NEW FIC: "Walking Between Worlds" 2/4 by Aura218 BJ/Hawk [PG13]

[aura218.livejournal.com]

Title: "Walking Between Worlds"



Author: aura218



Pairing: Hawkeye/B.J.



Genre: PG13, romance, coming out, 50s, postwar, San Francisco



Summary: Go back in time to the years right after the war, before B.J. and Hawkeye were Gentleman Doctors, when the boys were stepping out of their shells into all the world could offer. Part 2 of a 4 part arc.

Timeline: 1955-56

Part of the Gentleman Doctors series

Part 2/4 of the How it Happened arc

Read: How it Happened Part 1: When the Wind Blows the Stars

Read: How it Happened Part 2: Walking Between Worlds: Chapter 1

"Walking Between Worlds"

Chapter 2/4

 

Hawkeye was hanging laundry when his father came hiking up the stream, holding a rope heavy with strung trout. Hawkeye tossed a glance up the lawn to his houseguest who'd come for a weekend and stayed a fortnight -- Ezra Hirsch, dozing in the sun on an Adirondack chair with an afghan over his legs. There was a snap in the air, Hawkeye hated the idea of his falling in the cold water -- the stream got shoulder-deep in parts -- but old Doc Pierce loathed taking the longer, more boring street walk. As he came up the lawn, Hawkeye saw his dad give Ezra the long view. Hawkeye made innocent with the laundry.

"Is that dinner?" Hawkeye called by way of greeting.

"I'm not staying." Daniel Pierce handed over the fish. "He okay?"

Hawkeye held up the catch of today -- two fat rainbow trout, at least eighteen inches each. "He's fine, why wouldn't he be? Are you sure you don’t want to stay? I'll do a gumbo for three."

Daniel was looking at the sheets hanging on the line. "I didn't know you were close with -- him."

Hawkeye propped his elbow on his hip, dangling the fish the line twisted in his fingers. "You want to come say hi?"

Daniel wiped his fish hands on his rubber hip boots. "Naw, he's asleep. Listen, don't forget to gut those beauties --"

"I know how to clean fish, Dad."

"I know you do, just don't want you to get distracted, what with your guest --" And it began.

"Why do you think a guest would distract me --"

"Now, Ben, don't get excited --"

Hawkeye could feel the argument taking over his mouth. "I wouldn't get excited if you didn't insinuate that I don't know how to do something you taught me to do when I was twelve!"

Daniel pointed a finger into Hawkeye's chest. "Now, this is why I'd rather eat your cousin's canned soup for supper than my fresh fish. The way you carry on lately, it's like you're turning into a woman."

Hawkeye turned on his heel and walked to the house. He abruptly spun and walked back. He was aware of Ezra watching him through slitted eyes.

"Keep your fish, Dad. Teach Dottie how to gut them right."

Daniel wouldn't take his gift back, which was another ten minute argument. He stalked off with the fish on the grass and shouting about ungrateful children. Hawkeye felt guilty about the gift, angry in general, and angry he felt guilty, but not guilty that he shouted back.

Ezra followed him into the kitchen. They worked silently, first cleaning up the fish; then reached mutual opinion that they may as well start dinner. Hawkeye didn't tell Ezra about the date he went on last weekend. A datey-date, with a woman, picked her up in his car, wore a suit, took her to a place with tablecloths, drove into Portland to a martini lounge. She was a young widow with a little boy whom she didn't introduce to her dates until she was "sure it was worth it." Hawkeye made an effort not to show his offense at that, but he probably didn't try hard enough. He wasn't planning on calling her again.

Settling down. Settle. Down. Maybe he needed to date farther afield. There must be women in far off places who didn't conduct dates like job interviews. What happened to having a nice time with an interesting person just to get to know them better? The women he pursued weren't twenty-five anymore, that's what happened. And he wasn't interested in dating co-eds.

The fear Hawkeye felt wasn't of being with one person for a long time, not if they were the right person. It was that idea: Settling. Down. First you pick someone with all their flaws and you say, well, this the best I can do. I'm a thirty-five year old neurotic, skinny, small town g.p., so I'd better take what I can get. And then the second part: Downed cow, fall down, put down a sick dog. You're done. No more silliness, dancing, drinking. And kids? No more sex in the living room. No going out whenever you want. No working overtime if the little wife wants you to come home and be a husband. He'd have to be the man of the house, an upstanding member of the community. Not to mention sober.

"I'm not ready to be done," Hawkeye said aloud.

"Hm?" Ezra hardly regarded him as he gleefully stabbed the potatoes through their jackets. 

"What if Dad wants me to marry Dottie," Hawkeye theorized. "It's legal -- she's something like a third cousin twice removed. After all, our town was founded by forty colonists who all had each others' babies. Maybe the fish are a dowry."

"Ben, I won't be able to eat dinner if you keep talking about that woman's fishy dowry." Ezra plunked the potatoes in the oven.

"He wants what's best for me," Hawkeye pronounced like a curse.

"God protect us from those who would protect us."

Ezra dragged the corn shucking stool to the door, propped the screen open, and lit a cigar. Hawkeye had asked him not to smoke in the house many times, but it was too cold to send the man outside. And he knew Hawkeye wouldn't ask him to.

"Maybe getting married wouldn't be so bad," Hawkeye said. "Maybe . . . maybe I wouldn't miss drinking and cigars that much."

Ezra cough-laughed on his blue smoke. "Ben . . . my dear boy, my favorite woman let me drink and smoke so long as it wasn't in her parlor."

Hawkeye laughed, astonished. "You never told me you were married!"

"I wasn't, except in name. She was a widow who wasn't interested in marrying again. The best relationship I ever had. We slept in the same bed completely platonically and loved each other very much. The neighbors called us mister and missus, and we got on under that assumption. It only lasted a until the cancer took her, but it was truly the best years of my life."

This was bizarre knowledge to learn about his homo mentor this late in life.

Hawkeye said, "But Patrick --"

"Pat was a natural disaster. It's a difficult thing, living with a man."

"That was a long time ago," Hawkeye said. "People are more modern now, especially in Cal-- ah -- large cities."

Ezra waggled his eyebrows as he puffed his cigar. "What are you going to tell your father when you move out west?"

Hawkeye looked at him sidelong. "I'll tell him, 'guess what, Dad, I've recently received a strong blow to the head.'"

Hawkeye wiped the fish scales off the counter while Ezra smoked thoughtfully. Truth was, Dad knew what Hawkeye had gotten up to years ago, when he was a teenager. Hawkeye sometimes wondered if his father had forgotten that bottle of penicillin he'd prescribed his boy for V.D. in a telltale place, but then, Dad was no dummy. Hawkeye knew he could talk to his dad about anything, but he wasn't a kid. He had a right to privacy. Frankly, he didn't want to kill his dad with worry. Although, when Dad slung his arrows about marriage and kids a little too freely, it was on the tip of Hawkeye's tongue to put him in his place. It would feel good to have the last word over his old man, just once.

Ezra stretched out one leg and swatted Hawkeye's rear with his stocking foot. "Sweetheart, what's the worst than can happen if you tell your dad you're in love with a man? Do you think you'll die?"

Hawkeye scrubbed his eyes. Cigars always made them prickly. "No, I think I'll kill him."

Ezra puffed. "May do."

He could handle his dad. It was fine. Crabapple Cove was great, it was his home. For three years of his life, the Army kept him away. Now he just wanted to be somewhere safe and predictable. What was so bad about that?

*

B.J. went back to Eureka Valley another Saturday afternoon, taking a book to the Lighthouse. He talked to people, made connections. Some of them needed his professional advice, some were burgeoning friends. No one, man or woman, interested him in a deeper way. Asa and his longtime lover Oscar were pleasant conversation, or entertainment when they were bickering and Oscar refused to turn up his hearing aid. Ever since that first day, Jo served him ice tea in a chilled glass.

Finally, Jo asked point-blank what he was doing here, before she committed more gossip to the project.

"What do you mean?" B.J. tried to decide if he should laugh or run.

"Fellas have been asking about you," Bette said as she iced a coffee cake.

B.J. did laugh then. "And what do you tell them?"

"That you're all broke up from your divorce and not lookin'," Bette said.

B.J. didn't like that, exactly, but wasn't sure what answer he'd have preferred. "I don't know why I'm here."

"He's got cold feet," Oscar said.

"Cold feet nothing, tomorrow we may die," Asa said.

"You paranoid, hallucinating --" Oscar griped.

"Paranoid my fallen arches, the Ruskies have the bomb pointed at this city --!"

While Jo laid in with the old boys, Bette whispered to B.J. over the pie display.

"If you're not going to use the token, Asa's going to want it back," she said quietly.

"I don't understand. Don't I turn it in like a ticket?"

Bette shook her head so her curls bounced under her kerchief. She was in a blue shirtwaist dress today. "There's only ten tokens, total,  floating around the city. The owner gives them out to people he trusts to give to new guys. If you aren't going to use it, you should pass it on to someone else. Lots of guys want in at the Black Cat."

B.J. folded his arms. "Why is this place so exclusive?"

"Safety," Bette said. "The token means you're vetted and sponsored. They know you're not a cop or a straight man looking to make trouble."

B.J. laughed. "But Jo when got me the token that first day -- you hardly talked to me."

Bette smiled. "Oh, no. We were watching you for blocks. We know a terrified new guy from a mile away."

Bette left him in his shock and flattery. This subculture was like being in a different country or a spy movie. Agent Hunnicutt, 007, homo avenger. He smiled to himself.

"He doesn't want to go because he's met some fella!" Asa shouted into Oscar's hearing aid.

B.J. turned on his counter stool. "I have not! Will everyone please back off? I'll go when I'm ready."

Bette idled over to him, innocently filling the salt shakers from a pitcher. "So you don't have a boyfriend?"

"No," B.J. said. "Well. . . . No, I guess not. There's someone, but he's on the other side of the country."

Bette lifted her wide, brown eyes up at him, and looked back down. B.J. twirled his pie crust with his fork.

"Really," B.J. said. "I don't think he's interested. He's got a great job in Maine and his dad to look after."

"Mm hmm," Bette said.

"We met in the war. Korea. We were doctors," B.J. said.

Suddenly he missed Hawkeye as much as he had the night Hawkeye got out of bed and said it didn't mean anything -- as much as that afternoon, a week later, when B.J. got on a plane and left Hawkeye behind on the tarmac. He was angry, too -- how dare Hawkeye tell him it was okay to be a homosexual and then just abandon him with this knowledge, kick him out of the garden, the safety of his bed and his arms.

B.J. was spilling this at the counter to Bette and any eavesdroppers, and all subsequent links on the gossip chain, all about the 4077th and Hawkeye, the long hours, how close their bunks were, the jokes they played together, the generals they went up against together, how they'd drank together and cried together. Somehow, he realized that the people in this diner had become his friends. He trusted them with this important part of his life. The businessmen who had ignored him were Marthan and Jacob, European immigrants, very protective of one another, who just yesterday came into B.J.'s hospital for some routine work -- they trusted him that much.

"Oscar and Asa met in the war." Jo nodded to them.

"They've been together since -- since their war?" B.J. goggled at them. Over thirty years . . .

Bette folded her arms on the counter and looked up at him. "Do you think that's impossible?"

B.J. wrote Hawkeye that night. It was a long letter. He didn't exactly know what he was trying to say, but the words kept coming.

I guess I just want you to know that I'm okay, but I'm not the same B.J. you knew. I feel like I'm finding all this life I never would have seen or experienced if you hadn't taken me to that bar. I feel guilty that so much of my time is being taken away from Erin, as if I should atone for my broken marriage by spending all my free time with her. I do see her as much as possible , I wasn't there for her first two years, I'm not going to miss a minute of the rest of her life. But, I don't know, Hawk, it's like I'm eighteen again and I've just moved to the city and -- ~~~~~ I wish I could put it all down. You've got to come out here and see it all.

B.J. expected a quick reply, but after a month, he forgot to be disappointed when none came.

~*~