Chapter Text
BJ fidgets, sitting on the foot of the bed as Hawkeye changes into dry pajama pants and a hooded sweatshirt. He pulled some of his own clothes from the bag he’d hastily packed, that Peg had pulled out of the closet the moment he put the phone down and said Hawk tried to kill himself.
The fabric of his slacks and t-shirt feel rough and unnatural, a costume that doesn’t fit.
Hawkeye’s pale, long back is towards him. They’ve been in states of undress around each other a thousand times – no privacy in a tent, shared showers, latrines – but after their waterlogged makeout session, his declaration of love, he’s suddenly shy. Or maybe just too exhausted to put any thought into what he looks like to someone else.
BJ chews the side of his cheek, looks around Hawk’s childhood bedroom. The blue comforter has little constellations painted all over it, to match an ancient telescope pointing out the window. On the wall, there’s photos of a six-year-old Hawkeye sitting in his parent’s laps, grinning with both front teeth missing. A Red Sox pendant, a well-loved pin-up of Joan Blondell in a dark bikini. Piles of books with yellowing pages in every corner of the room. It seems like Daniel hasn’t touched the place since Hawkeye walked out at seventeen.
He can’t imagine his parents keeping his bedroom, an impersonal little box in San Rafael the maid kept neat and blank, like this. Thoughts of Erin, if he would build a shrine like this for her, are quickly banished from his mind. You are here with him.
“Didn’t know you were an amateur astronomer,” he comments. Hawkeye turns around, confused. The front of his sweatshirt says COLUMBIA in blocky print. BJ nods to the telescope.
“Oh, that.” Hawkeye sits down on the mattress next to him. “I mostly used it to watch Mrs. Delano down the street get undressed.”
How did he do that? Treat sex like a game, easy as dealing a deck of cards. BJ reaches up, runs a thumb down his cheek, which is still freezing from the fall cold. “I didn’t know you went to Columbia.”
Hawkeye wraps a hand around his wrist, but doesn’t pull it away from his face. “That I did.”
“Good school. Ivy League. Most people would brag about that.” He presses his temple against Hawkeye’s, watches his eyes flutter closed.
“Beej.”
He slides his hand down the side of Hawk’s face, cupping the back of his neck. “I always thought smart was sexy.”
“You don’t have to.”
BJ rubs his thumb soothingly over the top of his spine. “My thought process is my own.”
Hawkeye shakes his head. His still-damp hair sends water droplets into BJ’s eyes, against his nose. “I didn’t tell you about my gooey high school swooning because I expected you to get down on one knee. I told you because I’d get an ulcer if I didn’t.”
“The small ocean of gin you drank might have more to do with that,” BJ cracks reflexively, breath warm on Hawkeye’s skin, but he doesn’t laugh.
“The men with butterfly nets are clearly about to descend on my doorstep any day now. Just...don’t feel like you need to alleviate my symptoms anymore than you already have, Dr. Hunnicut.”
BJ stands abruptly, suddenly unable to take the feeling of his clothes. They’re too fancy and proper, for a man he hasn’t been since the day he got off the plane in Korea. Maybe even before that. He undoes his belts and pulls off his slacks, standing before the bed in his boxers.
Hawkeye blinks. “Okay, maybe they’re doing a two-for-one sale at the loony bin.”
“I’m here. I’m right here.”
“That’s just it. You can’t be, not really. I might get a little kinky, but I’m not into torture.” Peg. Erin. Three thousand miles between that house and this one. It all blows through the room like the winter wind swirling outside.
“We’re always going to want just a little longer.” BJ kicks his pants off his ankles, across the room, into the pile of laundry Hawkeye never put away in the Swamp, or, apparently, ever. “This is already more…”
He presses his hand against Hawkeye’s chest, pushing him slowly onto his back. The mattress creaks, then groans as BJ plants a knee on one side of Hawkeye’s hip, then the other. He lowers himself until they’re chest-to-chest, sharp elbows jabbing into each other, and kisses him.
Something inside of BJ clicks into place, boxing Hawk in, hand on his cheek, his neck. The same clarity he feels holding his daughter. Overwhelming, undistilled, glad-about-it-mad-about-it love.
He knows who he is, with Erin. And with Hawkeye. He's in love.
Hawkeye hooks his foot around the back of BJ’s bare knee, cradles the back of his head in those magical hands. He sinks into his mattress, but not like he sunk under the waves, not like he sunk behind the eyes so many times in Korea.
It’s an exhale.
“You sure know how to sweep a guy off his feet, Beej,” he murmurs.
And before he can think of what to say to that, Hawkeye grabs his hips and hoists him forward, up his body, until BJ is straddling his shoulders.
Bunching his boxers down his thighs, he takes the tip of BJ’s cock in his mouth, then swallows the rest of him down. His eyes are big and focused, the way they got during surgery. That caring, laser-sharp concentration that saved so many lives, made BJ’s stomach flip whenever he caught it.
He lets out an exhale of his own, palm slapping against the wall above the mattress as he tried to brace himself, not fuck into Hawk’s mouth and choke him. “If everyone knew this...this was how to shut you up…”
Hawkeye pulls off, giving him a fairly haughty look for someone in his position. “Please, I wasn’t voted Most Popular Doctor South of The 38th Parallel for my witty repartee.”
BJ feels himself keel over, hand sweaty, slipping on the wall. With Peg, with Carrie – it never felt this dizzying, this staggering. Hawkeye’s long arm shoots up, tugs his head down so they’re looking at each other again. He goes back to blowing him, but BJ feels like he’s on his knees, caught in the beam of Hawk’s gaze.
“I used to watch you...go off with…” BJ babbles, fading instead of going with the less tactful everything that moved. “...and I’d get annoyed...thought I was jealous you...you got to go with any pretty girl you wanted...but…”
He comes hard, suddenly, like he hasn’t since he was a teenager, his toes curling in borrowed socks. Hawkeye swallows like a champion, nuzzling his cheek against BJ’s wrist, because his hands had migrated down to grip his hair at some point in the orgasm, when he collapsed in Hawkeye’s arms.
“I was jealous of them.” It comes out so small. A confession.
Hawkeye catches his breath, kisses his wrist. “Trust me, BJ,” his lips are so red it’s obscene. If BJ was a little bit younger, he’d roll him over, go again. “It was always you.”
His chest is rising and falling a little erratically, and BJ rolls off Hawk before he crushes him in the most mortifying murder Crabapple Cove has ever seen.
Hawkeye turns on his side, and their noses bump. His dog tags – their dog tags – glint in the darkness, resting against his chest. “You really aren't the one who deserves your nickname, y'know."
"I-" BJ feels his face color, and Hawkeye cackles, delighted.
"Are you blushing? What a WASP!"
"More like a gentleman."
Hawkeye's smile settles. He drags a finger through the thin line of blonde chest hair peeking out over the top of BJ’s shirt. "You have to go home tomorrow, don’t you?”
BJ presses his temple against Hawk’s, throws an arm over his waist. “I can stay another day.”
“Benjamin Hunnicut Jr. spend even one more three-day weekend away from Mill Valley? California will fall.” Hawkeye looks sad, but in the open, accepting way he does about little things; bad food, cold weather. The wife and daughter who need the man he loves. C’est la vie. A survivor.
BJ kisses him long and deep, luxuriates in the feeling of being in place, the buzz of contentment better than any drink. “California can handle a few days. Whenever you need them.”
Even as he says it, it sounds pathetic. Cruel. Benjamin Franklin Hawkeye Pierce is nobody’s kept woman, surviving on a few stolen weeks every year.
Hawk, reading his thoughts as always, cuffs his ear.
“Easy, Sinatra. Let’s just...you’re here right now.” Another kiss, hands on BJ’s hips with practiced ease. How long have they pictured this moment with each other? “I can’t believe you’re here right now.”
BJ slips his hand into Hawk’s boxers, where he’s become painfully hard, and starts to stroke him off. Clumsy, inexperienced on someone else. Hawk’s eyelashes dust his skin again, a little damp.
They said goodbye once, and it wasn’t true. So he’ll say it again tomorrow morning, after they have breakfast and avoid Daniel’s eye. He’ll hug Hawkeye like it’s the last time and kiss him like it’s the first. And they’ll both sleep a little more and breathe a little easier, live a little better. They won't just survive. Because they'll have each other.
“Never gonna shake you,” Hawkeye moans, he’s making Hawk moan, cock hard and hot in his fist.
“Not a chance,” he manages, and feels his best friend grin against his lips.