cloth. He hears the slam of bodies as they, too, hit the floor. Daniel hears his son exclaim something loudly, joyously. The sound cuts off abruptly and although Daniel doesn’t want to imagine it, he can see BJ - the unusually haunted (in a different way than his Ben) man who arrived suddenly this afternoon - pressing his lips to his son’s to mute the sounds, taste the skin, and keep his tiny daughter deep in slumber.
Daniel sighs. He puts away his papers, and goes to his son’s bedroom to turn back Ben’s bed on both sides.
The past cannot help but return to us, Daniel thinks.