Playing House

BJ/Hawkeye, a little BJ/Peg
Current Rating: PG 13, maybe R


Playing House
Chapter Three: Cooking

Thanks to jet lag and several restless hours before he went to sleep, the sun was already at full shine when he raised his head off the pillow. Sitting up, he pushed the disarray of his dark hair out of his face and rubbed at his eyes. He blinked the room into focus, brain taking a second to identify the strange dresser he was staring at.

“Well,” he pronounced to no one in particular, leaving the thought unfinished as he swung his legs out of bed and stood. He paused momentarily in front of the window, looking thin in his boxers and t-shirt which he was eternally thankful would never again be army-green. No, the top was white, a small pen ink stain towards the hem, and the bottoms…looking down, he noted their cotton design with a lethargic smile--hearts. He couldn’t remember if he had noticed the day before.

Tilting his head back, he blinked a few times at the ceiling, cementing his conscious state. Then it was across the room to find the promised towels and into the shower. Later he dressed, hesitant to appear in his worn robe, but forewent the dress shirt in favor of something more comfortable. Deciding the process of waking up had taken much too long already, he opened the door and descended the stairs.

Expecting the lazy Saturday morning activities, he was surprised to see Peg scampering quickly around the kitchen giving orders to BJ. The tall man leaned against the refrigerator offering assurances that he would indeed be fine.

“You won’t need any shirts for work?”

“I’m off till Wednesday, dear.”

“And you’re sure you’ll have enough to eat?”

“I know how to order a pizza, besides,” he glanced over to their guest, “Hawkeye happens to be an almost tolerable cook.”

“Why thank you,” he replied easily.

“Oh, Hawkeye!” Peg turned. “I’m so sorry, but I have to go.”

“Something I said?”

BJ elaborated, “Her Aunt Janice isn’t feeling well, so Peg’s gonna go help her out for a few days. Poor woman lives alone, doesn’t even have a telephone.”

“So how’d she get in touch with you, pigeon-mail?”

“Her neighbor called to let me know,” she replied hastily, nudging BJ aside to add something to a piece of paper attached to the refrigerator with a strawberry-shaped magnet. Dropping the pencil in the drawer, she began to hunt for her keys.

“Is Erin staying with us?” Hawkeye directed this to BJ, the more collected of the two.

“Peg’s gonna drop her off at her mom’s house.”

“Oh.”

There wasn’t much for him to do at the moment, so, positioning himself out of the way in a kitchen chair, Hawkeye watched BJ gather up Erin and her things, handing the latter over to Peg who in the meantime had gotten her suitcase.

“I’ll walk you out,” he offered, Erin resting on his hip, small arms thrown around his neck. Her blond pigtails bounced with each step he took as he disappeared around the corner. Hawkeye heard the screen door shut against the metal frame.

Peg was leaving. She was leaving him there, alone, with BJ. With a groan, Hawkeye laid his head on the table in front of him. He was no good at resisting temptation; he hadn’t had any practice at it. Well, he silently consoled himself, it wasn’t as if BJ was going to jump him. That consolation, though, while assuaging his pressing concern of improperly pressing himself upon his friend’s life, struck a deeper cord that rang out as disappointment and something very near hopelessness.

No, that wouldn’t do any good. He was not going to get all weepy, pining away like some school girl with a crush on her big, strong, well spoken doctor who…no, he mentally cut off that thought. He had resolved this in Maine. He was here to have a good visit with an old friend. He could let his fantasies run wild back at home. It was, after all, much harder to molest someone via telephone.

Hawkeye wrangled his head off of the table just before BJ stepped back in the room carrying a pink sippy cup. He dumped it into the sink.

“Empty,” he said, needlessly. Pulling out the chair across from Hawkeye he took a heavy seat. “Want some breakfast?”

“You cook?”

“Not really. How about we grab something at the diner on the way to the hospital?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“I couldn’t eat like this anyway.”

“Like what?”

“With you sitting way over there.”

“Huh?” He wasn’t too sure where the comment was aimed, but he instantly sat a little straighter in the chair.

BJ laughed. “You didn’t notice?”

“Notice what?”

“Last night at dinner. We ended up sitting on the same side of the table, close, you know, like we used to in the mess tent. Seems only natural, even a year later.”

“Yeah,” he replied, telling himself to relax, demanding it in fact, “I guess some things never change.”

~*~

The hospital was impressive, and the staff was respectful of Dr. Hunnicut and anxious to meet the infamous Dr. Pierce he talked of so often. Hawkeye managed to snag the phone numbers of three nurses while exuding his natural charm and drew the attention of more than one doctor with his discussion of cutting-edge techniques.

“So,” BJ comment as they stepped into a room to return an extra white coat to his locker, “I see you still read medical journals.”

“Well, I have to. They keep sending them to my house, every month, right along with my nudist magazines; I’m afraid if I cancel one, they’ll stop sending the other.”

“Work before pleasure?”

“Pleasure before work, or during, or after,” he grinned. “Hey, what’s that?”

“Hm?” BJ, about to close the locker, opened it all the way instead.

Hawkeye’s grin softened into a half-smile, and a familiar nostalgia crept into his eyes. On the locker door, held up by two sloppily torn pieces of clear tape, was a picture of the two of them. The composition was lousy, but they looked happy. Imagine that, happy, arms slung around each other as they stood in front of nothing less than the 4077th latrine.

“Remember that?”

“Of course.”

“You staid behind with that kid.”

“Margaret and Radar too.”

“You made me leave.”

“Somebody had to go. Couldn’t leave the wounded all alone with Frank.” His attempt at joviality fell flat as BJ didn’t run with it. He looked not at it exactly, more through it, eyes distant. Hawkeye sat on a nearby bench, staring at the picture, trying to remember where he had picked up the pink parasol he was holding in it and wondering where it had eventually gone to, marveling at the things that slipped in and out of his life in those years.

“I was worried…”

The oppressive silence made its encore appearance after that statement, gearing up both their nerves as they sought something to say. Hawkeye finally managed it, though afterwards he thought he might have been better off keeping his mouth shut.

“Well, you needn’t have worried,” he lifted his chin in defiance of any suggestion, but then, with an adjustment of his fingers to indicate quantity, added: “I only groped Margaret a little bit.”

BJ paused but decided to take the comment at face value.

“Seriously?” he asked incredulously, sufficiently imitating the tone of a college boy interested in his buddy’s exploits.

“Yeah, when the lights went out.”

“Huh. I‘d say you were lying, but it just sounds too much like, well, you,” he laughed.

“You really can’t leave me alone with anybody.”

“Or anything.”

“Animal, vegetable, or mineral.”

~*~

They made a pit stop on the way back to the house, not for food, but for something they both thought much more important: booze.

“The real deal,” Hawkeye said as he peeked into the brown paper bag resting on his knees.

“Of course, anything’s probably better than the rotgut we got from that still.”

“Hey, don’t insult the still. She asked for so little and gave so much,” he said in a mock reverent tone.

“Yeah, so much turpentine.”

“That was liquid love!”

They both had to laugh at that, otherwise one of them was going to say what had become the traditional reply. That was neither the time nor the place for a discussion of types and vintages of liquid love. Hawkeye took a breath and turned to stare out the window, watching the trees pass in quick succession, silently reconstructing past conversations and activities that had followed.

BJ’s hands gripped the wheel tightly, for just a moment, then relaxed. He glanced at his friend’s profile, half-silhouetted against the dusky sky. His sat with his hair flopped down into his eyes, his nose almost resting on the window glass, hands wrapped protectively around their recent acquisition. He was clean-shaven, for once, and BJ found himself curious as to the feel of the left cheek that was presented to him. He wondered briefly of the consequence of reaching across the two feet but focused his eyes back on the road instead.

~*~

While BJ took a lengthy call from the hospital, Hawkeye found himself unable to sit peacefully. A grumble from his belly suggested a productive activity. He surveyed the kitchen, opening random cabinets and drawers and being a nosy guest in general. However, he did locate several critical components and set about proving his skills as a bachelor chef extraordinaire.

The oven was warm against his legs, its inner light revealing several thick slices of garlic bread. Cut and bake, he could do that. Having located the pots and pans under one cabinet, he had chosen two and proceeded to cook noodles and sauce, from a jar, maybe, but complimented by the delicate array of spices he had found on the table: salt and pepper. He stirred it occasionally with a wooden spoon, leaving the utensil to rest on a napkin between uses.

BJ approached this scene of domesticity with a smile, coming to stand close at Hawkeye’s left and leaning forward to noisily sniff what was on the stove. He reached out to take the sauce spoon, but hand on his chest pushed him back.

“You’ll spoil your dinner,” he said sternly, repressing the smile that threaten to ruin the gag.

“But mom,” BJ whined, drawing out the o. “It looks good, Hawk. What is it?”

“Lobster bisque.”

“Of course.”

“Here.” Hawkeye took the spoon and scooped a little sauce out of the pot. Holding his opposite hand under it as to not spill any on the yellow kitchen tiles, he lifted it to BJ’s mouth. The blond closed his lips around the end of the spoon briefly as Hawkeye pulled it back. He held it in front of him while waiting for the verdict.

“Well?”

“Needs salt.”

Hawkeye’s brows creased in disbelief, not sure if the other was being serious or simply playing him. Shoving the spoon back into the sauce, he brought it hastily to his own mouth.

“It does not!”

“Yeah, it does.” He grabbed the shaker from the table and attempted to add it to the pot, only to be shoved forcibly sideways by the chef. He made another attempt, causing a shuffle but managing to dump a decent amount into the sauce only to once more be displaced, this time by Hawkeye’s hip as he stepped defiantly back to assess the damage. Again he tasted it.

“Good work, Beej, there’s enough salt in there to kill a fish.”

“Fish?”

“You know, those swimmy things that live in the ocean. You know, ocean, big blue thing that our sauce now tastes like.”

He wasn’t really mad as he turned to glare at the other who was again standing with him at the stove. The wooden spoon was still in his right hand, and he debated giving BJ a swat with it, but then the man smiled at him, with enough of a joking tinge that Hawkeye was instantly wary.

“What?”

“You got a little something,” he gestured with his hand to his own mouth.

Hawkeye rolled his eyes and swiped the back of his hand across his lips.

“No, it’s,” he cleared the few inches between them, raising a hand. They both thought he was going to wipe away the stray bit of sauce, but the hand brushed Hawkeye’s cheek instead, resting there, pressing warmly as it slipped down and back to Hawkeye’s neck to hold him in place as BJ leaned forward, tongue flicking out, just slightly, across his friend’s upper, tasting the flavor of the tomatoes and something more enticing. Tilting his head just to the right, he pressed his lips to Hawkeye’s. It was warm and soft but only for the initial instant, then his tongue was pressing; it was inside tasting and searching, trying to rediscover what he had known before. He found it the same, only missing an overlay of gin and olives, and the familiarity comforted a part of him that had been discontent for much more than the length of the other’s visit.

BJ’s free hand had grasped his wrist, holding the still-clasped spoon out of the way almost as if he was afraid it would come back to hit him. So, when Hawkeye’s legs threatened to give way he was left with only a single appendage to offer support, but wrapped around BJ’s neck, it stabilized him even as the other man pressed close to lean on his.

But then they had to breathe, and the impromptu world they had created quickly dissipated to let in the reality of the moment-- the soft glow of the overhead fixture, the Hunnicuts’ suburban kitchen, and the smell of slightly burnt bread. Parting, they stared at each other, Hawking drawing long breaths and trying to decide where most of his blood had gone. He was read in the face, but another part of his anatomy was vying for the attention. BJ seemed to be working under similar conditions, but having initiated the interaction, he felt responsible for its resolution.

“What are we doing?” Hawkeye asked.

“I . . . I,” he straightened his back and pulled his shirt into place; it was wrinkled. “I’m going to get us some drinks.”

~tbc~

AN: What has BJ done? How many occupants will the guest room hold tonight? Will someone remember to take the garlic bread out of the oven? Tune in next time . . .