NEW FIC: "Marigold Wine" 3/? by Aura218

[aura218.livejournal.com]

Title: "Marigold Wine" part 3/?

Author: aura218

Pairing: Hawkeye/Trapper, Hawkeye/others

Genre: Drama, romance, longfic, postseries, 60s

Summary: In the 60s, Trapper visits his old army buddy at a hippie commune, where Hawkeye has retreated to find peace.

Rating: R/M

I tip my glass to my proofreader and encourager Todash

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Read: Part 1 | Part 2

Click through for: Part 3

Trapper rolled back on his heels, gasping a laugh. He slapped Hawkeye on the shoulder. "Good one."

"Don't snicker," Hawkeye said. "We're two mature adults living in the modern sexual revolution."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Trapper started to walk away.

"Trapper, I lived three feet away from you for a year, don't think you were the Invisible Man."

Trapper stopped, sighed, looking up into the night. The stars were just hanging up there, doing their star thing. They'd be there in a million years, even if he killed his last, best friend in the world and buried his body in the wilderness.

Trapper wagged a finger at him. "That's pretty rich, coming from you. I'll meet you inside."

"You heard what I said?" Hawkeye was starting to sound like someone's dad.

"Yeah, I heard you," Trapper snapped.

An hour later, Trapper wasn't nearly as drunk as he'd hoped, and was thinking something he'd never thought he'd think:

So this is a drum circle.

Hawkeye was useless, bouncing the baby to the beat, attending to the kid's glee like it was the damn Captain Kangaroo hour. Was this music? Was this even organized noise?

There had been guitars earlier, a record player. Sure, the kids played those bugs from England but at least they had a melody. It got people moving. Now everyone was in a trance and the teenagers looked like they wanted to go home.

When he'd first arrived, Trapper had been surprised by the number of people. As annoyed as he'd been at Hawkeye, he'd relied on his old friend to introduce him around. All together, everyone looked like the college kids on the news, so many Indian print skirts, patched jackets, more of those bird tracks on everything. ("Peace sign," said a pretty girl sitting on her hair.) Lots of jangly jewelry so that it echoed all around him. He guessed there was probably a hundred people, including teenagers, plus little kids, in the metal longhouse. Almost immediately, he could feel a fine line of sweat cooling at his forehead.

Trapper circulated to the back of the room, leaving Hawkeye to his natural niche at the social gravitational center. The beer barrel turned out to be a keg of bitter yellow wine, marigold or dandelion, or maybe both, served up by an old woman with flowing silver hair. One thing he'd learned in his years of growing up post-Korea was that you didn't learn anything about people if you were trying to be the loudest person in the room. He mooched along the edge of things, looking for someone to talk to.

He lingered at a loud cluster of artists. They were hard to miss, the largest contingent by numbers, Trapper realized, to the point of ego-centrism. Every conversation he initiated led to someone asking him if he was working on a project. They seemed to only ask it as an excuse to talk about theirs. Trapper didn't really get it and didn't really care to. Their overenthused optimism, their belief that they could create something beautiful out of their own two hands and clever mind, made his respect for them plummet. They sounded like kids. He tried to resist thinking they should get back to their real jobs, but then wasn't Hawk on the same artistic sabbatical? what Hawkeye was doing? What was Hawkeye's story, anyway? What was he doing with these nuts, having a baby out here? Could he be sure that kid was even his?

After another glass of wine, Trapper resigned himself that hippy girls who believed in free love weren't as easy as he thought. He found himself holding up the wall with a couple of guys talking quietly amongst themselves. Trapper wondered if Hawkeye knew that there was a cluster of these supposed experimental types who were semiseriously talking about blowing up a nuclear power plant.

"You are so militaristic," one of the girls said, the one from earlier who tended to sit on her hair. Trapper liked her already.

"Attack behavior, not being," said her friend, a Black woman with a natural.

"Fine, they are behaving militaristically," Hair Sitter amended.

"So what if I am," said the boy. He had hair between nice college boy and a moptop, so it flew out at all angles. "We have to protect ourselves here."

"This isn't the plains of the Yuan Dynasty-era China, there are no Mongols!" Hair Sitter said.

"Um, I believe that was the Khan dynasty, Bethany," said Wing-Haired Boy.

"There was no Khan Dynasty, Robert," said Miss Black Natural. "That's like saying the King Lineage. Khan is a designation, not a family name."

College kids, Trapper thought. They're playing that game where the one who wins is the one with the most educated-sounding reference crammed into his sentence. He and Hawkeye had had a decidedly different tactic with the brass who got too high on their shinies.

"I told you, it's 'Osiris'," Robert said. "'Robert' is my slave name."

"Oh please," Miss Natural said.

"That's right," Bethany Long Hair said. "Professor Georges thinks that --"

"But Robert's right," Natural said, going in for the kill. Bethany's eye's narrowed. "This commune can't waste materials on too many outside groups. We're struggling with allocation of resources as it is. And we still haven't solidified our central motto or elected a permanent leadership. What's going to happen if another outside group comes back and tests our convictions gain?"

Trapper reached through their threesome, taking a bottle of wine off the table between them.

"Seems to me," he said, "that what we're all convicted to do here is sow some love. And if you don't mind an observation from an outsider, the main conviction between all three of you is that Mr. Robert Osiris Cut Your Hair is a dreamboat."

The girls squawked.

"And you," he indicated Miss Natural with his drink, "are quite irritated that young Robert is sowing a bit more love with your friendly enemy Bethany than he is with you."

Miss Natural flashed her eyes at him, reminding him of a Houlihan death glare fired over her surgical mask. Bethany crossed her legs and arms, turning her back on Robert.

"You can have him," she said to Miss Natural. "Sowing love with him is like getting plowed by Old Willow's diesel tractor."

'Osiris' didn't take well to that at all.

Trapper moved to another corner. Some younger kids were playing the record player, to the tolerance of the adults. From their chatter, they seemed far more blasé about this whole commune thing. It wasn't an experiment to them, it was just life. They were most excited to show off their 45's for each other. Trapper smiled at a little girl with daisies braided into her hair.

"Is that the Crickets?" he called to her.

"No, man, the Crickets are old news!" said the boy she was generally jiggling near.

They didn't touch when they danced. When he was eleven, his mother had made him take ballroom dancing lessons; he wore a suit with short pants and his partner was his cousin who wore white lace gloves. He had had to hold her back with a handkerchief.

"Beatles, then?" Trapper said.

"'I Wanna Hold Your Hand'!" the girl cried.

Trapper couldn't help but grin back at their youth, their unwrinkled joy. "I think he does."

He'd bought a few of those buggy LPs for his girls at Christmas, or birthdays, or sometimes just whenever. How could he say no when his girls were crying silently on the living room carpet during Ed Sullivan? He had the money, not like these kids shuffling through their 45s like baseball cards. They might have killed themselves without the LPs. Louise, in another life, might have said something cute like, 'They'll kill themselves with the LPs.' But he and Louise weren't saying cute things by the time rock and roll singers were making girls cry in front of the television set.

So he spoiled them. So what. If a little music could make their lives brighter when Mommy and Daddy were shouting awful things to each other in the next room, then he'd buy the damn records at import prices.

Trapper continued his counterclockwardly exploration of the room.

Against the wall that divided the room from the kitchen, hitched onto the wide plank of a service window, Lena was talking to that elderly poet couple he'd met in the compound. Feeling herself being watched, Trapper caught Lena's eye. She raised her glass to him, and he returned the gesture. With a smile, she beckoned him over. He watched her speak to her friends as he approached. He wondered how she was explaining him to them.

 Trapper loped over.

"Hi."

Mrs. Robinson kissed him on the cheek. "Trapper is Hawkeye's absolutely oldest friend, so we want to hear all about his soldiering past."

Trapper shook his head. "I don't know about that, we were hardly regular army."

"I was in France in '13," Mr. Robinson said. "Terrible war."

"Yes, sir, it was," Trapper said, shaking his hand.

Mrs. Robinson said, "Tell me, how is your son?"

Trapper blinked. "Ah, I don't have a son, ma'am, just the two daughters. Cathy's in nursing school in Massachusetts and Becky's, ah, finding herself."

"Lovely, just lovely," she said. "Mr. Robinson and I are so enjoying the company of you young people, and all these new babies. We think you kids really know what you're talking about, with the free expression and sexual intercourse."

Trapper hid his expression in his drink. Lena made a show of scratching her nose to hide her lips. "Yes, ma'am. Plenty of that to go around."

"I was in France in '13," Mr. Robinson said.

Trapper looked him over. "I see."

Mrs. Robinson handed Lena her drink. "Mr. Robinson, twirl me around the dance floor, would you please?"

They foxtrotted away, light on their feet as if it was V-J Day.

Trapper and Lena held each other's gaze for a beat. They couldn't hold it. They broke down, giggling, Lena holding on to Trapper's shoulder so she didn't slide off the sill.

"Are you sure they're okay to live alone?" Trapper said, hiccuping.

"They're really very healthy," Lena said through gasps. "Except he's nearly deaf. She shouldn't drink with her medication."

Trapper lost it again, hiding from the Robinsons, laughing between Lena's shoulder and the shuttered service window. Lena leaned on him, impotently shushing him through her own laughter.

"They're really very nice," she said. "Lovely poets."

"What are they doing here?" he said.

"They come to get away from the city and write their poetry. They say they don't like hot climates like your -- the place with Mickey Mouse?"

"Florida," Trapper said. "The Happiest Swamp on Earth." He looked up at her, red nose and messy chignon and all. "I think you just may be the most fun person I've met here tonight."

Lena smiled, touched the side of his face. "So, Mr. Trapper John. Where did you get such a terrible nick name?"

Trapper lounged back against the sill, hitching his elbows on it. "Let's just say, in my youth I was a great gaming man."

"Trout?"

"Mermaids."

Lena seemed to consider that. "I don't believe you, but I think it interesting you should pick such a outrageous lie."

Trapper shrugged. "So where are you from? You got family around here?"

Lena twirled her drink on her knee, leaving a ring of condensation on her peasant skirt. "I no longer have a family."

Trapper nodded. "I'm sorry." German Jewish name, stupid question.

Lena touched his arm to show she didn't mind. "My brother and I were sent to a farm in the English countryside during the war, and we were eventually adopted. After the war, I looked for my parents but learned that everyone had gone."

"I'm sorry." Tragedy rolled to Hawkeye like golf balls to mine fields.

She sipped her drink and tucked a blonde strand behind her ear. "I was so little, I wouldn't have remembered them anyway. My brother found good work in England with the railway, I get his letters sometimes. I came to America for school, to be a teacher, and then fell into Head Start, so I could help lost children like me make their own lives."

"That's very noble," Trapper said.

Lena shook her head. "Hawkeye and I, we are still looking for a home. Or perhaps, we're still trying to create one."

Trapper nodded. "But . . . last I heard, your home and his home aren't the same one."

Lena smiled. "I love Hawkeye very much. My life is with him. But . . . in the last year, he has created a dark room in our house --"

"Metaphorically."

"Yes. And it is his job to make it go away." She slung her arm through his elbow. "I'm very glad his good friend could come see him right now."

Trapper took a long pull from his wine. Thoughtfully, he said, "Where I come from, boy meets girl, they get married, they get miserable, and they stick it out until they die."

Lena nudged him. "Is anyone really happy like that? What about the children? And what about the people you loved before? You said 'boy meets girl.' What if boys meets a girl who has a boy and they all love each other?"

"Huh?" Trapper said. That wasn't where his mind was headed when she questioned his 'boy meets girl' dynamic.

"In Germany, before the war, the intellectuals talked about the concept of 'polyamory,' or many loves. Have you heard of this?"

Trapper shrugged. "Sort of. In books. I didn't think people really pulled it off."

Lena smiled. "Oh, people do. Very well, in fact."

"But how --"

"There's my girl!"

A tall Black man with close-cropped hair was crossing the room, arms raised, a little boy trailing behind. He hugged Lena, nearly picking her up, and kissed her on the zygomatic process of her maxilla, leaving a wine stain under her eye. She scrubbed at it with her heel of her palm, leaving one side of her face brighter than the other.

"Are we dancing?" the guy asked.

"No, we're talking," Trapper said, irritated. He hated when some guy comes in to horn in on your girl who isn't even yours.

Lena indicated between the two men with free hand while she rested the other around this new guy's neck.

"Trapper John McIntyre, this is Siva, my dear and closest friend. And this young man is --"

"Hi. I'm Jeremiah." The kid was hip-high and wiry with his father's striking green eyes. He had a wide, shy smile as he hid behind his father's leg.

Trapper shook both their hands. He made much of Jeremiah as being quite tall for his age, and what did he want to be when he grew up?

"I'm going to be a doctor like Hawkeye." Jeremiah shyly hung off his father's very strong arm.

Siva was taller than Trapper, but not by much. He was Black, of course, seeing as Jeremiah was as well and that's how things tended to work out. He was wearing one of those Indian print shirts with the folded-over v-neck, and a necklace with a heavy looking carved charm that was those Hindu curly letters. He was trim in the waist, wide-eyed, a little on the skinny side. Trapper supposed he was good-looking, but not in a movie star way.

"Honey, why don't you go play with the kids." Siva indicated the record-playing adolescents.

"They're bigger than me."

Siva kissed the top of Jeremiah's head. "Nah, go find Sassafras, he's right over there, see?"

Siva sent the slightly nervous boy across the room, watching him go. Once Jeremiah thought he was out of his father's sight, he gained his wings and latched onto a boy who looked about his age. Holding hands, they took to the records together.

An awkward moment hung.

Trapper groped for conversation. "Some party, huh?"

Siva smiled and his whole face changed. Trapper could see a kid who played stickball and got scolded by his mother in those round cheeks.

"This place is too much hard work sometimes!" He dangled his arm around Lena. "We need our wine and music."

"Here, here," Lena said, clinking her glass with his.

The mood lightened. They were three people sharing a drink now.

"So," Siva said, "Hawkeye said you met in Korea?"

Trapper nodded. "We were stationed at the same M.A.S.H. unit. We were doctors, meatball surgery."

"What a terrible way to describe medicine," Lena said.

Trapper considered that. "Well, I guess it's not party talk. Let's just say it was a lot of twelve, fifteen, twenty hour shifts, no more than an hour or so on a patient. You get to know a guy in that kind of situation. We were bunkmates, too. So we kind of lived in each other's skin. It was unavoidable that we'd become friends."

"Kind of like a really bad sleepover camp," Siva said. "You end up friends with your bunkie in rebellion against the tyrannical counselor."

"Sure, if the girls' camp across the pond is lobbing shells at you, then that's pretty much it. Plus, our tyrannical counselor lived with us."

Siva nodded. "Ah. Well, I never went to camp, but in Chicago, the girls in the apartments used to throw water balloons at the boys out of their windows."

Trapper laughed. "The boys they liked, or the ones they didn't?"

"Depended on if it was ninety-two in August or thirty-three below freezing in winter."

Lena laughed.

"Those girls meant business," Trapper said.

"Perhaps the boys were the busy ones and the girls merely defending themselves," Lena said.

Siva kissed her temple. "They never threw balloons at me, so I guess I wouldn't know."

Lena leaned into the kiss this time. "Trapper, if you will excuse us, I believe this is our song."

"And away you go." Trapper secretly doubted "Hats Off to Larry" was anyone's song.

"I'm glad Hawkeye has a good friend visiting," Siva said to Trapper in passing. His tone was so ardent, Trapper wasn't sure how to respond.

"Sure," he said. "We were close as two guys could get."

Siva gave him a curious look Trapper couldn't interpret. Lena and Siva danced off together, doing a very precise step that Trapper had seen his girls practice in the living room. They seemed to concentrate so hard on doing the step correctly, they weren't even smiling. Didn't anyone do the Lindy anymore?

It was getting late. Where was Hawkeye? Trapper hadn't heard his braying laugh rise over the crowd in at least half an hour.

Eventually the adults had enough of the dippy music and declared the record played closed for the evening. Trapper hadn't realized he'd been standing aside for several minutes, watching the dancers change their steps, pouring more wine from his bottle. He spotted Hawkeye perched on table, Sunny dozing against his chest, chatting with a guy holding a guitar. A little girl in a sundress, with her hair pulled to one side across her forehead, came up behind the guy hugged him around the neck. Trapper smiled and tried not to ache too much.

The man got down on one knee to be at his daughter's level and whispered something to her. The crowd hushed as she spoke.

"Um. My daddy just got home from being in V-Vietnam," she said, "to be a soldier there. In the Marines. And he wrote this song. So, um, we're going to sing it."

The man strummed a few notes until the little girl seemed confident to start. The song was pretty, folky, old fashioned yet a la mode. Her reedy voice rose over his confident baritone. The little girl seemed to keep her place well as long as she watched her daddy and ignored the hundred people staring at them. Trapper moved along the edge of the room toward Hawkeye.

"Spend my days just searching, spend my nights in dreams," they sang

"I don't know where I'll be tomorrow, but I know I'd like to see them again."

Trapper slid onto the bench beside Hawkeye, hip to hip on a crowded bench in the middle of a clutch of people who had gathered close to hear the performance. It was a mature song coming from a young man and a little girl, about the parts of us we brought home and the parts we left behind. There were little bits of Pierce and McIntyre still there in the mud, the Sea of Japan, the tents that still stood in Uijeongbu; and they brought home bits of Korea in their skin, their politics, their nightmares, and their mistakes.

Trapper felt Hawkeye's hand reach over and slide down his wrist, find his hand below the table. Trapper turned it over, palm to palm against Hawkeye's, and squeezed. He held on for a moment to Hawkeye's shaking hand between their bodies, surrounded by the crowd. Hawkeye kissed Sunny on the forehead; his blue eyes glistened in the dim light.

The song finished to thunderous applause.

The little girl, beaming with pride, was made much of as a budding folk sensation. A woman -- clearly her mother -- took her by the hand and led her out into the summer night.

The guitarman stuck around and a few drummers joined him in the vaguely stage-like area at the center of the room to take requests from the crowd. Dancing started in the middle, solo jigglers, one ballerina, and a couple jitterbugging. It took Trapper a while to realize that that was the band. They played what he thought of as country music, about farming and "the man."

"How's your leg?" Hawkeye said.

"Hm?" Trapper had forgotten about the dent. "Feeling no pain."



"As you like it," Hawkeye said.

There were other songs as he sat hip to hip with Hawkeye and pretending the backs of their hands were brushing by accident. Songs about friendship, home, protest, politics. Songs about girls, sex, food. Songs Trapper could get behind. He believed in the Civil Rights movement. He'd sent checks to Dr. King. He couldn't say that the only reason he'd washed up on Pierce's kibbutz was because of his own loss; the government's second attempt at a ground war in Asia was making reality a little harder to face than coming home from the first one had.

So maybe he wasn't just vacationing. Maybe these people had something to say, a valid perspective or two.

At least, that's how Trapper felt until the guitarist left. By now the drum circle was building to some sort of mass orgasm.

~*~