Work Text:
1954
When Hawkeye and BJ move into the city, there’s no question that they’re moving to Polk Gulch. Hawk proposes a few alternatives - he likes North Beach; he’d even be okay with the Sunset; really he just likes the idea of being able to see the ocean - but BJ steadfastly refuses to live somewhere where they’ll have to look over their shoulders constantly. “How long do you think it’ll take the nice Italian families in North Beach to see through ‘two war buddies helping each other out after one of them got divorced,’ huh?” he asks rhetorically, pacing the living room of the Stinson Beach house. He’s starting to talk with his hands, which is never a good sign.
“Beej, half the guys in that neighborhood are vets themselves,” Hawkeye says from where he’s got his head pretty comfortably buried in his hands. He is incredibly sick of this argument. “If anyone would understand, it’d be them. And anyway, I got some bad news for you - we’re gonna have to look over our shoulders in Polk Gulch too. We’re gonna have to look over our shoulders anywhere.”
“Not like we would in the Sunset!” BJ says, throwing his hands up in frustration. “I just - ”
Hawk lifts his head at the sound, or rather lack of sound, of BJ standing still. He’s staring at the floor, hands on his hips. This part of the argument is new.
BJ sighs. He’s still not meeting Hawk’s eyes. “Hawk, I spent my whole life with no idea what I wanted.” He looks up. “Do you get that? I had no idea. I just did what I thought I was supposed to do and married the nicest person I found and I thought that was life.”
Hawk nods. They’ve talked about this before, but not in the context of where they’re going to live. He waits for BJ to put the picture together.
“I know what I want now,” BJ says. He walks over to the couch and straddles Hawkeye, knees on either side of his hips and hands stroking over his shoulders. “I know what I want, and I'm done with pretending any more than is absolutely necessary.” He runs a hand through Hawkeye’s hair. “You buy the house, fine. We keep mum at the hospital, fine. We don’t tell Peg, fine. All of that is fine. But I’m not living somewhere where I can’t even put my hand on your hip if we’re having coffee in the yard.”
The weight of everything BJ is saying hits Hawk just as hard as the considerable weight of BJ in his lap. BJ, who didn’t even understand what it meant to look at another man until him, and then proceeded to calmly and methodically throw over his entire life for it. Hawkeye is always grateful for his own comparatively easy journey, but every now and then he’s reminded of how different they’ve had it and he’s pole-axed all over again. He nods, then reaches up to pull BJ down into a kiss.
BJ’s ferocity on the topic of pretending has been consistently startling to Hawkeye. He’d assumed that he would be leading BJ into the queer world. He’d assumed BJ would be nervous to be seen together. He’d assumed BJ, not only a lifelong heterosexual but a lifelong square, would want to take things slow. Those assumptions turned out to be not just misinformed, but comically wrong. Over and over it’s been Hawkeye who’s had to hold BJ back, in everything from bar fights to telling Peg about them.
That fight had been brutal. BJ’s position was that Peg deserved the truth; Hawk’s, that Erin deserved a father, which she would not have if BJ told Peg he was a homosexual. “You will never see your kid again, do you get that?!” Hawk shouted. “You’ll never see her again! It’ll be just like the war but a thousand times worse, because you’ll know you could have done something to fucking stop it and you didn’t.”
BJ’s fingers flexed where he was holding on to the back of a kitchen chair, knuckles white. “Come on, Hawk, Peg would never - ”
“You will be giving her the goddamn sword of Damocles,” Hawkeye said. “Maybe you’re right, maybe she won’t do it now - maybe she’ll be the first woman in the history of humanity to not take this personally, it’s possible - but it’s always gonna be there. You will always know that at any time, and for any reason, if you piss her off, she can take away the thing you love most.”
Hawk bit back everything else he wanted to say. Erin was his most potent weapon, but if he had to, he’d give voice to the rest of what they were risking: the certain loss of their jobs, the inability to get new ones because of the near certainty that they’d also lose their medical licenses. Hawk had even heard of vets losing their benefits. Going to jail. Finally he just said, “Beej, I love you, and I’m not saying being with you isn’t worth it, but you gotta understand how careful we need to be. We’re already taking a risk with where we’re gonna live. If we get found out, they will ruin us, do you get that?” His tone was as calm and measured as he could make it. “I need to know that you get that.”
BJ sighed, a gusty, exhausted thing, then more or less fell onto the couch. He dropped his head into his hands. “How do you live like this?” he asked after a minute.
Hawk sat down next to him and began rubbing his back gently. “Long practice,” he said. “So, you know, given the situation, I'm not exactly comfortable entrusting our future to the woman whose husband I'm currently stealing.” He elbowed BJ gently in the ribs.
BJ had laughed, at least. That was something.
So. As far as Peg knows, BJ is too damaged by the war to be her husband anymore. They’re still married - her choice - and are unlikely to get divorced, and she lets him see Erin a frankly astonishing amount. Hawkeye lives with him because Hawkeye went through it with him and wants to help him find his way again, plus while Korea’s hardly Paree he still found it hard to go back to the farm. BJ hates all of it, but weighed against the odds of losing Erin, it doesn't stack up.
So they move to Polk Gulch, and they can sit in the back yard and have coffee together, and as long as they’re not actively necking they’re okay. If anyone asks, they both say they live in Nob Hill, “so much closer to work than Marin”; mostly they just don’t talk to their coworkers very much. Hawk buys the house, not just to keep up appearances but because he does actually have more money than BJ, and they both work at San Francisco General, and Hawkeye wakes up most days completely astonished at the life he has tripped and fallen face first into.
BJ is incredibly eager to meet other guys like them, but Hawk hasn’t been part of a scene in a long time and quickly finds that he’s distressingly out of practice at locating one. So he does what he’s been doing in these situations since he was 18: he calls Sidney. Sid is, of course, full of recommendations for both establishments at which to drink and people to drink with at those establishments. Hawk is more surprised that he probably should be, then, to find himself having drinks with BJ and David Weinberg, who he’s barely thought about since 1938.
Because Sidney believes that the eleventh commandment is “thou shalt gossip,” Hawk was vaguely aware that David had enlisted right after Pearl Harbor, for the same reason as Sidney. He’d spent the war at a hospital in Oahu, but unlike Sidney, he got out as soon as they let him. “Hawaii’s gorgeous, but the scene there isn’t exactly flourishing,” he says. “So when I was mustered out, I came here.” He turns to Hawk. “Honestly, it’s just as good as the Village in the 30s. Better! We still get raided, but there’s so many more options. And so many more options.” He leers at Hawkeye, who laughs and pulls BJ a little closer with the arm around his shoulders.
“So he’s one of your friends from New York?” BJ asks later, back at the house.
“Friend is a stretch,” Hawkeye says with a chuckle, taking off his coat and hanging it on the rack. “Sidney set us up and we fucked a couple times, but we weren’t close.”
BJ wraps his arms around Hawkeye from behind, kisses his neck. “Was he good to you?” he asks.
Hawk tilts his head, giving BJ better access, and laughs. “Oh, it’s like that, huh?”
“Yeah,” BJ says, dropping kisses down Hawk’s neck. “It’s like that.”
Hawkeye turns around in the circle of BJ’s arms, kissing him quickly on the mouth. “In that case, let me tell you the story of giving him my first blow job.”
The night unfolds pretty predictably after that.
Eventually, they settle on the Nob Hill Club and start going semi-regularly. It’s the most established bar in the Gulch catering to men like them, and it’s a short stumble from their house. They get to know some of the staff; it’s a pretty tight-knit scene. When they arrive one night in June, there’s already a good crowd, particularly for a Wednesday. The moment the door closes behind them, Hawk is taking off his jacket, loosening his tie, rolling up his sleeves. BJ’s arm has already snaked around his waist. Hawk drops a kiss on the point of his jaw and they walk up to the bar.
“New guy,” BJ comments. Hawk hmm’s in response, taking the bartender in. His back is to them, but what Hawk can see isn’t unpleasant. He’s stocky, shorter than them, but looks powerful. Hawk leans on the bar, trying to make himself obvious, and the bartender tosses over his shoulder, “What’ll you have, sweetie?” His voice is weirdly familiar; Hawk wonders, idly, if he came through the emergency department recently.
“Two Manhattans,” Hawk says. Korea killed gin for him for good, even though calling what they made in the Swamp gin is an insult to the juniper bush. He never really came around on whiskey, but Manhattans are at least nostalgic, and BJ actually likes them. Hawk finds this concerning.
“No problem,” the bartender says, turning around with the previous guy’s drinks in his hand. “Let me just drop these off and I’ll - ” He looks up, making eye contact with Hawkeye as he does so.
He drops his drinks.
Hawkeye knows BJ is probably wondering why he’s gone stiff as a board, but he’s absolutely unable to speak. Of course the bartender’s voice was familiar. Hawk heard it every summer of his young life. The last time he heard it, it was calling him a fairy in front of his entire family. “ … Howie?” he finally whispers. His eyes must be the size of record albums.
The guy is broader and more toned than he remembers his cousin being, but it's absolutely Howie. He breaks eye contact first, dropping to the floor to clean up the shattered glass. “It’s Hank now, actually,” he mutters.
Hawk nods mutely, mouths ‘Hank’ to himself. That’s when BJ’s patience apparently hits a wall. “Hawk, honey,” he hisses through clenched teeth. “What the hell is going on?”
“That’s my cousin,” Hawk responds, just as quietly. He hopes the overall noise of the bar, which has risen back to its usual level after briefly going silent when Howie dropped the drinks, covers their voices.
BJ’s eyebrows fly up. “You mean - ” he starts.
Hawk nods. He’s told BJ the story of that ugly night at Sara and Hymie’s apartment. It’s the angriest he’s ever seen him at something that didn't involve Erin.
They watch in silence as Howie finishes cleaning up and remaking the drinks he dropped. He delivers them, then comes back to Hawk and BJ. “Two Manhattans, right?” he asks. He is very carefully looking at anything except Hawk and BJ.
“Howie, what the hell?!” Hawkeye says. He’s not yelling, but he’s not quiet. Thoughtless, he reaches out to grab Howie’s arm and is startled to see him snatch it back, stepping out of reach.
“Ben,” he says, voice controlled. “Don’t.” He visibly pauses to collect himself, then looks up, mute pleading in his eyes. “Two Manhattans?”
Hawk concedes defeat. “Yeah,” he says. “Two Manhattans.”
Hawk lets BJ finish the transaction, finding them a table out of sight of the bar. When BJ comes back with their drinks, he’s chewing on his cuticles. “Thanks,” he says, accepting the drink and downing half of it in one go. BJ doesn’t say anything, just sips his at a more appropriate pace. Hawk leans back against the wall, letting the whiskey ooze through his system and take the edge off. He feels like he’s made of edges. After a few seconds, he feels BJ’s hand come to cover his on the table; he squeezes back, unspeakably grateful to have BJ beside him for this.
After a few minutes, BJ ventures, “Did you have any idea?”
“Not a fucking clue,” Hawk says, opening his eyes with a sigh. “I knew he stayed in California after WW2, but I figured he just wanted a fresh start. You know, he had a degree and all, he didn’t need the family connections.” He shrugs. “I never really understood what the problem was with him and my aunt and uncle, but it was clearly a big fucking problem. I understood why he’d want to walk away from that. But this?” He waves, taking in the bar, its patrons. Him and BJ. “Not a fucking clue.”
“Explains a few things,” BJ mutters.
Hawk just hmm’s in response, saying nothing.
The bar is getting steadily more crowded, but Hawkeye’s party spirit has evaporated. They finish their drinks and leave, Hawk tossing one last look at the bar as they go. Howie isn’t looking at them.
They walk the block and a half home, standing a little closer than strictly advisable, and once the front door is locked behind them Hawkeye is folded into BJ’s arms. He closes his eyes, resting his head on his shoulder, and feels BJ’s big hand sweeping up and down his back, smoothing out the stress of the last hour. “What can I do, baby?” BJ says softly. “What do you need?”
Hawk pulls back just enough to see his face, and kisses him with purpose. “Take me to bed?” He runs his fingers through BJ’s hair. “I just wanna not think about … ” He waves his hand at the front door. “All of that for awhile.”
BJ kisses back, pulling Hawk close. “With pleasure,” he murmurs.
As in all areas of their relationship, Hawkeye had tried to take things slow in bed in recognition of BJ’s inexperience. He wanted them to move at BJ’s pace; he didn’t want to push. BJ’s pace turned out to be “full steam ahead and straight on ‘til morning.” It had been difficult to find opportunities for anything fancier than mutual handjobs and the occasional blowjob in Korea, but their first shared R&R after getting together had been more or less a weekend-long fuckfest. “What do you like?” BJ had asked when he had Hawk naked under him for the first time. “Because I wanna do everything to you.” His hips were rocking against Hawk’s, seemingly without conscious intent.
Hawk thought his eyes were gonna roll clear out of his head. “God, Beej,” he managed. “I want - will you - can you fuck me?” BJ pulled back a little to see Hawk’s face, and Hawk immediately started panicking. “I mean, you don’t have to, of course, there’s a million other things we can do, I just - if you want to I can show you how, it’s not that different - ”
“Hawk,” BJ said, smiling, and stroked his cheek. “Obviously I want to. You just gotta walk me through it.”
He was a quick study.
Now, in their house, Hawkeye is filled with anticipation as they go upstairs, excitement blotting out the nerves and confusion of the evening. It’s been two years, and he’s still excited every time he gets to take BJ's clothes off. He loosens his tie the rest of the way as he enters their bedroom (his bedroom, as far as guests are concerned; BJ’s things live in a room down the hall), but before he can do anything else BJ’s arms come around him from behind. “Let me,” he whispers into Hawk’s throat, and sets about unbuttoning his Oxford. Hawk drops his head back onto BJ’s shoulder and lets him.
BJ succeeds in rescuing Hawk’s mood for the night, but over the next several days he can’t stop thinking about running into his prodigal cousin. Seeing Howie was a shock on its own, but seeing him behind the bar at Nob Hill … it had never even crossed Hawk’s mind.
“Does he still talk to Sara and Hymie?” BJ asks over dinner a few days later. BJ hasn’t met them, but he’s spoken to them on the phone, as he has Daniel Pierce.
“Last I heard, he calls on Rosh Hashana and Sara’s birthday,” Hawk says around a mouthful of pasta. “He hasn’t been home since he got back from the war, and Sara and Hymie can’t afford the time or the money to come out here, so they haven’t seen him since he left for the service.”
BJ whistles. “I can’t imagine,” he says. “I saw Erin last weekend and it still feels like forever until I’ll see her again.”
Hawk nods. “That’s part of why I’m such a maniac about calling and writing.”
“So they’re still in contact with at least one son?” BJ asks, smiling a little.
Hawk nods.
Sara knows about him and BJ. He first told her in a carefully worded letter that he wasn’t sure she’d understand, and then in person, New York being his first stop after he got off the plane from Korea. He doesn’t know what she told Hymie or how he chooses to understand Hawk’s relationship, but he’s never been less than gracious to BJ when Hawk has made BJ lean into the receiver during his regular calls to the Bronx. (They're a line item in Hawk's budget, but it's worth it.) Hawk was a little more circumspect with Daniel, whose knowledge of Hawk’s preferences has always been more implicit than concrete, but “I’m moving with California to live with BJ” didn’t leave a lot to the imagination. He is more honest with his family than anyone he knows in the life, and closer with his family than pretty much anyone he knows at all. His gratitude for them is so deep he sometimes feels it will swallow him whole.
The week passes quickly. On Wednesday, Hawkeye leaves work a little early so he can get to Nob Hill before the crowd is too heavy. He times it perfectly, walking in when the evening crowd is just starting to filter in.
Howie’s behind the bar.
Hawk makes a beeline for it and sits down right in his line of sight. He hasn’t thought this out very well, nor has he told BJ, but he can’t get it out of his mind. He’s gotta say something.
Howie hasn’t looked up, but he definitely knows Hawk is there. Hawk can see how tense he is as he wipes down the glasses in front of him. Hawk decides he’ll start there, maybe defuse some of that tension. “Look, I’m not here to fuck with you,” he says quietly.
Howie doesn’t look up. “Could’ve fooled me,” he mutters.
“What the - Howie, this is my neighborhood bar! Hank,” Hawk remembers belatedly. He takes a breath, clenches and releases his fist. “Sorry.”
Howie shrugs minutely.
Hawk draws a hand over his face. “Okay,” he says to himself. Then, louder, “Okay. Seriously, I’m not trying to fuck with you, or mess up your situation here or anything. Really. I just - you gotta admit, you can see why it would be a shock to see you here.”
That was apparently exactly the wrong thing to say. Howie’s head jerks up and he narrows his eyes at Hawk; he’s clearly enraged. “Why,” he hisses, “because I’m not allowed to be bent? You’ve gotta be the only one of those in the family too?”
Hawk feels like one of those Bugs Bunny cartoons where someone gets their head clanged between a pair of cymbals. “I’m sorry,” he says before he can stop himself, “did you actually just suggest that I wanted to be the only queer in our family? Is that what you actually said?”
Howie winces, then looks back down at the glasses in front of him. The rage of a second ago is gone, and he just looks tired. “Look, Benjy, I don’t have time for this,” he says. “If you want a drink, order, otherwise can you please just go?”
At a total loss for what else to do, Hawk goes.
He goes back the next Wednesday, because of course he does. This time, when Howie sees him, he groans out loud; Hawk takes it as a sign of progress. “Jesus Christ, you don’t quit!” he says, flinging his towel down on the bar. “What the hell do you want?” He waves his hand at the rest of the room, which is pretty empty; Hawk had made a point of leaving work extra early that day. “You win, there’s no one here, so let’s just do this. What the hell do you want from me that you keep bothering me at my fucking place of work?”
Hawk planned for this. He expected to get yelled at this time; he just won't rise to the bait. “I just wanna know where you've been,” Hawk tries. “What's been going on with you.”
Howie laughs, mean. “Not like you ever gave a shit about that before.”
“I - ” Hawk stops himself before he can shout back. He clenches and releases his fist. When he's got his temper at least somewhat under control, he says, “I care now.”
Howie snorts, but he doesn't say anything.
Hawk takes it for an opening. “Look,” he says. “We haven't seen each other in 15 years.”
“Closer to 20,” Howie mumbles. He picks up a glass and starts wiping it down. He's not meeting Hawk's eyes.
“Closer to 20,” Hawk echoes. “And clearly, a lot has changed. For both of us.” He feels like he's trying to tame a wild animal who also happens to be a complete asshole.
Howie nods, then says after a second, “That your fella?”
Hawk actually looks around for BJ before remembering. “The first time?”
Howie nods again.
“Yeah,” Hawk says, and he can hear his voice get soft with affection. “That's BJ.” He slides onto a barstool.
Howie looks up, raising an eyebrow. “BJ?”
“I know,” Hawk says with a laugh. “Particularly given…” He gestures around them again. “But there's nothing anyone can do about it. It doesn't even stand for anything!”
Now both of Howie's eyebrows are sky high. “Your fella's actual name is BJ.”
Hawk nods. “The worst part is, he likes it.”
“Shit,” Howie says after a second.
Hawk nods again. “Yup.”
They sit in a silence that's almost companionable. Finally, Hawkeye realizes it's his turn to ask a question. “Have you, uh, been working here long?” he asks, wincing internally. It's not great, but he can't think of anything better off the top of his head. It's not like Hawk saw Howie hanging off some guy he can ask about.
Howie shrugs, starts chopping lemon wedges. “Few months. It's not bad. The last couple places I worked got raided, and I heard this place mostly doesn’t, so…”
“It's kind of surprising we didn't run into each other sooner,” Hawk says. “Me and Beej, we come here a lot.”
“Was mostly on days until a couple weeks ago,” Howie says.
Hawk nods, and they drift into silence again. Finally Howie says, “Whaddaya want, Ben?” He doesn’t sound mad anymore. He sounds resigned.
“I just wanna talk,” Hawk says. “The last time I saw you - ”
“I know,” Howie says, cutting him off. “That was fucked up. I know.”
Hawk nods, then says, a little more gently, “That's why I was so surprised to see you here. I mean Christ, Howie, you took me to the Tombs to throw bottles at fairies.”
Howie nods. “I know.” He's staring at the floor.
“So what happened?” Hawk asks. He promised himself he wouldn't raise his voice, and he doesn't, but he does lean on the words.
Howie's gone back to washing and wiping down glasses. “You know when I first heard someone get called a fairy?” he asks. “You know where?”
“I actually don't,” Hawk says.
“My uncle Myron's apartment,” Howie says. “I was 6.”
“Jesus,” Hawk says. Myron is one of Hymie's good-for-nothing brothers.
“I was down there a lot,” Howie says. “Especially in the summers. You'd come around, and my mother just about thought the sun shined outta your ass.” He flicks the rag he's using, picks up another glass. “So I'd go down to Myron's, and it was fairies this, faggots that. Spics, wops, micks.” He shrugs. “They're not nice guys, but at least they paid attention to me.”
“Howie,” Hawk starts, then stops. Starts again. “My mom died,” he says. “You know that, right? If Sara gave me extra attention, it's because my mom died.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Howie mutters. “But it wasn't just that. My dad … ” He pauses, then says, “They took advantage of him, and he just … let them.”
Hawk rocks back, startled. “Sorry, what?”
“My uncles absolutely milked my dad,” Howie says. “If they needed an advance on their salary, a break on the rent … shit, sometimes they'd just ask him for straight cash. And he just gave it to them!” Howie sounds mystified. “They walked all over him. What kind of man is that? And mom just - ” he makes a popping noise - “let it happen.”
Of all the shit Hawkeye expected to hear, that was nowhere on the list. “It sounds to me like your dad put being helpful above being right,” he says, a little snide.
Howie snorts. “Whatever, Benjy.”
Hawk takes a minute to let the feelings in his chest settle. Then he says, “So what about … this?” He waves around the bar. “How did you know … ” He doesn't even know how to finish the sentence. He doesn't know what Howie thinks about himself.
Hawk watches as his cousin turns a dull red. “The service,” he mutters, even quieter than before. “Joined the Navy in ‘39. He was - I fell - ” He stops. “Anyway, he didn't make it back, so.” He's hunching into himself as he scrubs the same glass over and over.
“Jesus,” Hawk says. He can't find more words, isn't sure there are any. He knows with total certainty that if BJ had died in Korea, he would not have survived.
“So I couldn't go back,” Howie continues. It's almost like now that he started, he can’t stop. “I mean, they'd know, right? Myron and Hersh and them, they'd have to know. And everything was so shitty with mom and dad, after … ” He kind of waves in Hawk's general direction. “So I figured, you know, fuck it. At least this way I can get laid once in a while.”
Hawk sits in silence for a long moment, then says, “Howie, that is the bleakest shit I've ever heard, and I was a doctor in Korea.”
Howie stills. “No shit?” he asks, clearly curious despite himself. “You?”
Hawk nods. “Can I get a beer? Yeah, they got me in ‘51 and I was in until armistice. ‘S where I met BJ, actually.”
Howie passes him a bottle, but his face is still enormously skeptical. “You,” he repeats.
Hawk just nods. “Me.” They're silent for a long moment before Hawkeye speaks again, almost in spite of himself. “You should come over,” he says. “Have dinner with me and BJ.”
Howie looks at him, suspicious. “What for?”
Hawk shrugs. “I dunno, catch up. Meet my fella. The rest of the family has,” he adds offhand.
The comment has the desired effect: now Howie's the one who looks like he got hit in the head with a cymbal. After several seconds, he manages, “What.”
“Your mom and dad at least,” Hawkeye says. “I never really knew your uncles.”
“Right, but - mom and dad know? About you?” Howie hasn't moved.
“Your mom knows,” Hawk says. “You're the one who told her for me.” Howie winces visibly, and Hawk decides to ignore it. He gets one freebie. “Your dad … ” He shrugs. “You know how your dad is. He could walk in on me actively getting railed, and if I told him it was a new kind of prostate exam he'd find a way to believe me.”
Howie snorts. “Yeah, dad was never too slick.”
“Think about it, though,” Hawk says. He finishes his beer, leaves a few bucks on the bar top. “Dinner with me and Beej. We live a block and a half away. I'll come by another day for your answer.”
By the time Hawk gets home, BJ has already arrived. “Well hey handsome,” he calls out from the kitchen. “I was just getting dinner ready. Come in here and keep me company?”
The moment BJ sees Hawk's face, he puts his knife down. “What's the matter?” he asks. “Did something happen at work?”
“No,” Hawkeye says, and goes digging in the fridge for a beer. “No, I, uh. I went to see Howie. Again.”
“ … Oh,” he hears. “And?”
Hawkeye finds a beer, uncaps it. Drinks about half of it. “He's completely fucked in the head is what,” Hawk says. Then he adds, “I invited him for dinner.”
“You - ” BJ sounds like he's doing everything he can to keep from flying off the deep end. They've both gotten better at that over the past couple years. “Okay,” he says after a long moment in which Hawk is pretty sure he's just reciting the alphabet over and over. “Your cousin, who tried to wreck your relationship with your entire family, that's who you invited to dinner.”
Hawk shrugs. “Sorry.” He is not sorry.
“So did he accept?” BJ asks. “Am I going to have to figure out the best thing to serve self-hating bigots?”
“He's gonna tell me later, and I'll handle the menu planning, stud,” Hawkeye says with a grin. Then he steps forward, into BJ's space. “Hey,” he says softly. “You know I couldn't just … ”
“I know,” BJ says. “I fucking know.” He exhales heavily, pulling Hawk into his arms. “Couldn't you be related to, I don't know, some nice librarians or something?”
Hawkeye snorts. “I'll do my best in the next life.”
“I have to tell Sara.”
BJ sighs, face hidden by the dark of their bedroom but feelings clear. “Do you?”
“I mean, not that he's a couple fruits short of a cornucopia,” Hawkeye says. “I wouldn't do that. But that I found him? Yeah, I gotta tell her.”
BJ is silent for a long moment. “Hawk,” he finally says. “I know you love your aunt. I know how important your family is to you.” He pauses. “I just - maybe consider that Howie's got his reasons for not talking to them?”
“He told me his reasons!” Hawk responds. “They're bullshit!”
BJ sighs. “My reasons probably sound like bullshit to someone who likes my parents,” he responds, and Hawk has nothing to say to that.
When Hawk and BJ first met, Hawk just assumed he came from money. Not tons of money, but certainly fourth-generation-doctor money. Now that Hawk’s been in California a year, he realizes he was picturing BJ in some tony Marin suburb like the one where he lived with his wife and kid. In fact, BJ was from the southern end of the Central Valley, and while he was a fourth generation doctor, his family's assumption had been that he'd be the fourth generation to treat the roughnecks in Bakersfield, like the Hunnicutts had since coming to California with the ancestors of those roughnecks in 1890. When BJ went to medical school at Stanford rather than USC and subsequently made it clear he was planning to stay in the Bay, his father was enraged. The Hunnicutts have never met Erin. They only met Peg at BJ's wedding. When BJ left Peg, Hawkeye had had to talk him out of calling his father and reading him the riot act of BJ's choices and sexuality. The conversation involved sentences like “if he’s that much of a schmuck, what makes you think he won’t report you to the hospital” and “do you really think he won’t call the cops.” BJ wants to wield queerness like a weapon at a world whose unfairness he is newly experiencing, and Hawk finds it both amazing and exhausting. That day was just exhausting.
Hawkeye’s heart isn't really in the argument anymore, so he just says, “I know Sara and Hymie, and I know what Howie said about them. It's not the same thing.”
BJ shrugs. “I'm just saying, baby. You don't know everything.”
“How dare you!” Hawk says, mock outraged. Anything else he might have said is lost as BJ wraps a hand around the back of his neck and pulls him into a kiss.
He goes back to Nob Hill the next time he thinks Howie's working - he asked the manager for his schedule; Larry's always been a helpful guy, particularly when given baked goods - but he's not there. Larry is. “Hey, I thought you said Hank Schultz was working tonight?” Hawk says by way of greeting.
“Hello to you too, Hawkeye,” Larry says. “Lovely weather we’re having.” It's been raining for three days straight.
“Yeah, I'm really enjoying getting deeply acquainted with my umbrella,” Hawk responds. “Seriously, Lar - is Schultz coming in?”
Larry shrugs. “Called in sick. Not sure what's going on.”
It's the same the next few times Hawk comes in. By his fourth try, it's become clear that Howie is ducking him and has enlisted Larry to help in the process. “Sorry Hawk,” Larry says around a mouthful of Hawk's homemade crumb cake. “I don't know any more than you do. Schultz is still new here.”
Hawk sighs. “OK, I get it,” he says. “Can you at least give him this?” He pulls the note out of his pocket. He'd written it last night in expectation of this happening again. BJ helped.
Larry looks at him sideways, but accepts it.
Howie,
You clearly don’t want to talk to me, and I guess I have to respect that. Don't worry, I didn't tell anyone you're here. You're still welcome for dinner any time. We live at 1810 Polk. Just knock any day around 630.
Ben
Weeks pass with no word from Howie. July rolls into August, then September. September always makes Hawk miss his mother. He remembers Rosh Hashana dinners before she died, just the three of them; it's a nice memory. Sometimes she'd take him to Portland for Yom Kippur. He was too young to appreciate it, the sorrow of atonement giving way to the joy of the new year, but he understood it was important. He wishes he'd been able to experience it as an adult, or at least a teenager, but after Rachel died and he started getting all his Judaism in the Bronx, the timing never worked out. BJ has asked him more than once if he wants to find a shul, but he always declines. As far as any of the would-be matchmakers would know, he'd be a mid-30s single doctor. He would quite literally have to hold them at bay with a stick.
Hawk’s starting to wonder if he hallucinated those conversations with Howie back in the summer. He and BJ have been back to the Nob Hill Club several times, but they never see him, and for all the good it does to get information out of Larry they might as well as well be trying to break into a bank vault. “Sweetheart, I think you might have to accept that this isn’t going to happen,” BJ says gently over dinner one night. It’s late September, and Hawk still can’t get over how perfect the weather is in San Francisco. Every window in the house is thrown open, as is the back door.
“I know. I know!” Hawk says. He's still irritated and not trying particularly hard to conceal it. “I just thought we actually connected, that last time. I thought … I dunno. I don’t know what I thought.” He drains his wine glass and waggles the empty in BJ’s direction. “Hit me, garcon, I’m parched.”
“With pleasure, monsieur,” BJ responds in an exaggerated French accent. He’s just begun to pour when they hear a knock on the door.
“Hello?” The voice carries through the front window. “Uh, does Ben Pierce live here?”
Hawk sits like a statue for a few seconds before snapping into motion. “Uh, yeah, yeah, hold on!” he shouts, and goes to open the door, BJ on his heels. Once he manages to unlatch the lock and the bolt, the door opens to reveal his cousin. Howie’s carrying a small grocery bag filled with what look like apples. “Come in, come in!” Hawk says, but as he steps back to let Howie in he walks directly into BJ, who is looming behind him like he’s a foot taller than Hawk rather than two inches.
“Hi,” BJ says, smile even toothier than usual, and extends a hand to shake. He’s fully blocking the doorway. “I’m BJ.”
To his credit, Howie just pulls himself to his full height and says, “Hank Schultz.” He shakes the offered hand. “Good to meet you. Thanks, uh, thanks for having me.”
“Hank?” BJ says, voice all false curiosity. “I thought it was Howie.”
“Not since I got back from the war,” he says. He’s still staring BJ down.
Hawk watches the whole exchange with barely restrained curiosity. He’s seen BJ angry and protective before, but not like this. He’s never seen Howie this self-possessed before. It belatedly occurs to him that he doesn’t really know the guy. “Beej,” he says, abruptly done with the ego standoff, “get out of the way, let him in.” He kicks him not-so-subtly in the ankle, and BJ finally steps aside.
“So what’s the deal with your name, anyway?” Hawk asks as the three of them walk back towards the kitchen.
Howie shrugs, uncomfortable. Hawk’s not sure he’s seen him comfortable yet. “Howard sounds like I sell insurance and Howie sounds like I’m about eight years old,” he mutters.
“I’ll give you that,” Hawk says, “but Hank?”
His cousin stops and looks at him for a long second. Then he reaches for a chain Hawk is only now noticing he wears around his neck, and nausea washes through him as he realizes exactly what he's about to see.
The dog tags and chain pool in his upturned palm like water. He picks up the first tag, and sure enough: “Stein, Henry E.” Hawk chuckles, humorless, as he notices something else. “J.” He looks up and says, “You coulda brought him home to meet the family.”
After a second, he hands the tags back. “That's really nice,” he says quietly. “I mean. Horrible. But nice.” Then he extends his hand. “Hank,” he says. “I'm Hawkeye.”
Hank looks taken aback, but accepts Hawk's hand. “When did that happen? And, uh … why?”
He sounds so honestly horrified that Hawk can't help laughing. “Sit down,” Hawk says. “BJ'll get you some chicken, and I'll tell you about it.”
Hank moves as though he's going to sit, but then he turns abruptly to Hawk and thrusts the shopping bag at him. “Shana tova,” he mutters, staring at the ground. He is bright red.
Hawk opens the bag and sees that, in addition to the apples, there's a little bottle of honey shaped like a bear.
The late September breeze cuts through the house, and Hawk has to take a deep breath to get himself under control. When he feels steady enough to do it, he looks up at his cousin. This stranger. His family.
“Shana tova,” he says. “Hoping for a sweet new year?”
“Something like that,” Hank says. He's still staring at the ground, but Hawk can see the ghost of a smile curling up the corner of his lip. “Something like that.”