lovethyneighb_or | IC inbox (pumpkin hollow)

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.

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