It's been a while. They weathered the Blight together with unerring professionalism, and that was fine. Almost back to life prior to waking up here really, there were plenty of people wherein both Hawk and them were just cogs in one large weapons repair factory. Bodies came in, shrapnel and bodies were wheeled out. An efficient process.
But it's the little things you miss. Like Mulcahy praying during poker, or his inerring positivity during bad meals. If either are even applicable really- most days it feels like he barely knows the guy. Just some... image he had in his head of this sweet wilful priest prior to all of it. At least with his childhood friends he got to see them grow up into the men they became, with Mulcahy it's like this... blank space where someone was meant to put in footage. He may as well be a stranger, for all he's heard about what's meant to go in that space.
Well. If that's the case, then it's time to meet the neighbours. Make him less of a stranger.
Stuck to Mulcahy's apartment door is a note on the usual form that Hawk uses for prescriptions. In the little box, in writing more legible than his doctor scribbles, it says-
It was comfortable when he could assume that Hawkeye would simply never speak with him again outside of a professional or convenient capacity. That was a heartbreak he could live with. He has lived with it for five years. This? This sees about an hour of Mulcahy taking the note inside and pacing in his house, frustrating himself, gritting his teeth, bouncing his thoughts out loud against a very patient Peter, lifting a few weights just to get the energy out, and prayers for strength and patience. God give him such incredible patience. Why did Hawkeye have to do this to him?
He hopes distantly that Hawk's only interest is in what other news from home Mulcahy has withheld, and that it has nothing to do with him at all. (Even if it makes him ache in his very soul.)
Only once he has exhausted his options for procrastination does he spend another ten minutes staring at his sending stone. And then he calls.
Hawkeye, once more ignorant of the heartbreak and strife he's subjecting Mulcahy to, looks up from the grocery shopping he's doing to answer the speckled bit of bloodstone he keeps in his vest pocket.
"That is why I left the note," Hawk notes dully, looking into the shine of a red apple. Still can't bring himself to be more than business with Mulcahy, now that the anger has drained from him like a lanced boil.
"You free for me to come over this afternoon? I'll bring cookies. Or something."
He's got a box from that bakery that had the grand reopening- little pumpkin biscuits. Autumn's creeping up, he can't help but feel festive. He knocks on the door. The red scarf, offered to Mulcahy once for that brief outing, is looped around his shoulders, the same colour as his vest. When Hawk knocks, it's to the tune of shave and a haircut.
He searches for an appropriate joke, and comes up empty.
Well, he's always been pretty fastidious about being clean and neat, which hasn't changed. But he looks about the same as when Hawkeye last saw him, running themselves ragged. Never stopping even in death.
It's good to see you again comes to his lips. Stops at the thought of Hawk ignoring it.
He smiles though. It's not much, but it's as much as he can muster. “Welcome. Come in, Hawkeye.”
As he waves him inside, Peter looses himself from the door lock, floating up to Hawk to chirp a little greeting, even if it seems mostly perfunctory somehow. The door shuts, and Peter, apparent owner of every key, locks it behind again.
In contrast to the stylistic grandeur of Hawkeye’s apartment, Mulcahy’s house is still mostly bare and undecorated. Everything is neat. There’s an asceticism to it, to be sure, a priest living humbly. But it’s almost as if the house is… just lying there, quiet and still, like if he could see the dust in a sunbeam they would not move.
He brings them to the kitchen, where he heads to the stove to fetch a kettle. "So what in particular did you want to talk about?"
Hawk startles a little at a magic floating set of keys, as anyone sane would do, but this island has got to him such that he doesn't even ask how that works. He sits himself on Mulcahy's couch and briefly wonders how anyone can live in a place so quiet and not have their brains catch fire. His apartment back during his residency doesn't count, he was kept entertained by the rats.
"I already know about the village. Peter told me about it, before he left. I don't know the details, and I don't want to talk about it- he said it was worse than being a POW, and that's all I need to know. So, my question is, who are you?"
Hawkeye says I know about the village, and all the air is sucked from the room.
It’s a good thing his back happens to be turned.
“Hawkeye,” he says very, very carefully, “I would appreciate it if, for this, you were very, very deliberate about what you are saying and what you mean. What is it that you’re asking for? Is it simply my name? Do you suspect I’m—fake, or do you want me to recount everything I’ve seen since I was taken from camp? Since I was born? Am I… am I irreconcilable with who you knew I was seven years ago?”
Because it’s true, who he was is a ghost that forever haunts who he is now, but before he answers a question like this, he needs to know what he’s asking. In exact terms. He has no more patience for malicious misinterpretation.
"And I want people to not keep big important secrets from me, but they tell me you can't always get what you want."
Nearly a good sign that there's some bitterness left in there. If you're angry, you're still in it, if you're not, then that means there's nothing left.
Exhale. He already litigated this with Radar. That the betrayal keeps stinging is down to Hawk's sensitivity more than what was done.
"Sorry. But honestly, Father, you are. I don't know you. I thought I did, you acted like I did, but I don't know how much of the Mulcahy I knew is still even in you. I don't know anything about you. I don't know how much of that is- is deliberate, or what. Do you still want to be my friend?"
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-
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?
"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."
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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
Late September, prior to the ball
Date: 2024-09-26 06:01 am (UTC)But it's the little things you miss. Like Mulcahy praying during poker, or his inerring positivity during bad meals. If either are even applicable really- most days it feels like he barely knows the guy. Just some... image he had in his head of this sweet wilful priest prior to all of it. At least with his childhood friends he got to see them grow up into the men they became, with Mulcahy it's like this... blank space where someone was meant to put in footage. He may as well be a stranger, for all he's heard about what's meant to go in that space.
Well. If that's the case, then it's time to meet the neighbours. Make him less of a stranger.
Stuck to Mulcahy's apartment door is a note on the usual form that Hawk uses for prescriptions. In the little box, in writing more legible than his doctor scribbles, it says-
We need to have that talk you offered
-Hawk
no subject
Date: 2024-09-26 06:19 am (UTC)It was comfortable when he could assume that Hawkeye would simply never speak with him again outside of a professional or convenient capacity. That was a heartbreak he could live with. He has lived with it for five years. This? This sees about an hour of Mulcahy taking the note inside and pacing in his house, frustrating himself, gritting his teeth, bouncing his thoughts out loud against a very patient Peter, lifting a few weights just to get the energy out, and prayers for strength and patience. God give him such incredible patience. Why did Hawkeye have to do this to him?
He hopes distantly that Hawk's only interest is in what other news from home Mulcahy has withheld, and that it has nothing to do with him at all. (Even if it makes him ache in his very soul.)
Only once he has exhausted his options for procrastination does he spend another ten minutes staring at his sending stone. And then he calls.
"... Hello? Hawkeye?"
no subject
Date: 2024-09-26 06:39 am (UTC)"That's what they call me. How's life, Father?"
no subject
Date: 2024-09-26 07:05 am (UTC)…
“You wanted to speak with me?”
no subject
Date: 2024-09-26 07:09 am (UTC)"You free for me to come over this afternoon? I'll bring cookies. Or something."
no subject
Date: 2024-09-26 12:29 pm (UTC)“I can make time after 1:30.” Thank God he doesn’t have to take care of anything particularly important after that. “I’ll make tea.”
no subject
Date: 2024-09-26 12:58 pm (UTC)He's got a box from that bakery that had the grand reopening- little pumpkin biscuits. Autumn's creeping up, he can't help but feel festive. He knocks on the door. The red scarf, offered to Mulcahy once for that brief outing, is looped around his shoulders, the same colour as his vest. When Hawk knocks, it's to the tune of shave and a haircut.
He searches for an appropriate joke, and comes up empty.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-26 02:18 pm (UTC)...
Well, he's always been pretty fastidious about being clean and neat, which hasn't changed. But he looks about the same as when Hawkeye last saw him, running themselves ragged. Never stopping even in death.
It's good to see you again comes to his lips. Stops at the thought of Hawk ignoring it.
He smiles though. It's not much, but it's as much as he can muster. “Welcome. Come in, Hawkeye.”
As he waves him inside, Peter looses himself from the door lock, floating up to Hawk to chirp a little greeting, even if it seems mostly perfunctory somehow. The door shuts, and Peter, apparent owner of every key, locks it behind again.
In contrast to the stylistic grandeur of Hawkeye’s apartment, Mulcahy’s house is still mostly bare and undecorated. Everything is neat. There’s an asceticism to it, to be sure, a priest living humbly. But it’s almost as if the house is… just lying there, quiet and still, like if he could see the dust in a sunbeam they would not move.
He brings them to the kitchen, where he heads to the stove to fetch a kettle. "So what in particular did you want to talk about?"
no subject
Date: 2024-09-27 01:43 am (UTC)"I already know about the village. Peter told me about it, before he left. I don't know the details, and I don't want to talk about it- he said it was worse than being a POW, and that's all I need to know. So, my question is, who are you?"
no subject
Date: 2024-09-27 02:25 am (UTC)It’s a good thing his back happens to be turned.
“Hawkeye,” he says very, very carefully, “I would appreciate it if, for this, you were very, very deliberate about what you are saying and what you mean. What is it that you’re asking for? Is it simply my name? Do you suspect I’m—fake, or do you want me to recount everything I’ve seen since I was taken from camp? Since I was born? Am I… am I irreconcilable with who you knew I was seven years ago?”
Because it’s true, who he was is a ghost that forever haunts who he is now, but before he answers a question like this, he needs to know what he’s asking. In exact terms. He has no more patience for malicious misinterpretation.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-27 02:43 am (UTC)Nearly a good sign that there's some bitterness left in there. If you're angry, you're still in it, if you're not, then that means there's nothing left.
Exhale. He already litigated this with Radar. That the betrayal keeps stinging is down to Hawk's sensitivity more than what was done.
"Sorry. But honestly, Father, you are. I don't know you. I thought I did, you acted like I did, but I don't know how much of the Mulcahy I knew is still even in you. I don't know anything about you. I don't know how much of that is- is deliberate, or what. Do you still want to be my friend?"
no subject
Date: 2024-09-27 03:37 am (UTC)“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.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-27 03:47 am (UTC)"Are you saying that I was in love with you?"
no subject
Date: 2024-09-27 04:19 am (UTC)“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.)
no subject
Date: 2024-09-27 04:45 am (UTC)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!"
cw references to death and organs
Date: 2024-09-27 06:01 am (UTC)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."
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Date: 2024-09-27 06:55 am (UTC)"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?"
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Date: 2024-09-27 07:34 am (UTC)"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.)
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Date: 2024-09-27 07:55 am (UTC)"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."
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Date: 2024-09-27 06:13 pm (UTC)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."
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Date: 2024-10-02 12:15 am (UTC)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?
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Date: 2024-10-02 04:11 am (UTC)"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."
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Date: 2024-10-02 05:03 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2024-10-02 05:59 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 2024-10-02 08:43 am (UTC)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.
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