NEW FIC: Big Bang Theory 1/4 by Aura218 BJ/Hawk [R]

[aura218.livejournal.com]

Title: "The Big Bang Theory"

Author: aura218


Pairing: Hawkeye/B.J.


Genre: PG13, romance, coming out, 50s, postwar, bad/real?sex


Summary: Go back in time to the beginning of Hawk and B.J.'s relationship, when they were working out how to be together as a couple, in the 50s, and decide to take their relationship to the next level.

Timeline: March 1956

Part of the Gentleman Doctors series

Part 3/4 of the How it Happened arc

Note: Though a standalone, you can read "5 Ways BJ and Hawkeye Didn't Fall in Love" between "Walking Between Worlds" and this story.

"The Big Bang Theory"

 

While  B.J. was moving into the Yellow Monstrosity, Hawkeye was still a distant memory in Crabapple Cove. It took a series of awkward letters and apologies at the end of a long journey for B.J. -- and a two-year goodbye for Hawkeye -- that led Hawkeye to B.J.'s door.

He came with two suitcases, a trunk, and a crate of books on their way. B.J. talked confidently about getting him an interview at Oceanview General Hospital, whose director had recently expressed need for surgeons. Hawkeye, looking tired and overdressed for California spring, but full of quips, carried his suitcases upstairs while B.J. led him from one room to another, shy of the big empty spaces.

"I'm putting all of Erin's toys in the back room, to keep her near me while I'm in the kitchen. If I get a television, that's where it'll go. I can't decide if I want the record player in the front room or rec room -- what do you think?"

Hawkeye shrugged. "I like a little music over dinner."

"Yeah, you're right," B.J. said. "C'mon, bedrooms upstairs."

Tension mounted as they climbed the stairs; Hawkeye couldn't ignore B.J.'s presence before him. The hall was a u-shape with a French window at the front, letting afternoon light into the second floor. Two doors opened off the stems of the U and two more at the base.

"Lots of rooms up here," Hawkeye said.

"There's an attic, too," B.J. said. "Or a 'garret,' as the real estate people called it." He pointed to doors. "Those two are empty. Bathroom at the end. I, ah. I took this one. I put your stuff . . ." B.J. moved to the next room, second to the end.

Hawkeye stood with B.J. in the threshold. His trunk was the only personal touch in the white room, save the black dot of his shaving kit on the second-hand dresser. The room was sparse aside from the bed and a small, empty bookshelf.

"It looks . . . comfortable," Hawkeye said.

B.J. stood in the doorway, looking at him. "It's . . . it's okay, right? It's the second-biggest one --"

"It's perfect," Hawkeye said. "Yours is . . . ?"

B.J. chucked a thumb over his shoulder. "Down the hall."

Hawkeye couldn't look away, though he knew he should. You're making him nervous, you're making yourself nervous. You don't go from 'Hi, can I live with you?' to 'I wanted to grab your behind on the stairs.'

He set down his bag and started unpacking. B.J. disappeared. The room was fine. Spacious, closet shelves already built-in. Hawkeye became aware of a presence. He looked up. B.J. was leaning in the doorway, watching him. Hawkeye dug into the corners of his suitcase.

"Not for nothing, I didn't come here for the weather," Hawkeye said.

"Good," B.J. said. "I didn't ask you to move in because I needed the rent."

Hawkeye looked up. B.J. fiddled with the thumb lock and avoided his eyes. "You want to come down for a drink?"

A bubble of hope worked its way up Hawkeye's tight chest. "Yeah."

*

That was six months ago.

Tonight, B.J. Hunnicutt was in for a night of romance -- or else. Hawkeye showered, shaved, spritzed, combed. He'd laundered the sheets and aired the curtains. He loaded the record player and put a candle on the dresser.

He felt nervous, as if they hadn't been circling the landing pad of this night for a month. But those were the preamble times, when they were-and-weren't . . . whatever they were. Just kidding. In love. Permanent roommates. B.J.'s hand on Hawkeye's back in the kitchen; Hawkeye's innuendo over morning coffee. The laundry fight that ended in a tussle among the downy linens -- is that the bleach crayon in your pocket or are you happy to see me?

"It can't be both?" Hawkeye said with his arms around B.J.'s neck, his heel hooked where he'd dropped his roomie onto the fresh shirts stacked on the carpet.

It could have happened then. It could have developed from any number of pleasant opportunities as they tumbled 'round the bases. They lived together as 'just friends' even as they kept accidentally making out when the wine flowed or the planets were in phase. There was even the night they snuggled in Hawkeye's bed atop their research. But last week they said "I love you" and any hesitancy was now becoming ridiculous.

Not that there hadn't been reason to take it slow. B.J. was still . . . nervous, or something, Hawkeye couldn't get a read on him. And Hawkeye, though his libido was strumming like a tightly wound violin, was afraid if he bet the house, he'd lose. Increasingly, he was falling utterly down, down in love with a five year old whose crayon masterpieces he hung up in his office at the hospital. Hawkeye could lose a whole lot of comfort if he gropey-jokied his way out of B.J.'s life.

But then B.J. was coming through the door in his work suit with a smile. Of course, he knew Hawkeye was Up to Something the moment he walked in the door -- the place smelled better than it had all week, for Hawkeye had finally picked up Mount Laundry in the den. Hawkeye didn't turn around as he heard B.J. coming down the hall into the kitchen, kept his back to him as B.J. came up behind him and reached around to steal the wine glass from his hand.

"What's all this?" puffed into his ear. B.J. slipped as his free hand around Hawkeye's waist.

"Hi." Hawkeye poured a second glass, let B.J. keep his, as the taller man held him trapped against the counter.

They kissed. B.J. hadn't been raised to be allowed to show affection to a man the way he'd secretly, subconsciously desired to do. But he was coming around. He certainly knew how to kiss when he let himself enjoy it. Hawkeye -- not immune to societal pressure -- had never been in a full-out relationship with a man, but he seemed to have a switch in his brain he could flick when he deemed it to his benefit to tune out the world.

"Coffee, tea, or me?" Hawkeye said against B.J.'s lips.

B.J. chuckled and nipped at Hawkeye's smile. "How about dinner. What is this fantastic goop I smell?"

B.J. wouldn't leave his side while he finished the elaborate meal. While they caught up about what they did all day, Hawkeye could hardly move without B.J. touching him, offering to help him, or holding him while he stirred the sauce. It was terribly romantic. . . . Hawkeye finally snapped and, in a controlled fit of temper, chased B.J. out of "my kitchen."

"This is the line!" Hawkeye gestured hysterically at the arch where sculptured carpet met Spanish tile. "No non-chefs shall pass the line!"

Laughing, B.J. left him. He was reading the paper in the dining room when Hawkeye finally deemed dinner perfect. B.J. politely acknowledged the candle on the dinner table and the Winchesterian music on the record player.

They sat across the expectancy of all this romance and didn't have a thing to say to one another.

"Oh, God," Hawkeye said. "I ruined it. This is too much."

B.J. stabbed his steak enthusiastically. "No, no, this is great, I love this cilantro."

Hawkeye winced. "Um, yeah, well, it seemed interesting. . . . Sort of, you know, special. . . ."

The last thing cilantro came off as to a Californian was 'special.' He'd been trying so hard to be less self-absorbed and he goes and cooks like he's in Maine.

"It's great," B.J. said.

Hawkeye poked at his potato, for once in his gustatory life not caring about the food in front of him. "How was work?"

"I thought you weren't supposed to talk about work on a date." B.J. smiled.

Hawkeye moaned. "That's the problem, isn't it? This is a date. We don't do that!" He gestured wildly, seriously endangering his jacket sleeve in the candle flame.

Mozart whined in the background. The corners of the room were too dark to see.

B.J. caught his flailing limb and held it. "I suppose once you've seen your date show up to revelry hung over in boxers and Klinger's heels, the magic has moved to another level."

Hawkeye shucked himself free of the jacket and yanked at his tie. "Frank stole my boots as some fetishist punishment for not making my bunk for a whole week of never."

 B.J. toed off his shoes under the table, wiggling his socks against the carpet. "Don't take this the wrong way, hon, but drag is not the look for you."

Hon. It still sounded new. But not bad.

"How can I take that the wrong way?" Hawkeye got up and tuned the radio to their favorite jazz show. It was crooners that night, a soft female voice backed by piano and bass. He lit the hurricane lantern so they could see what they were eating, and at last they could talk like B.J. and Hawkeye.

They talked about Erin. About Peggy's new boyfriend's lack of humor. They speculated which neighbor was benefitting from the package man who parked out front each week like clockwork.

"I think it's Lasqiar," Hawkeye said as he lowered the plates into the sudsy sink.

B.J. wedged the leftovers into the fridge behind him. "The eighty-one year old war widow?"

"Sure. It's 'medicinal.' Ever notice how she can't stand up straight?"

"She's got an oxygen pump!" B.J. hipped the door shut.

"An excellent excuse, in fact --"

B.J. grabbed Hawkeye by the sudsy hands and spun him into a swift embrace. Quick and opportunistic, Hawkeye went in for a kiss.

Expectation danced in the shadows of the night, but by mutual understated compromise, they weren't ready to bring it to realization. B.J. stepped backward, into the dining room, holding out his hands. Hawkeye followed. The candles burned low and the radio hissed soft music; their stocking feet shuffled half-heartedly on the grass-green carpet in a slow revolution. B.J. set Hawkeye's hand on his hip and wrapped his arm across his shoulders, cradling his hand against his chest.

"You feel good," B.J. said.

"You're no dough boy yourself, you big hard-body."

B.J. grinned at the wall over Hawk's shoulder because he turned shy when he received a compliment about his looks. B.J. came from a friendly, asexual, Christian background; at ten he shot up like nuclear corn. He was used to thinking of himself as skinny and, now, balding (he spent far more energy caring about his expanding forehead than Hawkeye thought the situation deserved). He was proud of his health -- the body is a temple, et cetera -- but he thought that sexy was something that happened to other people. Ever since Hawkeye figured out that B.J. had gone through life feeling well-liked but not desired, he pitched a battle of flirtatious attacks set on making B.J. feel like the love muffin he was.

So far, he hadn't won a single battle. But it sure was a hell of a war.

As for this night's campaign, Hawkeye's hands were in B.J.'s back pockets and B.J. was pretending he wasn't pretending he didn't notice. Hawkeye brought their hips together, swaying to the music, and sucked lightly on the nerve-rich skin covering B.J.'s subclavian artery.

B.J. huffed a cloud of hot air on Hawkeye's neck. "You're so sexual."

Hawkeye brought the whole front of their bodies together and worked one hand under B.J.'s shirt, teasing his spine, the other down the waistband of his trousers. B.J.'s hot mouth was now on his neck, down his collarbone, kissing his lips.

Hawkeye drew back so he could read B.J.'s reaction. "Do you want to go upstairs? I mean, I wanted this to be special for you, because . . ." he couldn't bring himself to say the words 'first time' to a grown man. "Say something before I go and get romantic again."

B.J. squeezed him. "Yeah."

"What?"

B.J.'s smile was unfamiliar, near-shy, but his gaze held. "Hawkeye, you didn't think I knew this was a seduction? I was wondering when you were going to pull one of your stunts to get me into bed. I just hoped I wouldn't have to wait for Radar to show up in an Army jeep. Or Klinger in a fuzzy pink robe."

Hawkeye felt it gentlemanly of him to feel appropriately chagrined. "Yeah, well. . . . Are you sure?"

*

continued >