lovethyneighb_or | IC inbox (pumpkin hollow)

He wants to wail, to sob, to throw himself at Hawkeye’s feet, to curse him and beg him to make up his mind and either absolve him or condemn him from his life, but that would ruin the conversation. So.

“Of course I do,” and it’s more plaintive than he meant for it to be, but not nearly as much as he feels. “I can barely think of anything else. But I—I never…”

He grabs the kettle. He searches for the words, for some place to begin, but there is nothing that he can say that doesn’t begin with what happened with the old Hawkeye, so stained with him is Mulcahy’s heart and mind. In the smallest fit of frustration, he strikes open the faucet, water flooding in.

“I didn’t mean to keep anything as a secret as such, but I… Hawkeye, the version of you that was on the ship…”

He looks at the ceiling. “We endured such terrible and bloody, daily horrors. Both of us, together. I am being entirely honest when I say that I believe it was some measure of true Hell. I can remember each and every time you died before my eyes, and every time I was there for you when you came back. I dream of it.

“We were close, closer than we’d ever been during the war, a-and perhaps because of that and the desperation of our circumstances, you… you asked something of me. Something I could never give you. And every day you begged me, and always I withheld, and I watched you wither from the heartbreak of it. You were sick with longing. The death of the body is one thing, but this was eating your soul.”

There’s clearly more that he’s gearing up to say, but he’s paused for long enough for Hawkeye to cut in if he chooses.

Slowly, carefully, cautiously, because if Hawk has misinterpreted this then they'll surely laugh about it at some other point down the track, but if he hasn't-

"Are you saying that I was in love with you?"

It doesn’t matter that it was only a question. Hearing those words in his voice again, something goes furious and rabid in his chest, thrashing against the inside of his ribs. Hawkeye’s blood materializes in the droplets in the sink, and he shuts the water off so it sounds less like a scream.

“Yes.”

It feels like a body blow.

“I—I loved you too, but not in the way you wanted. The way you needed. Selfishly, I could never distance myself, but the proximity was unbearable for you. I would have made both of us miserable if I tried to reject you, but we were already miserable together. You sought me at every turn. Sometimes we would sing at the piano bar together, and you… that was the closest we could ever come to what you wanted.”

They were the sweetest songs he’d ever heard, and he hopes Hawkeye never serenades him again.

His hands grip the edge of the sink, white-knuckled, his pitch climbing slowly higher. “We started to argue. One day, you cursed me for withholding. You said something cruel. I had deserved it, but I walked away from you. I didn’t turn around. After that day, I never saw you again; you’d been swallowed into the engine of the ship to be burned as fuel because you had become less than a shade. You…”

Breathe. Breathe. Please breathe. “You loved me, and I killed you. I killed you with grief. Oh, God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I killed you, I—I killed you—I killed you—“

(Peter, noticing this, zips into the kitchen with a worried chirp. He jangles insistently and splays himself and his keys across Mulcahy’s neck for something of weight and coldness. It isn’t much to try and ground him, but it is so much better than nothing.)

"Did I have no other opti-" Hawk tries to ask in amidst it, but if Mulcahy even hears him, he doesn't answer. There he goes, down some rabbit hole that Hawk can't possibly hope to follow him down. Listing experiences that didn't happen, feelings that Hawk searches his chest for and just doesn't find. Dying next to him on the lifeboats was awful, seeing Mulcahy's ghost was nearly a relief, but-

He feels something erupt in him, like if this doesn't give he's really going to snap, like the difference between losing a leg or dying to a landmine.

"I'M NOT DEAD."

Hawk feels it burn through him like a shot of adrenaline, desperate to just have it said so he knows he isn't sitting here a ghost on Mulcahy's couch.

"I'M NOT! I'M NOT DEAD- I'M NOT DEAD-" he iterates again, and again, "AND I DON'T- you knew some other guy but I'm not in love with you. Will you - stop saying I'm dead! Stop it!"

Peter lifts away in outrage at Hawkeye, but as soon as he does there's a sharp "Peter!" issuing from Mulcahy's folded form. He stops. Hovers. Begrudgingly, glaring at Hawk the whole time, he returns; the two arms that make up the ring separate briefly to wrap around Mulcahy's neck, and he hangs there as though a necklace.

Mulcahy will thank the Village for only thing, and that is for making him learn how to hide within himself in an instant. That heart has to go. He knows how to kill it, at least for a while. Strangle it good. Bury it deep. Lock it in the cupboard and throw away the key; it will come back, but at least for now, he'll live, and Hawkeye can be allowed to deal with someone marginally less pathetic.

A thorough organ harvest in a real hospital can take surgeons several hours to complete. A M*A*S*H is far more efficient; he has seen them take pieces in under a half hour, sometimes minutes for things like vein grafts. Mulcahy, reaching into his own chest from within, is faster than all of them.

He straightens his back. Folds his hands in front of him. He turns halfway, still unable to look at Hawkeye but leaving his face visible.

"Of course you're not," he says, finally, quietly. His intonation isn't flat, but... "I'm sorry. I know you're not. But this is why I wished never to tell you. It isn't fair to you. It isn't. And--I'm sorry for that shameful display. But there is no way to tell you without entangling you in something that had your face and yet which you never did, and is not your responsibility."

He doesn't love him. Good. If Hawk hates him by the end of this, even better. It will be a long and healthy hate.

"But if you want me to explain everything you didn't see, I can't leave it out, either, for the way it's haunted me."

Of course he feels bad for yelling, but even if he could stomach a biscuit right now all he could taste is corpse smell. The way it got in summer before the morgue trucks came around.

"You keep... dropping things on me like this," Hawk manages to find his tongue at last. Hordes of grade school teachers, lecturers, and fellow surgeons would be amazed he was ever this quiet.

"I didn't..." he just wanted his friend back. Doesn't want Mulcahy cowering, but doesn't want him like this either, this- cold and detached. Was it the war or the ship or the village that made Mulcahy's pilot light sputter out? And that other Hawkeye- it's hard not to feel like he's just keeping some other guy's place in line. Someone, apparently, with all of his flaws, who couldn't stop lusting after a priest for long enough to not have it kill him. He needs a shower. Or to grab the next ferry and make sure they get the right guy next time.

"Why did he-?" was it really Mulcahy and him and nobody else? Not a single other person Hawk could've got attached to? And he never- no, that's insane, he cannot genuinely be wondering why Mulcahy never reciprocated a relationship Hawk doesn't even remember having. Carlye and Tommy and all the other near misses in his life already claw at him.

"I don't want to know this. I don't- why would you do this to me?"

Here, Mulcahy turns to really face him. He just looks... sad, and frustrated.

"I don't get you, Hawk. I don't understand what you want. Do you want to know or don't you? I didn't want to tell you. I kept this from you because I knew this would happen, but you asked. Should I have never answered?"

A sigh. Somehow it fits into the stillness.

"The past six years have been a long and constant nightmare. If you count the war, that makes it nine, and you... you've never known me outside of it. There was no respite. None. If you want to know anything about what it's been like... or anything about who I am now, it is always going to be 'dropping things like this.'"

It's so cruel. Why does Hawkeye get to pick and choose his knowledge? Why does he get to come straight here from the war, why does he get to know him only once, why does he get to hear about this instead of live it? For years? Why does he get to be angry? No, of course he gets to be angry. He has the right. Why doesn't Mulcahy get to? Why does he have to do this? Why does he have to play this game and do this dance, decide whether or not to hold his tongue, whether or not to burn his bridges, whether or not he's allowed to feel anything? It's the same as in the Village; no matter what he does, it's wrong. He's wrong. He can't say everything. He can't say nothing. The in-between is infinite; what's the right answer? What is it? What is it? Why can't he let go?

(Strangle it good. Bury it deep.)

"What I want is for a friend not to freeze me out. Do I have to get every inch of viscera along with it? Do you expect me to- to cut myself open and let you rifle around inside me too? 'We had a difficult relationship on the ship, Hawk'- now that? That's something I might actually be able to chew on! And now what- do you want me to comfort you? Am I even allowed near you?" Hawk doesn't know the full shape of it even now, but he can imagine some amount of repulsion to him, it's not difficult.

"I can do something about Henry if I go back," he doesn't notice the slip, "I can't do anything about this. Look- I'm sorry for all of it. You know I am. If I could swap places, I would, if I could cut this out of you like it's shrapnel, I would, but what do you want from me that I can actually do?"

Both hands go out in gesture.

"Am I just meant to take that news like it's not a problem? Am I meant to be acting like I didn't just see you freak out and then act like nothing happened? Are you just going to shut down again if I ask anything? You never-" used to be like this, or if he did not where Hawk could see it, "I'm done. If this is just what trying to talk to you is like now then I don't want it. I can't- I can't handle you- you looking at me like I'm the guy that harassed you in hell. I don't know what got into that other me, but I wouldn't, and I don't care if you believe me on that."

"He did not harass," he snaps. "Don't say that about him. I wouldn't have survived if he hadn't been there. Don't tell me I look at you that way."

Deep breath. Please.

There was a time where he could have been graceful about this. Everything that Hawk is rightfully chewing him out for, he would have already known to do. Maybe he can't blame the Village for everything, but it does seem right to say that he lost an awful lot of his graces there. Does he even know what honesty is? How much does he give, how much does he withhold until it just becomes secrecy again? He spent so much time holding everything in, punished for every word, does he even know how to let go without doing... this?

"I believe you, Hawkeye." It's easy to, like this. "I know that you're not him. And if I should forget, that's my fault, and mine to deal with. Knowing this, what I want from you should be the easiest thing you've ever done. I want you as you are. Your jokes and your kindness, even your despair, and even this, all of it is good. Being with you in those first few months on the island was enough. Scorn me or don't; I won't ask anything of you that's against your nature."

How does he learn to exist without hurting himself and everyone around him? He knew once.

"I can try to explain the rest without doing what I have just done. I'd like to. I want to give you what you came here for, and I still have one more piece of news from home for you, but if you feel finished, then I won't trap you here."

Edited 2024-09-27 19:09 (UTC)

What else can you call it when someone keeps asking for something someone else won't give? Hawk's many things, and he's hardly a smooth operator, but the idea of ever becoming one of those guys who won't take no for an answer just makes him feel pathetic.

But alright. Mulcahy is offering another carrot in the form of news from home, and his gut sinks lower imagining what it could have been. Radar wouldn't lie to him right? So... what is it?

"Just tell me," he croaks. Whatever compliments Mulcahy thinks he's given are ashes in his mouth. If him just being him was enough, why did Mulcahy leave him alone?

He sighs very softly, and moves to boil the kettle on the stove.

"Not too long after Henry, Trapper received his orders to go home as well. Everything goes just fine. The only thing is that he got them while--... well, uh, I'm not sure how to speak in this case... while Hawkeye was away at Tokyo. I don't remember why. We couldn't reach him, however. Trapper stayed for as long as he could, but eventually he left for the airport the morning of the day Hawkeye came back."

His delivery isn't flat here, however much he's reduced himself. It's just the tone you take on when you talk about something unfortunate from a long time ago. Blunted on the edges.

"I won't like for you to be blindsided in case his replacement ever arrives on the island, but I don't know how much more you want to hear."

So that's why Trapper has never shown up. Because he's at home, with his wife and kids, away from the war. Questions run through his head- why weren't they in Tokyo together? Why didn't Trap call? He can't imagine not being there to see him home- and what, Hawk just stays there? In that lousy war while Trapper gets to wear real clothes and not salute people?

Well. Hawk isn't in the war presently. But they're friends- real friends, not just war buddies the way that Radar and Mulcahy are. Radar is. Hawk loves Trap in their fumblings and companionship, the easy way he could always come back to the swamp and to him. The comfort of him, the camaraderie, the keeping each other going in marathon surgeries. It never occurred to him that Trapper wouldn't eventually end up here, or that they'd eventually be separated. Hawk's still in touch with his childhood friends, and he couldn't even see Trapper to the airport?

Mulcahy isn't getting an answer out of him just yet. Hawk is weeping into his scarf.

Soft, very soft, is an "oh, Hawkeye," lost in the noise of Mulcahy's bustle as he goes out of the kitchen for something. Padding back in, a blanket comes to settle over Hawk's shoulders; when the kettle boils, tea is set in front of him, and at least this Mulcahy has the benefit of knowing how he likes it.

And... then what? Does he hover awkwardly in the kitchen while Hawk breaks down in front of him? He feels like he owes the man his privacy. But this is Hawkeye. Does he leave? He would've embrace him without a second thought, but he's never been in the business of trying to get too close to those who are furious with him. That's only ever given him yelling and violence.

But Hawk doesn't do that.

He wants to do something. Muting himself the way he is, the terror that the thought gives him is blessedly ignorable. He brings his hand up; it hovers; hovers; pulls back slightly; and very lightly, he places it on top of one of Hawkeye's.

Hawk nearly argues at the blanket, but doesn't. Nearly argues at the tea, but doesn't. It's these little concessions which mean he doesn't argue at the hand. Radar already explained himself- 'you were so mad, we didn't want to make things worse,' et cetera et cetera. Some parts of him wants to snap, to throw a 'oh so now you know how to comfort a guy' back in his face, but. Worse than Korea, worse than hell. He's been so certain that Trapper will show up that he's barely missed him, just been waiting for him to turn a corner with that dumb grin and ask what he's missed. It all hits at once. Trap, Henry, everyone else still at camp. Everyone from his old life. Everyone he might never see again, if there's a chance to stay here.

He doesn't move Mulcahy's hand. Hawk tries to get himself back together, sure, but he doesn't move it. Nothing fixed, but nothing made worse, either.

It is its own war, trying not to shake. Burying his heart has always been something of a coin flip; sometimes he really could become something that could take on anything, but sometimes it never really numbed him to anything. He'd still feel it all, and it was all about mastery in not thinking about it enough to let it show. Feelings buried alive never die. He's got nowhere else to put them.

Terror. All terror, that at any moment Hawkeye will turn on him, spurn him, strike him, will make Mulcahy absolutely sure that he will never see him again, except from across a room full of people who are less important than him. It's not a fair thought at all, for a number of reasons. And yet.

He doesn't move.

He may as well be comforted by a statue of the Virgin Mary.

A number of little disgusts ripple through him- at himself for the reaction, at Mulcahy for his silence, at whoever beat the softness out of this man who always seemed to guard it the way a man in the dark guards a sputtering candle. That he wants to shout at Mulcahy again- do something, do anything, remind me that you're flesh and blood. But he won't. Mulcahy moves like granite these days, and it's up to Hawk, again, to do anything.

Quietly, "did that other me tell you that I loved Trapper?"

"... Yes. He did."

Telling him that Trapper not being here means that he is home and he is safe will be no more comfort now than it was back then, to a Hawk that actually chased him to the airport only to watch him leave him behind. He doesn't know what to say instead. It feels now, as it ever has, like all of his sense has been simply beaten out of him.

Still. They play par on this course. Par is "still alive."

(Mulcahy still wonders why he Fuelweaver, the one he carried away, are the last ones left.)

"At least he's safe," he says anyway, because it's better than nothing, because there are people out there who will go their whole lives and never know this grief. He squeezes his hand. "I'm sorry."

There's a funny thing about grief. Nothing that anyone says is ever adequate to the scale of it, nothing. He knows that. He's broken the news to hundreds of boys that they'll never run on two legs again, told others that he had already removed the bandages from their eyes and there's nothing to be done. Sat with Mulcahy on long nights when the families had to be informed, cracked jokes that he ought to make a madlibs form for his condolences.

Well. It's worse when they don't. Mulcahy offers his feeble, stumbling comfort, and Hawk's gut inverts. Trapper is safe- will be safe, eventually. Cold comfort. Sometimes they'd huddle like children when the parents were arguing, the cot scarcely big enough to hold them both, while shells whistled too close by. Sometimes Hawk could manage a joke- 'we ought to find out what they paint their hospitals with, because I think they use red crosses for target practice'- but other times it was just them until the danger passed. Frank calling them a couple of wimps over his own teeth chattering, and Hawk breathing the same air, pressing his thumb into Trap's tongue to give him anything else to focus on. They say you can spot a wound in the dark from the heat it gives off. Well, Hawk could always find his way to Trap's mouth the same way.

He does, earnestly, try to imagine huddling with Mulcahy the same way. But it's like trying to imagine the purpose of an alien organ. He wouldn't know where to start. What would draw him to seek comfort there. Hawk barely seems to know him at all.

But still, the comfort is offered. A simple 'I'm sorry'. Hawk could labour it more, make him work for it, argue and pester and demand from him. But he won't. A small mercy, offered back. You can stay mad at someone forever, you know, find every reason to turn their kindness back in their face as a failing. Mulcahy has already had his heart broken by Hawk once, he doesn't want to make it a hat trick.

"Thanks," he croaks back wetly.

How is it that Mulcahy never feels less like himself than with the people who used to know him best? Hawkeye makes him feel haunted--not just even by that old Hawkeye, but by his past. By what Hawkeye wants him to be.

But he's not here. There's a stranger in the house. (Maybe that's how Hawk feels, with everything Mulcahy remembers of someone else and all the things he didn't do. There's a stranger in the house.)

Mulcahy waits for him to spit at him or curse him, to continue his long enlightenment of every way he has erred and continues to err with him. Or at least to refuse. Or at least remain silent. But Hawkeye says, however strained, however reluctant, thank you.

He had been prepared for insults, but not for this. He could tolerate any form of cruelty better than kindness. The ugliness of him had to be given expression, and if there was anyone who sees it, it's Hawkeye. It feels like a lie. It feels incongruous with the look on his face--Mulcahy can't tell if it's disgust or if he's just paranoid, if it's even for him. But it must be. They're the only ones here.

But Hawkeye says thank you, and he's not willing to fight.

"I'm sorry," he says again, "and I'm sorry I was too cowardly to tell you."

"Yeah, well," Hawk starts, but can't really find something to finish the sentence with. Nobody's perfect feels like the understatement of all time, and 'don't worry about it' isn't something he can say in good faith.

An exhale.

"I should get out of your hair, if there's nothing else," give them both some breathing space. This proximity is going to kill them, they need to try again at a nice arm's length.

It's alright. Mulcahy can read the silence perfectly fine.

"Yes. That might be well." He sighs, pulling away. Considers the window. It's probably still early to pull it back much farther than the little corner of visibility he's vigilantly left open.

Sigh.

"Will I see you around, Hawk?"

Another opportunity for a small mercy. Another chance to grant him some small relief. So he does.

"Yeah, you will. I probably owe you coffee for that tray you brought over, so. You know my hours and when to knock."

It's not a grimace but Hawk offers him a closed-mouth smile stuck tight to his teeth.

"Keep well, Father."

He watches Hawkeye go, hands wringing over each other. Not in a nervous fashion necessarily, just... moving.

"I'll do my best." It's the best that he can promise. "And you as well, Hawkeye."

It isn't until Hawk gets out of the apartment that he feels like he can breathe again. They were in love, Trapper is gone, such big defining things feel like they need time before Hawk can accept them. Time to ruminate, time to bargain and deny them until he can't anymore. And Mulcahy...

Is it strange that it's relieving to know there's a reason he feels so far away?

When Hawk gets back up to his apartment, he opens the curtain on his side to about halfway.

IC inbox (pumpkin hollow)

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cw references to death and organs

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