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Charlotte stretched languidly between mussed sheets when Hawkeye returned from the john, still tucking himself back into his lounge pants.
He slid into bed behind her and traced a fingertip down the edge of her profile. She shivered as his finger slipped from her arm down to her ribcage. Her skin was deliciously, unbelievably soft to the touch and already dotted with freckles. The product of some young idea to start sunbathing in June before the mercury even creeped close to 70.
“Ben,” she sighed.
He pressed closer, trailing his lips down her neck and humming.
“What do you say to taking a little trip? Just you and me.”
“A trip?” He kissed a line out to her shoulder. “Like Portland? Boston?” His fingers wandered, finding the bruise he’d left on her hip earlier that morning and pressing in until she gasped.
“I was thinking more along the lines of San Francisco.”
Hawkeye faltered. San Francisco? “That’s a little far, don’t you think?”
Charlotte rolled onto her stomach, peeking up at him with those huge brown eyes. “When was the last time you were more than a half hour away from Crabapple Cove?”
“November of 1962,” he stated after a moment of reflection. “I had to see a man about a horse.”
“Ha, ha, ha.” The sheet slid sinfully low on her naked back as she resituated to lay her head on crossed arms. “The town won’t burst into flames if you’re not here, I promise.”
He shot a look at her and moved to unbraid her hair. “What’s in San Francisco?” Her hair cascaded in strawberry blonde curls that he fluffed out and arranged around her shoulders.
“Are you serious?” She asked drily, an incredulous twist in her perfect mouth.
It would be a waste of time, space, and air to have lips that perfect so near and not do a thing about it. He kissed her. “I’m afraid so.”
“They’re calling it the summer of love. You know: drugs, music, free love .”
He ran his knuckles down her spine, delighting in the way she twisted in response. “Let me guess, it’s got something to do with hippies?”
“Like you’re not a closet hippie yourself.”
“My dear, I had no idea you were the kind to smoke out communists.”
She laughed, as musical and bright as the midmorning sun cutting through the blinds. “I’m more the kind to smoke with communists.”
“That’s my girl.”
Her perceptive, devastating eyes - rivaled only by one Margaret Houlihan, who Hawkeye really needed to write back to - pinned him in place. “Will you at least consider it? A long weekend with just you, and me, and whatever trouble we can find.”
“I can’t help notice you really seem bent on free love and trouble. Should I be worried?”
Charlotte flushed and ducked her chin behind her arm, avoiding eye contact.
“You alright down there?” He tucked an errant curl behind her ear.
A huff of a breath displaced a wisp of hair hanging over her arm. “I like our arrangement. I like you, Ben. And I’m certainly not above being used for my body.”
“And what a body,” Hawkeye mused, mostly joking, as he slid a hand down to her ass.
She pursed her lips in an attempt to look unamused. “But I’d like to settle down and get married and… Are you happy? With me, I mean?” God, that crinkle between her eyebrows was so cute.
“Of course I am. You’re the most beautiful woman in Maine, you’ve got a body that won’t quit, and you’re the best damn receptionist I’ve ever had.” Charlotte quirked one of those adorable eyebrows, actually unamused this time. “Okay, okay, all of that is true, but you’re also kind, and funny, and the only person who’s ever beat me at Scrabble. I’d be crazy not to be happy with you.”
“It’s not just my bedside manner?”
“No! It’s also your desk-side manner, and your backseat-side manner, and your shower-side manner.”
A laugh shot out of her throat. “Come on, Ben Franklin, I’m trying to be serious.”
“I like you too, Charlotte Morin.”
She reached up to gather her hair over her far shoulder and resettled. “You don’t love me though, do you?”
“Char-”
“It’s okay if you don’t! Honest!” He slid his hand back up to her ribcage, thumbing at the delightful sliver of skin where the bottom of her breast met her torso. “Sometimes I can tell you’re not really with me when you’re with me.”
“I’m sorry,” he lamented, finding that he meant it as he said it.
A very reasonable expression filled her face. “It could be our ages or the fact that you don’t like to talk about your past, but it seems like you may need a little bit more than me.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“I figured that we could go somewhere where nobody knows us and nobody will judge us and have a fling, or two, or three. You know, get it out of our systems. And then come back and be ready to… maybe then you’d feel better asking me…” She trailed off, hiding in her arm again.
“What, to marry you?” He couldn’t contain the laugh that bubbled up inside him, not even at the wounded look that crossed Charlotte’s face. “Your grand idea is to go have half a dozen orgies and then we’ll be ready to commit to each other?”
“Yes? I don’t know. I guess I thought being around other people could help us realize what we mean to each other. I’ve got to get married some time, Ben.”
He thought for a moment, trying not to laugh again. “So you think that San Francisco will fix us? Bring us closer together?”
A shy nod, accentuated by the sunlight reflecting off of Charlotte’s hair.
“Honey, if it can’t be fixed in Crabapple Cove I don’t think it’s worth fixing.”
Hawkeye watched realization dawn in her eyes. “You don’t want to marry me.”
“I’m sorry if I ever gave you the wrong impression.”
“It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have presumed.” Charlotte took a deep, shaky breath. “This is it, isn’t it?”
Hawkeye nodded.
“Okay.”
“I will keep you on the payroll, even if you’re not in my bedroll. I meant what I said about you being the best receptionist I’ve ever had.”
That was able to coax a weak smile out of her. “Thanks, Ben.”
He leant in to kiss her forehead.
Suddenly shy, she pulled the sheet up to cover herself as she moved to the edge of the mattress to pick her nightgown up off the floor. She shook it out with one hand. “You know, I’ve got one more round in me, if you want, before I go.”
What a woman.
He got out of bed and walked around to face Charlotte. “I certainly don’t have another round in me, but I’m nothing if not a gentleman.” With a kind, non threatening smile, he eased the sheet away from her body and sunk to his knees. He locked eyes with her and then dove between her thighs.
***
The air held more humidity than Hawkeye expected. Of course, he immediately chastised himself. It’s not like he’d flown into the middle of the desert.
At least he was glad to find out that tarmac smelled just as awful in San Francisco as it did anywhere else.
He slung his carryon bag over his shoulder and trudged toward the airport.
By the time he got where he wanted to go, which took an uncomfortably sticky train ride and an incredulous cabdriver who couldn’t wrap his head around someone with Hawkeye’s amount of gray hair wanting to go to Haight Ashbury, a hint of an afternoon breeze meandered through the hills in from the sea. The cabbie dropped him off at Buena Vista Park, which greeted him with what could only be described as a sensory cacophony.
Drums and guitars - and what was that, a sitar? - filled his ears the second he stepped out into the open air. Color overtook his vision, between the rainbows of clothing on everyone surrounding him, the light refracting off of windows, and the buildings themselves. People were shouting and singing, waving at each other and dancing with fluid, nonsensical motions, all of it tied together with the earthy smells of patchouli and humanity.
God, if Hawkeye were twenty years younger he’d be all over everything happening. Especially since so much of it was happening out in the open on crocheted and quilted blankets.
But right now, the sea of counterculture and youth overwhelmed him.
He hiked his bag strap higher up on his shoulder and started down the road, looking for some place to duck in and regroup. A record store with doves hand painted on all the front windows caught his attention. It looked quiet, or at least as quiet a place as he was going to find, so he slipped in.
Psychedelic rock played softly, electronic keyboard sounds spilling tinny out of the speakers by the door.
He tried his best to look inconspicuous (wasn’t that a change) and picked his way between cramped tables ladened with wooden boxes full to bursting with records in no discernable order. Hawkeye settled by a table out of the way that seemed to be mostly his speed, thumbing through them absentmindedly.
After a few moments, someone came up to sift through the crate next to his. Strange, but Hawkeye supposed you couldn’t have a summer of love if no one got close enough to love. The man sniffled.
He kept flipping through records. Chet Baker, classic. The Beach Boys, a necessity for keeping up with teenagers at the practice. Lena Horne, proof that angels exist.
“Doris Day,” the stranger next to him read as Hawkeye revealed an old collection of her Broadway songs. His voice felt like floating through a dream. “That takes me back.”
“Back in the fifties there was a night when I must have listened to Sentimental Journey eighteen times. Had a friend who was in love with her.”
“And we’ll never forget it, will we?”
Hawkeye gave up scratching his thumb over the edge of the cardboard cover and finally looked up at the man. Some part of him knew as soon as the man stepped next to him that it was BJ. But seeing him - in all his hippie glory, apparently - still stopped Hawkeye’s heart in his chest.
“I thought it was you,” BJ quipped with his eyes sparkling like he wasn’t taking every ounce of air out of Hawkeye’s lungs. He looked tan under the billowy blue shirt, long suede vest, and dark denim bell bottoms. It wasn’t altogether awful, but the way BJ’d grown out his hair and mustache certainly added to the whole look. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, huh?”
A chill ran down his spine. The kind he used to only get hearing boots crunch on gravel or in the middle of an air raid or when his bunky got a little too handsy when he was drunk. He half-expected a punch to the throat.
BJ laughed and pulled him into a hug.
“Listen, I don’t know if you have your heart set on buying anything, but I’m on my way to go grab lunch if you’re hungry.” BJ stepped away, patting him on the shoulder.
“Only if you’re buying.”
Of course BJ still laughed the same. With his head thrown back and those perfect teeth on display.
BJ led him to the front of the store with practiced ease, pausing at the counter by the door. “Hey Dennis, thanks for holding that for me - I’ll be back Saturday with Erin.”
Dennis, a young kid with acne and hair down past his shoulders, nodded solemnly. “Peace out, Doc.”
“I didn’t realize I was in the presence of a San Francisco celebrity,” Hawkeye mused as they fell into step beside each other on the sidewalk.
“It’s Erin’s favorite record store. Which means I spend about half of my paycheck there.”
“You’re still spoiling her, huh?”
BJ pressed a hand to his chest. “Of course.”
Their conversation stagnated as they waited for the crosswalk signal.
“Do you have kids, Hawk?” Pointed, but Hawkeye supposed that was fair.
“Nah, I remember all too clearly how I was growing up to bring that upon myself.”
“Hold on - you grew up?”
“You’re really funny, Beej.”
The signal changed. Hawkeye marveled at the sheer array of people crossing the street with and around them. Business men checking their watches on the way back from lunch, housewives toting toddlers on the way to the grocery store, and young people floating on the way to flying all weaved seamlessly among each other in this tiny slice of the city.
Crabapple Cove, it was not.
“I’ve gotta warn ya, this cafe may be a little out of your depth,” BJ warned, calling over his shoulder as Hawkeye rushed to catch up with him.
“I’m hip!”
“No offense, Hawk,” BJ stopped beside a red door and gave Hawkeye an offensive once-over, “but you do kind of look like a square.”
Hawkeye caught a flash of BJ’s smile as he turned to enter the cafe without so much as a second glance. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much time to process - let alone respond to - BJ’s claim because it took all of his brain power to wrap his head around the new atmosphere.
Before he could even get to the dim lighting and live folk music on the stage in the back corner, Hawkeye walked straight through a cloud of cannabis smoke so sweet he could feel it on his teeth. He let out a cough. “Charming little place.”
“It grows on you.”
They settled into a table for two along the wall where a waitress with bouncing Gidget pigtails immediately appeared. “What can I getcha, Doc?”
BJ turned to him, ignoring the way Hawkeye’s eyes bulged out of his head. “You drink?”
Hawkeye shook his head no.
“Two waters and two of my usuals.”
She snapped her gum and turned on her heel. BJ, the fink, just blinked at him with some approximation of a neutral expression.
“Let me guess, Erin’s favorite cafe?”
“Close, but no cigar.” He settled back into his chair. “I come here a couple times a week for my lunch break.”
“Uh huh.”
The waitress, back with a cloud of apathetic attitude that contrasted with her hair and freckles, deposited two waters on the table and drifted off.
For a beat, they only looked at each other. If there was nothing else Hawkeye had perfected throughout his life, there was breaking silences.
“Do I really look that much like a square?”
BJ laughed loud enough to draw stares. “What - don’t you own a mirror?”
He looked down at his turtleneck and jeans, cringing especially hard when he realized he hadn’t taken his sportcoat off after the flight. “This is cool,” he defended.
“Yeah, office-Christmas-party cool, not summer-of-love cool.”
“I’m not gonna be that old guy who steps off the plane in a full ‘come-hither’ get-up, Beej, I’m a little past that.”
“Oh sure,” BJ said in that reasonable tone he only ever used sarcastically. “Lose the sportcoat at least, will you? I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”
Hawkeye couldn’t help but glare across the table as he shrugged off the jacket and slid it into his bag. “I was hoping we’d get to the hippie look sooner than later.”
BJ spread his arms, preening. The movement drew Hawkeye’s attention to a green Peace Now pin in the collar of his shirt.
“And don’t think I didn’t see the sandals. I didn’t know they made them that big.”
He shrugged. “It just feels like me.”
“It looks like you.” And so what if the words fell a little too sentimental out of his mouth. “I gotta know the story. I love it, don’t get me wrong, you just look like you came down off a mountain with Ravi Shankar.”
“For the past few years, I’ve been feeling a little… lost? Adrift? In private practice. You know, like I’m not making much of a difference. A few months ago an acquaintance of mine opened a clinic here in Haight to serve the kids showing up here. Substance use counseling, mental health help, contraceptives - that kind of thing. I was already on board with the movement,” he intoned, using air quotes, “but I may be the only person over 35 these kids trust. I may as well look the part.”
At least BJ’s heart - the part of him that was three sizes too big - hadn’t changed.
“So now I do a few days a week in private practice, and a few days a week out here.”
Hawkeye hummed approvingly. “And what does Peg think about all this?”
“Well, she still lets me have Erin on the weekends, so I guess she can’t think it’s that bad.”
“What?”
BJ shot him a glare. The kind that said If you’d bothered to keep in touch we wouldn’t have to be playing catch up like this.
And, naturally, the waitress arrived with two bowls of salad at that exact moment. Hawkeye was too thrown off to call BJ out on the fact that three dozen kinds of vegetables and a thin piece of grilled chicken hardly constituted a meal.
“Are you divorced?”
“We started separating almost the minute I got home.” BJ looked up from mixing his salad. “We were different people, right? I had all these new cracks and holes and if Peg couldn’t even see them, how could she help fill them?” Back down to the salad. “We finalized it a few years ago - when it wasn’t some big earth-shattering thing to get a divorce and Peg could stand on her own two feet and we didn’t need to stay together for Erin anymore.”
“And you’re happy? Divorced?”
“Perfectly,” BJ assured him, with a genuine smile. “Peg married some physics professor who makes her happier than I’ve ever seen her. He and Erin adore each other; he’s a great guy.”
Hawkeye finally started to think about eating, even with his head spinning. “You with anybody now?”
He heard a soft chuckle. “About a year ago I shacked up with a firefighter for a few months, but it didn’t last.”
Jesus Christ this conversation was going to give him an aneurysm. Either that or he needed heart medication. “Pardon my bluntness,” Hawkeye began, after he stopped choking on some sort of leaf, “but aren’t firefighters usually, well, you know…”
“Male?” BJ’s classic shit-eating grin. “Go with the instinct.”
Damn.
Okay.
He nodded approvingly.
“What about you? Still in Maine, still practicing medicine?”
“Only until I get it perfect.” BJ snickered. “Yeah, I’m still in Crabapple Cove. Dad passed a few years ago so it’s just me running things now.”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry.”
Hawkeye shrugged, not really willing to get into that season of his life with slow guitar harmonies in the background. “Cancer came back and now he’s not in pain anymore.” He cleared his throat. “Things are good though. Moved the practice further downtown and moved in the apartment upstairs. I can’t bring myself to get rid of the house but I just can’t stay there anymore.”
BJ hummed. Pensive. “You still talk to anyone from Korea?”
Okay, so they were going there. “Margaret and I write sometimes. Ran into Charles once at a conference - unfortunately, he’s still himself. And then Christmas cards from everybody.”
“You ever see Trapper?”
Oh it was this kind of grilling. Not the heavy stuff yet, just the neurotic. “Just once. We had a… revelatory reunion about a decade ago.”
“Revelatory?”
He took a deep breath. “Turns out it’s different sleeping with a married man when his wife and kids are actually around. And a married man that’s willing to sleep with you in those conditions probably isn’t one worth keeping.”
BJ looked so damned pleased with himself but at least he didn’t have the decency to say anything about it. “You married?”
“Nope. Still waiting for someone to get me pregnant, although part of my mid-life crisis has included sleeping with my receptionist, Charlotte.”
“Let me guess, 30?”
“26.”
“Oooooh.” BJ let out an obscene noise with an even dirtier quirk to his eyebrow.
Hawkeye couldn’t help but let a smile cross his face. “Haven’t I seen this film before?”
“Uh uh, this is the remake.”
“Is it better this time around?”
“Let’s see,” BJ trailed off, running his finger around the edge of his water glass, “we’re not in Korea, Radar isn’t nipping at our heels, and I’m not married. I’d say that makes things a little better, wouldn’t you?”
If it were anyone else in the world, Hawkeye would know this was a come-on. But no, this was BJ Hunnicutt: prankster extraordinaire and bane of both Hawkeye’s existence and wet dreams. He seemed marginally less repressed now - with sandals and at least one ex-boyfriend, maybe, if Hawkeye was reading between the lines well enough - but this was also the kind of open flirting and driving crazy he did back in Korea with a band on his ring finger and a boot in Mill Valley.
“Beej,” he admonished through a laugh before changing the subject for the rest of lunch.
When he insisted on paying, BJ cheekily smiled at the padding in his wallet and asked if he played poker. He was as obnoxious as ever. God, Hawkeye hated him. The way you hated losing a limb.
BJ all but insisted upon taking Hawkeye back to the clinic with him. The fink knew Hawkeye couldn’t resist.
The walk took a few blocks but Hawkeye couldn’t mind when BJ spent most of it chuckling through an anecdote about taking Erin with him to his practice when she was in middle school. His hair was more gray than blond now but he still had the same youthful energy about him that Hawkeye remembered from their first few weeks together. Before Korea started seeping into him.
An anti-war protest made its way down the street toward them. The kids - half of whom Hawkeye swore he’d already plucked bullets out of half a lifetime ago in a different Pacific theater - wearing army surplus and carrying signs about peace and love and freedom, made something that felt a lot like hope well up in Hawkeye’s chest.
Then BJ turned and winked at him. “Hell no, we won’t go!” He started chanting right along with the oncoming protest, pulling stares and dirty looks from the pedestrians around them.
And here we thought I was always the windmill-tilter, Hawkeye thought to himself, watching BJ so totally in his element it made a completely different emotion spill from his heart.
It terrified him.
To be in BJ’s presence for, what, an hour and a half? And already be spirling back into love with him.
He was an adult whose knees and back rarely let him forget his age, and he could already feel himself drawn ever closer to this man he used to share a life with. He wanted to know if BJ still looked the same in the mornings when he first woke up, and whether he teased Erin the same way he incessantly made fun of Charles.
Hawkeye caught himself staring. His mom always said that his eyes gave him away. Over thirty years later it still held true, apparently.
For all his ponderings, he almost walked clear past the clinic.
The narrow, Victorian building in various shades of green was totally unremarkable if not for the way that BJ stood in front like it was his proudest accomplishment. With a tilt of his head, BJ invited Hawkeye to follow him in. They walked through a decently full waiting room with a hand painted sign with a list of requests to keep drugs and alcohol premises that ended with We love you . How hip.
BJ waved at a few of the patients and the girl working the check-in desk before leading him down the hallway. They stopped at the doorway to an exam room, where BJ softly knocked before ducking his head in. Through the crack, Hawkeye caught sight of a psychedelic mural across one of the walls. That kind of thing in Crabapple Cove would get him carted off to the looney bin. Again.
“Dr. Smith? When you get a second, I’ve got someone for you to meet.”
A whispered reply came from the other side of the door, too quiet for Hawkeye to hear it.
BJ nodded. “Gotcha.” He straightened back up and clicked the door closed, then continued down the hallway without looking back at Hawkeye.
Hawkeye followed him into a small, wood-paneled office at the end of the hall.
“Are you trying to poach me or something?”
BJ straightened a pile on the large desk in the center of the room. “Nope. I just want two of the kindest, smartest doctors I’ve ever worked with to meet each other.”
“Jeez, Beej, I already bought you lunch, you don’t need to butter me up.”
“Buttering?” Good to know that BJ still played aghast so well. “I have not yet begun to butter,” he declared, giving what - in some lights - could be considered a lingering once over.
Hawkeye shook his head, ready to finally confront BJ on this weird push and pull when the door behind him squeaked open.
A man in a lab coat with a long face, piercing brown eyes, and dark hair that fell just below his ears stepped in and looked expectantly at BJ.
“Dave, this is Hawkeye Pierce.”
“Hawkeye?” The man asked, lighting up and immediately tucking his clipboard under his arm to shake Hawkeye’s hand. “BJ’s told me so much about you, I almost feel like I was your roommate.”
“Oh, God. I’m sorry.”
The man threw his head back laughing.
“Hawk, this is David Smith, who opened this place. He’s pretty much the closest thing to authority in Haight these days.” Dave waved BJ off modestly.
“You built all this?” Hawkeye asked, still incredulous that such a place existed even from within its walls.
Dave hugged his clipboard to his chest and nodded. “All these kids started showing up and they’d just throw them in prison cells. I studied drug use, you know, addictive substances and all that. These kids don’t know what they’re getting themselves into and they need help, not jail time. Bless them, but they’ve got to have somebody looking after them.” He paused, looking across the room at BJ. “I’m elevator pitching again, aren’t I?”
BJ snorted.
“And it’s free?”
“Totally.”
“How do you swing it?”
“Some donations, a few benefit concerts over at the Fillmore, lots of begging.” Dave checked his watch. “Listen, I've gotta run. If you’re in town for long we’re always looking for volunteers. Hunnicutt - Alan was able to come in this afternoon, so no rush on coming back. We’ve got it under control.” He flashed them a peace sign and left.
Hawkeye let the silence lie between them for a moment before turning back to BJ. “It’s really a groovy set up.”
“You’re the worst,” BJ accused, unable to keep the laughter out of his voice.
“What? I’m trying to un-square myself.”
The look in BJ’s searching eyes made him feel like a sample under a microscope. It also gave him flashbacks to late nights crammed knee to knee at small O-Club tables after enough beers to make things fuzzy around the edges. Or early mornings after umpteen hours in surgery when they only had enough energy to collapse half-undressed on the scrub room benches and stare at each other.
“Beej-”
“Something really weird happens when you realize you’re a queer so late in life,” BJ started, picking at a filing cabinet label instead of looking at him. “You start to look back on everything that happened before and you see things differently.” He whipped his head to look at Hawkeye, eyebrows drawn together. “Was there something between us in Korea? And I was just too unaware to realize it?”
Hawkeye didn’t know what to do with this open, direct BJ. “That depends on what something means. But there’s a reason I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone when you were back behind your white picket fence.”
“What?”
“I thought you were happy! I didn’t know how I was going to get by without you, but you got what you wanted. You got Peg and Erin and normalcy back.” He watched BJ process his confession. “All of your letters made it seem like you were living the dream and I couldn’t ruin that for you.”
“So you just decided for me that I didn’t want you around?”
“Hey, Hawkeye Pierce back in 1950-whatever hardly had his shit together. But yes. I couldn’t stand for you to realize how close we were and get spooked and run away, but I also couldn’t take you tearing up your perfect life if you realized you… you wanted me.”
BJ stepped around the desk and closer to him. “I would’ve walked to Maine if I thought you wanted to see me. Even before I realized that I-”
A knock on the door startled them both. After a beat, with BJ looking back and forth between his eyes, BJ went to answer it.
There was a hushed conversation. Frankly, Hawkeye’s head was spinning hard enough that he didn’t even think about eavesdropping.
“Yeah, alright, get in here.” He heard BJ say, all faux-put-out bedside manner.
A kid with a curly afro and sorry excuse for a beard shuffled in, clearly favoring one foot over the other. He froze upon seeing Hawkeye. It gave him a chance to better fathom the tie dyed kaftan hanging loose over his body.
“He’s with me, don’t worry.” BJ cleared off a corner of the desk and pointed the kid toward it.
“Far out.” He hopped up on the empty desk.
“Now, what happened?” BJ dug around in drawers, pulling out peroxide and bandages.
“I tripped and fell.”
“Tripped?” And Christ alive, didn’t BJ sound paternal.
“Oh, come on, Doc! There was mud and I wasn’t looking where I was going and I face planted on the sidewalk. Honest!”
BJ looked skeptically up through his eyebrows as he rolled up the kid’s pant-leg to dress a scratched and bloody knee. He made quick work of it and then directed the kid to adjust the kaftan so he could dress similar scrapes on his forearm. “You know I have to ask.” The kid rolled his eyes. “When was the last time you drugged?”
“Last night.”
“Rich!”
“I know, I know, I know,” Rich insisted, wildly gesticulating with his un-injured arm. “But it was just acid. And it was only a little bit - Tim Leary himself put it on my tongue.”
BJ just looked at him.
“You said that the next best thing to not doing it was to do it safely. I got it from a reputable source and I only tripped for like an hour, tops. Didn’t even miss the main event.”
“Which was?” BJ led, resituating Rich’s kaftan and tucking away his unused supplies.
“Hendrix.”
“You’re kidding.”
Rich nodded, wide eyed.
“Well, I guess if it’s for Hendrix.” Classic BJ sarcasm. “I’m serious. You can say no - even to Tim Leary.”
“Yeah. I’ll work on it. Thanks for the patch up, Doc.”
“Just don’t go tripping into the office again, okay?” They smirked at each other as Rich gingerly got up and left.
The door swung shut behind him, leaving BJ and Hawkeye back in silence.
“He’s one of my repeat clients. A good kid, he just needs a little help.”
Hawkeye regarded the profile of his face. “Seems like he’s a big fan of yours, too.”
BJ glanced over at him and shrugged. “He’s from Iowa.”
“Doesn’t that get you where it hurts.”
Struck with another awkward lull, BJ puttered around the office, replacing the first aid supplies and straightening stacks of paper.
“I’m sorry, Beej.” The other man paused, but didn’t make eye contact. “I never meant to put words in your mouth. I just figured that pushing you away wouldn’t hurt as bad as you pushing me away. And I never stopped to think about what effect that might have on you.”
“Fourteen years, Hawk.”
“I know.”
BJ took a deep breath and looked at him again. Funny, how so much of Hawkeye’s energy still revolved around getting BJ to look at him. “Well, it’s water under the bridge now. We can’t change it.”
“If I could, I would.”
“I know.”
***
BJ all but kicked him out of the clinic, arguing that Hawkeye was on vacation and shouldn’t be doctoring. The fact that he was right - and still able to read him like a book - toed the line between obnoxious and endearing. Even more aggravating, BJ insisted on keeping Hawkeye’s bag so he could freely sightsee. He wouldn’t be surprised if it was also a convoluted first step toward being forced to spend the night at BJ’s apartment.
So, he spent most of the afternoon milling about with BJ’s address burning a hole in his pocket.
He meandered through a few shops and one incredibly diversified bookstore that would have been labeled satanic back home, but he mainly spent the next few hours people-watching.
In some ways, the energy and rebellion brought him back to his brighter-eyed and bushier-tailed days when he, too, fought tooth and nail against anything and everything.
In others, he felt damn old.
He grabbed a cheap slice of greasy pizza for dinner and ate it in a window seat.
As the sun started to paint the sky red and purple, Hawkeye made his way toward BJ’s apartment. He lived only a few blocks from the clinic, on the second floor of a pink and blue Victorian. Because of course he did.
He tapped on the door, wondering if breaking in and making himself at home went a little beyond a joke.
“Howdy, stranger.”
“Hi.”
BJ ushered him inside. He seemed softer and more stripped down, backlit by the kitchen light and standing barefoot on his linoleum floors.
The apartment consisted, by Hawkeye’s estimation, of three rooms: the main living space, and whatever laid behind two doors ahead on the left. A dining area monopolized the entry with a round wooden table and two clashing pairs of chairs. To the immediate left was a living room furnished by a TV set, sofa, egg chair, and phonograph. The kitchen sat beyond the dining area, little more than a set of cabinets trying to cram themselves as tightly into the corner as they could.
“Neat little place you have here.”
BJ brushed the compliment away. “It’s not much, but it’s got four walls. You eat?”
Hawkeye hummed as he toed off his shoes by the doorway. He looked up in time to see BJ tilt his head, like something suddenly caught his attention.
“Come here.”
“Pardon me?”
BJ gestured toward himself and walked backwards toward the kitchen. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
The fourteen year old impulse to follow BJ hadn’t waned, apparently.
He watched BJ’s shoulders flex as he slid open the window above the sink. Distant drums and warbled guitar riffs floated in through the screen, ultimately giving the sense that they were tuned in to the neighbor’s radio. Hawkeye listened in astonishment for a few bars.
“Is that Janis Joplin?”
BJ nodded, a boyish smile on his face. “There’s a concert of some sort in hearing range almost every night. I heard George Harrison a couple of weeks ago. Erin was so mad she didn’t talk to me all weekend.”
“Oh, she’s into George, is she?”
Sliding his hands in his pockets, BJ sighed. “Apparently she’s got a thing for mustaches. I can’t imagine why.”
Hawkeye hit him across the arm, sending him recoiling with a laugh.
For a moment, awash in fading light and the soft sound of blues, they just stared at each other. Fourteen years suddenly both vanished and stretched second by second between them.
“So, uh,” Hawkeye broke the silence, some of his more eloquent work if he did say so himself.
“I figured we could talk, catch up. Or, you know, we can hit the hay if you’re too tired.”
“Beej, you don’t have to do this.”
“You’re not gonna find a hotel around here, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s the least I can do.”
“Well, when you put it like that.”
BJ’s face sobered. “And I want you here. If you want to be here.”
He still doesn’t realize , Hawkeye thought, that I’d do anything just to be nearby . Hawkeye vaguely remembered a Sunday school lesson from lifetimes ago. A woman - hurting, suffering, ill, if his memory was correct - was so desperate for healing she reached out and pinched Jesus’ robe. Maybe Hawkeye made the connection now. Maybe that’s how he should be thinking about a bumpy jeep ride from Kimpo or a cramped flight on a whim to San Francisco.
“Sure,” he said. “I can set myself up on the couch. Where are my bags?”
“Uh uh, mister.” BJ turned on his heel and pushed through the second door. Hawkeye followed him into a small bedroom. A large, nondescript bed monopolized the space. His bag sat catty corner at the foot. Arranged. For presentation. Like it was supposed to be there.
“BJ.”
“Come on, it’ll be like old times.”
Hawkeye gestured over his shoulder at the rest of the apartment. “I’m perfectly happy on the couch.”
“Okay,” BJ started, placing his hands on his hips, “you want the truth?”
“From you? I’d kill a man with my bare hands to get the truth out of you.”
BJ’s face remained stoic, his eyebrows serious. It gave him away more than anything but Hawkeye let him continue. “Erin stays there when she’s here and she’s incredibly picky about who gets couch rights.” When Hawkeye met his eyes, he did see a scrap of sincerity behind them.
“I don’t know why I’m complaining, no one’s tried this hard to get me into bed with them in years.” He didn’t know why he expected a bigger laugh out of that.
“You want the bathroom first?”
“No, you go ahead. I’ll get my things out.”
BJ slipped out of the bedroom. Hawkeye pulled out his silk pajamas, toothbrush, and the battered copy of Catch-22 he’d been trudging his way through for the past six months. The hushed sound of running water filled the silence around him.
He didn’t quite feel welcome enough to fully make himself at home in BJ’s apartment, let alone on his bed, so he slipped his hands in his pockets and started to snoop. The wall opposite the bed sported a menagerie of photographs that got the better of him.
In the center was that old picture of Peg bathing Erin that Hawkeye remembered from its place of honor at the foot of BJ’s bed in Korea. There were a couple snapshots of BJ in various states of inebriation with his arms around friends at office parties and backyard barbeques. What intrigued Hawkeye the most were the family portraits with BJ, Peg, and Erin through the years. Now that he knew to look for it, the staged intimacy seemed obvious under the veneer of all-American domesticity. And, okay, maybe Hawkeye felt vindicated that clearly BJ was more than a little neurotic about his marriage all that time for a reason. But mainly his heart hurt for BJ.
Most of the pictures were of Erin. Those huge brown eyes gave her away, every bit as expressive and compelling as her father’s. She was an adorable kid and, as Hawkeye stood there putting together which features she got from who, he felt this ache opening in his chest.
Like he was missing someone.
He couldn’t tell if the longing tugging at his deeper, less acknowledged feelings was for BJ or his daughter. Or maybe just for the fourteen years worth of memories and love and knowledge he’d turned down.
“She’s something else, isn’t she?” BJ materialized next to him.
Hawkeye looked at him, taking in his damp, rumpled hair, still dark around his ears. He turned back to the pictures. “She’s gorgeous, Beej.”
“Yeah, well, thankfully she takes after her mother.”
He elbowed BJ before inching around him into the bathroom.
***
Multiple strange sensations, really, pulled Hawkeye from sleep.
There was the sunlight, warbled off of neighboring windows and cutting through open blinds across his face.
Then there was the fact that he was in BJ’s bed, of all places. He couldn’t think about that one for too long without bursting out of his skin.
Mostly, Hawkeye figured, burrowing even further into a flat pillow that smelled like BJ, he was awoken by a clanging metallic sound in the other room.
Groggily pulling his robe over his already sweat-damp skin, he opened the bedroom door. In the kitchen he found BJ stretching with an exercise spring. He let BJ get in a few more reps before he interrupted. “Nice to see you’re still insufferable.”
BJ glanced up at him with an infuriating quirk to his mouth. “Who, me?”
“I’m standing here sweating and you’re voluntarily doing that to yourself?”
“Sorry if I woke you up.”
“Luckily for you I had to get up eventually.” Hawkeye tied the robe around his waist as he watched BJ straighten and roll out his shoulders.
“How’d you sleep?”
I was next to you, what do you think? “Like a rock. Travel, you know.”
BJ condensed the exercise spring and tucked it away behind the sofa. “Come on, I’ll make you breakfast.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Hawkeye insisted.
“What kind of host would I be if I didn’t?”
“Considering your guest was unexpected, I’m sure they’d understand.”
“Considering I invited the guest to stay, I’m sure I can handle it.” BJ took him by the shoulders and pointed him towards the front door. “Now, go grab the paper, sit down, and tell me how you want your eggs cooked.”
Hawkeye turned, incredulous at this amount of bickering so early in the morning. The sight of BJ already puttering around the kitchen in his sleep shirt and boxers stole any sassy retort from his mouth. “However you’re making them for yourself is fine by me.”
“Over easy it is,” BJ grumbled without looking over his shoulder.
“Okay, but I’m expecting perfect ‘shimmering alabaster.’”
BJ whipped around. “What?”
“That time we got the fresh eggs and you spent all of dinner pontificating about your ideal egg dish. That’s how you described your fried eggs.”
“You remember that?”
Hawkeye shot him a look. “Of course I do.”
He grabbed the daily paper from in front of the door and collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs. They coexisted in silence, but Hawkeye could tell that the tension was broken. He skimmed through headlines about Detroit and the Supreme Court, then took a look through the baseball scores.
BJ slid a plate with two perfect eggs, three triangles of whole wheat toast, and a pile of grilled broccoli across the table to him before returning with a cup of coffee. Hawkeye waited until he returned with his own identical breakfast to speak.
“Thanks, Beej, really.”
“Oh good, we’ve gotten past all the ‘you didn’t have to’ nonsense.” The smirk across his face betrayed his annoyed tone.
The breakfast was better than Hawkeye expected. Although that was his own fault after hearing BJ’s verbal shrine to the perfectly fried egg.
“So what was your plan for the day?” BJ held his coffee mug in front of him with both hands. Both of their empty plates filled the space between them.
Hawkeye leaned back in his chair, fiddling absentmindedly with the tails of his robe tie. “I don’t have one.”
“Oh?”
“My plan was to get in last night, look around, and regroup once I found a place to stay. I wasn’t counting on some overzealous local taking me in.”
BJ waggled his eyebrows as if to say he was welcome and took a sip of coffee.
“So, overzealous local, what should I check off my San Francisco bucket list?”
For a moment, concentrated heat flashed across BJ’s features as he stared at Hawkeye, lost in thought. “If you’re here for the Summer of Love, you’ve gotta get down to the park. See the sights, smell the smells, get a lung-full of fresh air.”
“Fresh air?”
“Yup.”
“In San Francisco?”
“Mmhmm.”
God, he was the worst.
“Then I’ll start there today. See where the day takes me.”
BJ laughed. “You? By yourself? I know you’re a flower child under that hard, New England exterior, but I can’t let you do that.”
“Are you suggesting I need a chaperone?”
“No, you’re right. Go slip back into your sportcoat and have a blast.”
Hawkeye couldn’t keep an incredulous laugh from bubbling out of his throat. “You have to go to work!”
Flashing a devastating smile as he stood, BJ collected their dishes. “Dave gave me the day off last night. I’m all yours.” Hawkeye pulled himself up and stepped toward the sink. BJ wielded a dirty fork at him. “Don’t even think about touching these.”
Hawkeye put his hands on his hips. “So you trust me to dress myself today?”
“Not in the slightest, but I’ll let you prove yourself.”
Rolling his eyes, he skulked back into BJ’s room.
“Borrow anything from my closet that you need,” BJ called after him, “because you’re going to need it.”
It wasn’t until Hawkeye was dressed and staring in the mirror that he conceded BJ was onto something. The plaid pants he thought were pretty youthful and hip, even if they were technically work slacks, but the button down short sleeved shirt felt a little too, well, buttoned up. With a sigh, he turned towards BJ’s closet. A wide array of colors and fabrics greeted him. Only BJ, he thought to himself, even as he realized that he’d never seen how BJ dressed as a civilian before yesterday. He filed through the hangers. As he longed for the comfort of his own closet, he saw it. Wedged in between winter sweaters at the end of the closet. With reverent hands, he pulled it out and made up his mind.
After snooping through BJ’s drawers to find his jeans, he stepped in front of the mirror and caught his own breath. He felt several disparate parts of himself - parts he hadn’t seen in fourteen years - click into place. He also felt like a ghost in his own skin, but one step at a time.
“Will you be seen with me?” He asked, equal parts terrified and cheeky, as he stepped into the kitchen where BJ lounged against the counter reading the paper.
BJ looked up, his eyes flicking immediately down to the old pink henley hanging off of Hawkeye’s frame. His mouth hung open a beat longer than necessary. “It certainly beats a turtleneck.”
***
Golden Gate Park crawled with so many people that they only made it a few hundred yards before deciding to set up shop at the base of a cypress tree. BJ spread a blanket out and anchored the far corner with the picnic basket he’d brought. Hawkeye desperately wanted to joke about how the thing was probably full of nothing but vegetables, but he was too busy dancing around insulting the ridiculous poncho BJ decided to wear.
No, really, Beej, he’d assured him on the walk over, I totally get why you’d be embarrassed by a sportcoat.
Reclining in the dappled sunlight and warm breeze, they watched a gaggle of kids cartwheel by.
“I guess I don’t get it yet.”
BJ opened his eyes and looked over at him. “Get what?”
“People come from all over the country to what? Sit in the sun and listen to music?” He waved his hand at the sea of people around them. “I mean it’s nice for an afternoon, but I don’t know if I could make it my summer.”
“Well,” BJ explained through a smile, “you’re not high.”
Hawkeye nodded in recognition. “You’ve got me there.” He couldn’t keep down a laugh, more at the thought of being so old he was officially a generation away from culture than anything else.
They eased into silence. A group of white kids further down the hill started singing ‘We Shall Overcome,’ the sound of voices and off-tune guitar mingling in the air.
With his eyes closed and the sun warming his skin through the soft, worn fabric of BJ’s clothes, Hawkeye started to sink into comfort.
“You said you don’t drink anymore.”
There it is. He took a deep breath, keeping his face turned towards the sky. “It got really bad after I got home. As in, my father had to drive me down to Portland, bad.” He listened to BJ adjusting on the blanket. “Life’s a lot different now, but I’ve got too many memories that I don’t want to dredge up.”
BJ hummed next to him.
Hawkeye figured the conversation was over until BJ spoke several moments later, his voice lazy and contemplative.
“Peg made me stop.” A deep breath. “I was just so angry. Angry at you, angry at the war, angry at my neighbors, angry with myself. And instead of making it better, drinking only made it worse. I was putting Erin in danger and I didn’t even realize it.”
“Did you hurt her?”
He heard BJ shake his head. “No. But collapsing over a toilet bowl in front of my toddler wasn’t exactly winning me any father-of-the-year awards.”
“I’m sorry, Beej.”
“It’s okay. You didn’t know. How could you know?”
“Look -”
“No, I’m sorry. Anger, remember?”
Hawkeye turned his head to look at BJ. His eyes were still closed, his hands still folded under his head, but the undeniable tension in his jaw gave him away. “Hey. I’m on vacation. And while working through our wartime trauma has been nothing short of delightful,” BJ’s mouth quirked up at that, “you’re first and foremost my tour guide.”
“You’re right.” BJ affected his awful British accent. “How foolish of me to forget my place, sir.”
“It’s bad enough I haven’t fired you over the poncho yet.”
BJ’s chuckle filled Hawkeye with a warmth totally separated from the California summer. “Will you can it?” BJ finally looked back over at him, his bottom lip trapped by his teeth.
If it weren’t BJ. If it were any other human person capable of expressing emotion, Hawkeye could take this at face value. “You’re lucky I’m such a nice guy.”
BJ shook his head and went back to staring up through the branches.
Crisis averted.
Hawkeye turned to reading.
The hours ticked idly by.
“Hey.”
He and BJ both snapped their heads up at the scratchy, feminine voice in front of them. A gaggle of college-aged girls stood in front of them. Hawkeye quickly took in mini skirts, tie dye, and more crochet than he’d ever seen in one place.
“Hi,” BJ carefully answered.
“Can we sit with you?”
“What’s up?” There was that sickening punch of watching B’s fatherly streak in real time. He’d almost forgotten.
“There’s this guy that’s bothering us and we don’t want him to bother us.” The leader of the pack raised up an arm-full of quilt. “We have our own blankets and everything.”
“Sure. Have a seat.” BJ glanced over at him and shrugged.
As the girls settled a few yards away, Hawkeye leaned in to whisper to BJ. “I didn’t know you went in for that sort of thing.”
“Are you kidding? Both of us are old enough to be their father.”
Hawkeye tilted his head.
“Oh that’s right,” BJ intoned, “your mid-life crisis.”
The blood rose immediately to his cheeks. He hadn’t thought about Charlotte since getting on the plane. And even then, a room full of naked swimsuit models and he’d still only have eyes for BJ.
One of the girls gestured towards them. “You guys mind if we light up?”
BJ laughed. “Go ahead.”
“Far out.” Hawkeye watched as a redhead with lace-up jeans and sunburn rolled a joint on her leg. She handed it off to the ringleader to light. “You can hit if you want. For letting us be here.”
He looked at BJ, whose face betrayed frustratingly little, before turning back to the girls. “Why not?”
The girl exhaled a laugh and handed the joint over. He raised it to his lips, self conscious under the attention. On the inhale, he felt the smoke curl through his mouth and down his throat. He coughed at the sensation and handed the joint back over.
“Breathe it out, man.” He let out a cloud of smoke, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all. “Nicely done.”
The girls smiled encouragingly at him and held up peace signs before returning to their own smoke session with giggles.
The inside of his mouth felt weird, how it felt after smoking a cigarette back when that was one of his vices. “See, I’m groovy.”
“Oh my God.”
“You ever light up, old man?”
“Once or twice,” BJ admitted. “Didn’t catch on.” His attention fell to the fringe at the edge of his poncho. “Do you really think those girls are after… us?”
“No. Not at all.”
“Thank God.”
Hawkeye narrowed his eyes at him.
“I mean, if that was happening and it was something you were into, I’d be on board. It’s your trip. But if it’s not happening we don’t have to discuss it.”
“Yeah.” Hawkeye tried to parse through the nerves on BJ’s face. “I’m gonna get back to reading. Are you on board with that?”
“Of course,” BJ replied, too quickly.
“Right.”
He opened Catch-22 where it lay half-forgotten on his lap, folding back the dog-eared page. Absentmindedly eating celery sticks out of the picnic basket - which was as laden with greenery as he’d assumed - as he read, the jokes and frustrations on the page hit a little too close to home. He liked the book, but some days it was harder to slug through than others.
He closed the book again and tossed it in the general direction of the picnic basket.
Shuffling further into the center of the blanket, Hawkeye stretched out to lay down. As he went, his head hit something. “Sorry,” he let out on instinct, looking up to see he’d hit BJ’s outstretched knee.
BJ looked down at him from his seated position against the tree trunk like he was in on a joke. “No worries. Put your head there if you want to.”
“Beej.” He didn’t need to say the you-can’t-be-serious part out loud.
“You’ve seen at least eight naked people today, but you draw the line at putting your head on my leg?”
“Yeah, well, I haven’t seen you naked today.” Really, Ben? That’s the best we could do?
BJ didn’t flinch. “The day is young,” he observed without so much as a blink before he returned to filling in the days’ crossword.
Hawkeye, coward though he may be, could not back down from a challenge like that. If BJ wanted to flirt with him, BJ could deal with the consequences.
He laid his head on BJ’s sun-warmed knee. After a few minutes of silent panic, he was able to close his eyes and enjoy the sensations of the summer afternoon. Even the cloud of cannabis smoke from next door didn’t seem to bother him as much.
Sleep overtook him for an unclear amount of time. He woke up to fingers nestling in the back of his hair and a hand on the back of his neck.
When he opened his eyes, BJ was gazing down at him. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
The sun cut a new angle, lighting up BJ’s tan skin and the gold still clinging to his hair. “I’ll forgive you, I’m sure.”
BJ scratched at his scalp. “Want to head home?”
Nodding, Hawkeye was overcome with the realization that in his relaxed, sleep-addled state, he couldn’t keep the devotion from writing itself clear as anything across his face.
They both stood, awkward with aging joints they still weren’t used to. BJ stretched his back, his poncho riding up to reveal a strip of skin. Instead of staring, or running his tongue along it like he really wanted, Hawkeye crouched to start cleaning up their things. BJ checked on the girls and made sure they were alright and then they were on their way.
***
The sun was still setting when they made it back to BJ’s apartment. Hawkeye dropped the blankets and basket on the kitchen table as BJ did whatever it was BJ needed to do.
Spinning around, Hawkeye found BJ standing less than a foot in front of him. “Hi.”
“You’d tell me if I was being stupid, right? If I was reading into things wrong?”
Hawkeye hardly had time to furrow his brow before BJ kissed him. His breath caught in his chest at the warm, soft lips against his, only complimented by the warm, calloused hands framing his face. BJ pulled away, leaning his forehead against Hawkeye’s.
“Oh, now this is stupid.” BJ started to tense and step away, so Hawkeye kept him close with two hands at his hips. “I can’t do a single thing I want to you with that poncho on.”
After a gasping breath of relief, BJ laughed out loud into the half-dark of the apartment. “You mean it?”
Hawkeye gestured between their faces. “What, are you going to take that back if I say no?”
BJ kissed him in lieu of answering. The force of it knocked Hawkeye back into the kitchen table even as BJ pulled him closer by the waist.
“Come on, take this stupid thing off,” Hawkeye urged, plucking at the poncho.
“I happen to love it.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, just get it off.”
This time, Hawkeye let him take a step back. BJ quickly lifted the poncho over his head, leaving himself shirtless. Hawkeye didn’t stop himself from staring.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”
“I just might.”
He watched as BJ realized just how badly Hawkeye wanted him, his gaze twisting into something dark and predatory. It almost made a fourteen year wait worth it.
BJ drew him back in, kissing from his lips down to his neck. His knees crumbled. “You don’t know what it’s done to me, seeing you in your shirt,” BJ professed against Hawkeye’s collarbone.
“My shirt?”
An affirmative hum against his neck that nearly sent him reeling. “It’s from that party I threw you when you went to the peace talks.” BJ switched to trail kisses against the other side of Hawkeye’s neck. “You needed a break in the monotony, so I kept wearing it.”
He put his hands on BJ’s chest - which, Jesus Christ - to break them apart. “Are you serious?”
“Did you not know?”
BJ’s eyes were so blue and so kind and so close. “I mean I guess I must’ve, somewhere deep in there.” BJ cupped his cheek. “I need you naked on that bed in about three seconds flat.”
“Does that usually work for you?”
Hawkeye laughed and looped a finger through one of BJ’s belt loops. “No, but I feel like you’re the one seducing me here.”
BJ kissed him slow and dirty. “I’ve only been trying all weekend.”
***
Only one thing woke Hawkeye.
And while it also attempted to lure him back into sleep, the novelty of BJ’s bare skin pressed against his own was too good to pass up. He opened his eyes to find himself pillowed on BJ’s chest, a tan arm running down his back and holding him secure at his hip. From the sound of his breathing, he was still asleep.
Unable to keep himself from the opportunity laid out naked before him, Hawkeye turned his head to press his face into BJ’s skin. He kissed the skin over his heart and inhaled the scent of him. BJ stirred.
“Good morning.”
“Morning.” An adoring look, both familiar and foreign lingered on BJ’s face when Hawkeye leaned up to make eye contact. “What?
BJ took a deep breath. “You’re just… you’re so you.”
“Now there’s one I haven’t heard before.” He smirked, even as the blissful expression on BJ’s face only solidified the longer he spent awake. “You mean it, don’t you? Here you had me convinced all weekend that you were flirting just to flirt.”
“No way, honey. I’m gone on you.” Embarrassed in the presence of all this raw emotion, Hawkeye settled back on BJ’s chest, staring out at BJ’s dresser instead of his face. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted this.”
“Oh, I can. Tell you how long I’ve wanted you, I mean. Sixteen years.”
BJ paused. “The very beginning?”
“Try the second I clapped eyes on you.”
He felt BJ swallow before a hand came up to trace lazy circles on the skin of Hawkeye’s shoulder. An awful, reckless idea popped into Hawkeye’s head.
“Beej, I know we can’t build a life off of a weekend, but what would you say if I came out here? I could get my own place, you’d only have to see me if you really wanted to -”
“Hawk. Hawk, look at me.” BJ used his other hand to tilt Hawkeye’s chin up. “You could move in tomorrow if you wanted to. I want you here. You belong here, if you want to be here.”
Hawkeye could only stare back at him. “God, you’re so you.”
BJ pushed the hand from Hawkeye’s chin through his hair, arranging it just the way Hawkeye liked. “And we’re not working off of a weekend. We’re talking a whole lifetime here.”
“Even though I spent most of it not talking to you?”
“Mmhmm.”
Pushing himself up onto an elbow, Hawkeye brought them eye level before he leaned in. Their lips met soft and understanding, the way they could have only met with sixteen years of history. They kissed slowly. Like they were those kids down in the street, twenty years younger and with plenty of time stretched ahead of them.
BJ broke away with a hum. “It’s Saturday.”
“I go home tomorrow.”
BJ nodded. “Erin will be here soon.”
“Erin? Shit.” Hawkeye would like to say that he leapt out of bed, but between extracting himself from both of BJ’s arms and the sheets still twisted around his legs from the night before, it was more of a prolonged fall. “Why didn’t you tell me? Let me get out of your hair.”
“Nobody’s hair needs getting out of,” BJ assured him, getting out of bed much smoother than Hawkeye had managed.
“You sure?” They both pulled on someone’s errant boxers.
BJ met him at the foot of the bed. “Yes!”
Hawkeye wrapped his arms around BJ’s waist. “It’s just that you’ve got so little to get out of.”
“You’re so…”
“Sexy? Charming? Irresistible?”
Dropping the angry act, BJ reeled him in for a kiss. “All that and more.” With their arms still around each other, BJ walked them backwards out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.
“What time does Erin get here?”
“About 10.”
“What time is it now?”
BJ peered at the clock on the wall behind Hawkeye. “9:37.”
“I can be very fast.”
“I’d rather be thorough,” BJ countered, pinching his hip.
A blush blossomed across Hawkeye’s face. “Hey, now, don’t start anything you can’t finish.”
Smiling at him, BJ released him and pushed him towards the bathroom. “Come on. Grab a shower while I fix breakfast.”
Hawkeye nodded behind him. “There’s enough room for two in there.”
“Go,” BJ laughed.
Pleased with their banter, and overjoyed at the prospect that BJ felt the same way he did, Hawkeye followed his orders. But there was still lingering anxiety at the base of his stomach. He turned at the door jamb. “Hey Beej?”
Something in his voice must have given BJ pause. “What is it?”
“Are you sure you want me around when Erin gets here?”
“Of course I do.”
God, this conversation wasn’t easy to have in their underwear. “I haven’t been here, you know. I’ve known her since she was a kid, but I don’t know her. And there’s only one bedroom, I don’t want to put you in a spot.”
“Hawk,” BJ reassured him. “For one, she knows about me. As long as she doesn’t see or hear us, I don’t think she cares. And for two,” he paused as his voice wavered, “she can’t wait to meet you.”
He raised his eyebrows questioningly.
BJ nodded.
“Okay. I’ll be on my best behavior then.”
“Yeah, I doubt that.”
“Go pick up your poncho.”
Hawkeye watched as BJ flashed him a smile and plucked up the pool of abandoned fabric from the kitchen floor. He took in BJ’s runner’s build, still enticing after all these years and in perfect working order if last night was anything to go by, before ducking into the shower and singing at the top of his lungs.
***
The airport swarmed with Sunday afternoon traffic.
Hawkeye picked his way to the gate with an emotion too nice to rightfully ascribe to the war. Without looking, he knew that BJ and Erin would be right behind him. Only BJ had ever inspired that level of surety, that feeling of likemindedness. Orpheus could eat his heart out.
“This is me,” he announced, double checking the signage against his ticket.
BJ lifted Hawkeye’s bag from his hands and placed it on a plastic seat before he could object. One of those stupid, beautiful, romantic gestures BJ had been doing all along, except now they both knew the real feelings behind them. Hawkeye shot him as loaded a look as he could manage. It didn’t hold a candle to their incredibly thorough goodbye in BJ’s room that morning, but BJ caught it and smirked back even as his cheeks colored.
Out of the corner of his eye, Hawkeye caught Erin looking between them, shaking her head in mild disgust.
He turned his attention to the teenager. Erin was beautiful, brilliant, sarcastic as hell, nearly as tall as her father, and had stolen half of his heart in the short weekend he’d known her. “It was great to finally meet you, Erin. I’m sorry it took me so long.”
“You too,” she answered, a trace of genuine sentiment in her eyes.
“Behave, you hear me?”
She shot him a yeah, right look. Hawkeye did the next logical thing and ruffled her hair, right across that severe middle part, failing to keep down a grin at her scowl.
He’d never been good at farewells with BJ. Now they had something between them, something to return to, it made it a little easier. But it was so hard to say goodbye when BJ wore a navy shirt that brought out those big, teary eyes.
He took a steadying breath. “Thanks for everything.”
“My pleasure.”
“Ew,” Erin whispered.
BJ slipped his hands into his pockets. “Did you grab everything? You have your flying meds?” This liminal space and all this double talk frustrated him. Sure beat the hell out of a Korean helipad, though.
“Yep. If not, I know where you live.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be back.” BJ winked. “Are you gonna write this time?”
Hawkeye softened, dropping his shoulders where they’d tensed. “Only when I think about you.” BJ was still letting his anxiety get the better of him and, therefore, not getting it. “You better warn your landlord, you’re going to need a bigger mailbox.”
A wet laugh escaped BJ’s mouth, the pieces finally clicking in place.
The boarding call sounded over the intercom.
BJ’s arms wrapped securely around him. They held onto each other for as long as they thought they could get away with. BJ tucked his nose against Hawkeye’s neck, making his breath stutter at the feeling of a fourteen year old heartbreak beginning to close.
“Call me when you land,” BJ insisted when they parted.
Hawkeye nodded, unable to look away just yet. I love you, he mouthed.
I love you, BJ mouthed back.
Sniffling, Hawkeye shouldered his bag and turned towards the gate.
Once he got settled in his seat, he tried to make out two blonde figures in the airport windows, trusting they were there even if he couldn’t see them. The flight attendant brought him ginger ale to wash down his medication. He set to mentally organizing his packing list for the move to California until he fell asleep.