32nd Annual ACS Clinical Symposium

Surgical conventions would be a great thing, thought Hawkeye, as he finally reached the front of the line, if it weren't for all the bloody surgeons clogging up the works. Which is why he swore he would never go. Except, eventually, he had to. Eight years later, still anything reeking of cookie-cutter military style hurry-up-and-wait bureaucracy was guaranteed to fast-track his blood pressure into quadruple digits.

"Name?" the woman asked with a mass-produced Revlon smile. It probably came included with the $299 conference fee. One to a registrant, like the name tag with the pin designed to leave golf cup sized holes in the breast of your good shirts; the vinyl tote bag with "32nd ACS Clinical Symposium, Cincinnati— 1961" imprinted on it, sized just a bit too small to fit all those handouts you didn't want or need in the first place; and the similarly stamped ballpoint pen, guaranteed to either clog during the one lecture you did want to take notes on, if it hadn't leaked all the ink out over your shirt pocket already.

"Pierce, Benjamin Franklin." He watched while she ran a carefully manicured nail down the typed roster of M-Q.

"I'm afraid we don't have you, Doctor. On-site registration is over there." The smile was waning rapidly now. Apparently like the tote-bag, it was intended only for those who had already paid. She pointed the same coral-polished nail to another line across the room. The fellow behind him edged up closer to the table, nudging his hip and shoulder without apology.

"That's 'P-I-E-R' not 'P-E-A-R.'" Hawkeye elbowed back. He jabbed at his name, neatly typed just slightly further down the list than she had managed to read.

"Oh, I am sorry, Doctor." The smile instantly refreshed. "Sign beside your name. Here's your conference pack. The name tag must be worn in all meeting rooms and for included meals. Welcome breakfast and opening remarks are at 6AM in the Pinehurst room." She passed the tote bag across the table.

Hawkeye swore that he could see a dark spot at the bottom where the ballpoint ink was already starting to seep. He took the bag without comment--no point in wasting good sarcasm on the vacuous--and bent down to sign the attendance sheet.

They'd spelled Benjamin wrong.

"Hey! I know that ass!" a cheery voice called out. "And he's got a nice tushy too!" A hand slapped him on the rear.

Hawkeye whirled. In a split second, he had been reeled back eight years. "Beej!"

"Hawk!"

They embraced hard, cheek to cheek, mouth to face. The sudden jolt of time, emotion and context was disorienting, and Hawkeye stopped when he realized he'd almost kissed the skin nearest his lips in the swell of confused reflex.

They held each other at arm's length. "Damn, Beej, you look good."

He did. Tanned, fit, and happy. Happy. It wasn't a look he was used to seeing on BJ, but it suited him very well.

How much better of friends would they have been if they had met some place they wanted to be? Some place they could have been happy? Or did it work the other way around?

"Healthy California sunshine. I'm telling you, you should come check it out. If you could ever bring yourself to give up the snow, black flies, and caribou."

"That's 'moose,' and I'll have you know that people come from half a world away, just to see the size of them."

"Or is that the size of the black flies?" They made the joke in virtual unison, and Hawkeye began to laugh, not at the stupid humor, but in a sort of amazed relief that people could just pick up again so easily.

"Ahem." Maxine Factor drummed her perfect nails against the table and flicked her press-on lashes at the impatient line behind them.

The smile was notably absent. Apparently it was only one to a registrant.

"Come on," BJ threw an arm around his shoulder and led him off to the side. "I don't think we're wanted."

"Story of my life."

"Hey! I want you." BJ gave a friendly squeeze.

"I bet you say that to all the boys." Hawkeye fell back into the familiar rhythm. He'd forgotten what a pleasure it was to play inane with someone who could almost read his mind.

Someone who could almost read his mind...and liked him anyway.

So wrapped up was he in the nostalgia, he failed to notice that BJ had missed a beat.

"Nah. Only the young, pretty ones."

"Good! It's nice to know that I've still got it." Hawkeye squeezed him back. "You need to register?" Hawkeye nodded to the table. E-I had to be in the middle somewhere. "I'll wait."

BJ shook his head. "I'm done. Took a morning flight. Got in four hours ago."

"Four hours? What're you still doing down here? Did you get kicked out of the hotel already—that would be a record even for you. Or is business so bad that you've taken to hanging around lobbies scoping out skin cancers and adenoidal cases?"

"I was waiting for you." BJ shrugged, hands in his front pockets.

"Me?" No one knew he'd be here. He hadn't told anyone. Why would he? There was no one left in his life who should care.

"I asked at registration. I do it at every conference."

Him too. Interesting. Often Hawkeye feared that the horrors of the war—things no man should have to live through and act human again--had warped his perceptions and reactions beyond any recognition. Then sometimes--out of nowhere--they were validated all over again.

"I had to get lucky sometime," BJ continued. "And it looks like this time, I did."

"Lucky?" The banter was coming automatically now. "Don't count your spring chickens, sailor, before they're hatched. I'm not that easy. Well, okay, I am that easy, but you still shouldn't count your chickens. Sheep maybe, moose definitely, but never chickens. It makes Colonel Sanders nervous."

BJ chuckled. "You hungry? I'll buy you a moose steak."

"Not me. I ate on the plane. Chicken, in fact. At least I think it was chicken. Though I can't figure how they get it pressed into that tiny little dish. How about you? I'm willing to watch you eat, if you promise not to count any chickens, be they baked, broiled, fricasseed or fried."

"Nah, I left my stomach back in Pacific Time. Not interested in dinner, except the liquid variety. I'll still buy, but I insist upon separate straws."

This time it was Hawkeye who had to cover a tiny hesitation. "What's this? You afraid I have cooties?"

"Oh, I know you do. Erin says that all boys do. Except for me, of course." BJ pantomimed a preen.

"Of course." Hawkeye forced a grin, hoping that the feeling would follow naturally after. "Then, lead on, Macduff. I take it from the rosy glow on your cheeks that you've already scouted out this hotel's oasis of liquid refreshment?"

"Naturally. I had to get there early and save us the best seats. Thinking of you, of course."

"BJ, your friendship knows no bounds."

"Don't say I never did anything for you." BJ led the way down the hall.

---

"Another scotch and water, sir?" The waiter addressed BJ as they slid in across the maroon leatherette of the corner booth.

"Nope. Two martinis. Extra dry. This is a celebration. Spare no expense. Kill the fatted calf..."

"Moose."

"...The prodigal son is home again."

"Two dry martinis." The waiter made a note.

"What he said. Except, make mine a virgin." Hawkeye popped pretzels into his mouth.

BJ gave him a peculiar glance.

Hawkeye shrugged his face just like old times. "You said it's a celebration; I'm going all out. Do you know how long it's been since a virgin's passed my lips?" He said it with his patented 'you laughàhere' timing, but BJ wasn't taking the bait.

The waiter cut into the awkwardness. "You can't make a virgin martini, sir. They're made up of two different alcohols."

Who said there was no such thing as a straight man anymore, Hawkeye thought with glee. "Sure you can! Unscrew a wide-mouth jar of olives, insert swizzle stick, mix well, and serve."

The waiter turned to BJ.

BJ shrugged. "You heard the lady."

Hawkeye grinned: just like old times. Well, without the death, brutality, disease, deprivation and misery. "And while you're back there, I'll take a ginger ale too. Canada extra Dry. Make it a double; like he says, it's a celebration." Hawkeye passed the waiter the now empty pretzel bowl.

"Problem?" BJ asked after the waiter had disappeared behind the bar. His tone was perfectly noncommittal and his pose straight out of Psychiatry 101.

"Not anymore." BJ kept quiet. They teach you that in Psych 101, too. Expectant silence: the headshrink's scalpel. All the searing pain, none of the blood.

They had better things to catch up on than tap dancing around this elephant all night, so Hawkeye gave it up. "I finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired; I'm on the wagon."

"Your idea?" No judgment, only a question.

"Well, I wouldn't call it 100% voluntary, but close enough. When the wagon started running over me ten or twenty times a day, I decided it would be a good idea to switch positions. So far, it's working out well. And the wheel tracks on my back are almost gone." Hawkeye heard it come out sounding edgy instead of flip, but being here was making him uncomfortable in a way that he thought he had gotten past.

Most people laughed a little in sympathy at the inside joke that wasn't a joke at all, then moved on to easier topics. BJ just waited.

A patience contest with him would be enough to make the proverbial tortoise throw up its hands and wave surrender.

Hawkeye dropped the tone of light and bit the bullet. He wanted this discussion over, too, and there was only one way that was going to happen. A surgeon didn't stop just because things were getting messy; he kept digging until he found the bleeder.

And BJ was first and foremost a surgeon.

"Two years now. Well, two years, and three months on the fourteenth. I slipped up once, but what do you know: no one is perfect. Not even me." He tried once more for the laugh.

"When your dad died." BJ ignored the last bits. Good surgeons diagnosed the problem and cut in right on top.

Hawkeye looked up sharply. It had been less than three months after, and that had been more than two months longer than he should have waited to do something. One of the things that had drawn him to BJ was that BJ wasn't stupid. Had the hooch made him forget all that, or was it just easier to stand the separation if he didn't let himself recall how good they had been together?

With a silent gesture, Hawkeye affirmed the conclusion. "Afterwards, it got really, really sick and really, really tiring really, really fast. Really. It was bad for a while; it's all better now, really. There's really not really anything else to say."

"Why didn't you call me?"

How to answer that? How do you explain pitch black to someone who's never been blind? How do you explain existing as a soulless being when no one else can see the void? How can you explain a hopelessness born out of not being able to see any possibility of change whatsoever to someone who can sit there and calmly ask question after question?

But this was BJ, and surely Hawkeye owed it to him to at least say he'd tried. "Have you even been in a place so dark and deep that not only couldn't you crawl out, you couldn't see the light--had no idea which way was up to even look for help?"

"Um. Once. But I was lucky. When I was there, I had a friend."

Hawkeye had to reconsider which of them was the one who had not understood the situation he'd been in.

"I should have come." BJ said the words clinically, like delivering a diagnosis, the chill sting of merthiolate poured over a wound for its own good.

Hawkeye waved away the could-have-beens. "It wouldn't have changed anything. After you'd left, I still would have been alone."

"No. You may have been across the country, but you never would have been alone. Unless you decided to be. Why do you think I never say good-bye?"

Hawkeye had no response for that.

"Your order, gentlemen."

The break in the moment was a welcome relief. Hawkeye hadn't had to live with this much feeling in so long that he had forgotten how exhausting it could be.

The waiter put down three cocktail napkins, one martini, one soda and one open jar of olives, a sword-shaped swizzle leaning up against the side of the rim.

Hawkeye skewered an olive with the plastic sword and popped it into his mouth, his expression already transforming to warn of an upcoming joke ahead. BJ had never completely understood Hawk's need to hide emotion behind humor, but with as deep as the man's passions ran, it made him a perpetually entertaining friend.

"Finest kind!" Hawkeye pronounced with a flourish. "Buttery with slight hints of oak, cherry, citrus, anise, and--" Hawkeye speared a second olive and contorted his face as he chewed.. "Got it! Pimento! A bit light on the grape, though, but what do you expect on a budget?"

BJ chuckled softly. Even when people change, they don't really. That's why, once made, he never let go of a friend.

"We don't have to stay." BJ eyed his martini.

"Mm, no." Hawkeye shook his head and continued to munch. "It's fine, honest." To his surprise, it was starting to become true. It wasn't that the place made him want to be drinking--as sick as he'd been, he couldn't imagine anything that could do that. But all the bottles, all the people raising wrist seemed to be showcasing the fact that he had a flaw--a weakness--and he really hated that.

But BJ didn't see it that way, and BJ was the only one who mattered.

"If it had been making you feel as terrible as it did me, you wouldn't miss it either. Drink up. Have one for me. Well, that would have to be more like twelve. Or twenty. But I can't say I recommend it."

BJ chuckled again and took a token sip.

"But enough about me. What's new with you? How's Peg?"

"Good. Good." BJ put down the glass and nodded to his reflection in the tabletop. "So I hear. She's seeing an architect. Shopping malls. Erin tells me they're talking marriage."

"Beej?" Hawkeye glanced to BJ's bare left hand. Not even a tan line. Still, a lot of surgeons don't wear rings...

"Two years ago." BJ finally looked up. "She said I worked too much."

"I'm sorry," Hawkeye offered. It still didn't make any sense.

BJ managed a wry smile as he sipped again—a good bit more than a token this time. "Don't be too sorry. Had I actually been working, we'd most likely still be together."

"Beej...geez. You two were Ward and June. Your letters practically gave the camp diabetes. What happened ?"

If that kind of love could die, what was there left to count on?

"Nothing. I still love her to pieces. And she me--I think." No, he was sure. If she hadn't, she could have made it a hundred times more difficult for him to go. "But I wasn't happy and wasn't going to be, so we weren't happy." And weren't going to be. "What happened? I don't know. Maybe Korea, the boys dying young, seeing how short life is and how little of it we get to live. I still love her to pieces, but not enough to be willing to give up everything else. It's so short, Hawk."

Dad. "Yeah." Hawk tossed back his ginger ale. Just for a moment, he wished that it were rye. "And Erin?"

"Oh, she's terrific." BJ picked up speed. True to form, he whipped out his wallet, a goofy paternal grin plastered across his face. "This is her fourth grade picture. She's so smart, she got advanced a year."

"Must take after her mother."

"God, I hope so."

"At least in the hair line."

"Look at my little girl." BJ passed a picture across the table. "This is her last summer at Muir Beach."

"Not so little anymore. Look here," Hawkeye ran a finger along the side of her bathing suit. "Is she getting...?"

"Hey! That's my daughter!" BJ snatched the photo back.

"Yeah, and I'm her funny uncle Hawkeye." He pulled off a fair Groucho Marx facial wink.

"Who she'll never meet until she's well past menopause, if I have any say in the matter!" BJ twisted sideways to jam the wallet back in his pocket, and when he looked up again, they were both laughing silently at their own act.

"What about you?" BJ asked. "Any auditions for the plum position of Mrs. B.F. Pierce?"

"Many a plum and auditions, always." That wasn't true. Since he'd quit drinking, there had hardly been any. The girls didn't seem to care for him sober. Or maybe it was that he just didn't like himself. But he stuck with the party line. "Hiring is another story. I can't afford it. Oh, I can swing the base salary, and I've got medical covered, but they kill you on the fringe benefits."

"It's not so bad," said BJ quietly.

"You miss her."

"Every day." BJ took a drink. Just for a moment, he wished that it were rye.

"You ever think about--?"

BJ shook his head. "No." That wasn't true, but it was only a three day conference. He didn't have time to explain all the convolutions and permutations of emotions they'd been though. "It was the right thing to do. If I'd been a bigger man, I would have done it sooner. But it's not so easy to let go."

"No, it isn't."

"No." BJ cleared his throat. "Now how'd this get to be about me again? You still single-handedly saving Crabapple Cove?"

"Since my Dad died, pretty much."

Hawkeye didn't sound happy. He used to when he talked about the lives, bodies and souls that he had healed. It was sad to hear that kind of passion fail.

"Which is why I'd rather talk about you." One elbow on the table, Hawkeye propped his chin up on a palm. "What's it like being surgeon to the stars? Tell me, is Audrey Hepburn's appendix all that it's cracked up to be?"

"Oh, you'll love this." BJ finished his drink and pushed the glass away. "Mostly I'm doing aesthetics. Breast augmentation is huge." He picked the wording intentionally. It was a riot thinking that way again. The set-up lines were starting to come back into his head unbidden--like riding a bicycle, but without the risk of scabby knees.

"As well it should be," Hawkeye followed through on cue. "So let me get this straight: you're being paid to examine women's breasts?"

"All day. Repeatedly and thoroughly. The injections don't last that long and have to be placed exactly right. Takes time. And an exquisitely sensitive touch."

"Ah!" Hawkeye leaned back and closed his eyes. His voice playing out a soundtrack for the gross indecencies behind his lids. "Only California could think of a job like this. You need a partner? A nurse? A secretary? A janitor? I could be there Tuesday. I'm very quiet, I don't eat much, and I drink even less."

BJ chuckled. He'd forgotten what it was like to laugh this much. "Actually, I do have--if you'll pardon the expression--more than my hands full in my practice."

"Ow!" Hawkeye grabbed at his chest. "Don't taunt me like this, Beej. My aging coronaries can't take it."

"Offer's always open, but who'd save Crabapple Cove?"

Hawkeye blew him off. "They'll be fine. I know a terrific moose who could take over. Great hands. Well, hooves, actually. Tourists come from all over to see him work."

BJ laughed and twirled his empty glass.

"Want another?" Hawkeye kept the smile firmly in place, but not the stressed timbre from his voice.

"Not at these prices." BJ beckoned the waiter and reached for his wallet again. "Come on. Let's take this to my room. There's a Phillies game on tonight."

Hawkeye picked up the olive jar. "Do you suppose there's a regulation about guests taking these off the premises?"

"Only if you're under twenty-one."

"I'd rather be under a twenty-one year old."

"Dream on."

"Trust me; I do. At every possible moment." Hawkeye rolled an olive around in his mouth to a series of sound effects, disturbing in their unequivocal expressiveness.

"Taste?" asked BJ.

With teeth and tongue Hawkeye stuck the olive halfway out of his mouth as they ambled out into the hall.

"Ew! Boy cooties! I meant a clean one."

"Suit yourself." Hawkeye dug into the jar with his fingers, pulled out an olive and popped it into BJ's mouth.

"Mm. Salty."

"Um hmm." Hawkeye licked his fingers as they neared the elevator bank.

A registrant with a name tag proclaiming him to be Thomas from Minneapolis did a double-take and decided to take the stairs instead.

---

"I can't find the game." Back in his room, BJ turned the radio dial all the way and back again. "If an eight o'clock game in Philly is a five o'clock game in San Francisco, what time is it in Cincinnati?"

"Eight, I guess. It's Eastern Time here, too."

"Really?" BJ checked his watch. "Then we're early. Funny, I thought this was Central. It doesn't seem east enough to be Eastern."

"That's a prejudice! Never judge a time zone by its ocean. Or its lack thereof." Hawkeye lounged into the sofa and kicked off his shoes.

"You want a glass of water or something?" BJ asked.

"No thanks. One ginger ale is my limit these days. That stuff goes straight to my head, and it's a school day tomorrow."

BJ picked up the glass from beside the no longer quite full bottle of scotch on the end table by the sofa and carried it into the bathroom. Hawkeye heard the water run.

"BJ, you can have a drink if you want. I'm not going to fall apart."

"I know." BJ emerged wiping the glass with a hand towel. "But it wouldn't seem right without you." He set the glass upside down, picked up the bottle, and looked around for a place to stash it. The little table drawer would be too shallow, but a dresser drawer would do.

"Beej!"

He stopped mid-stride.

"You don't have to do that. Haven't you ever just wanted people to treat you normally--not with kid gloves or like a blood-thirsty animal that can't be trusted too close to a wound, just normally? Just normal."

"Yeah, I have." BJ placed the bottle back down on the table by the sofa arm and sat.

He angled his body for easier conversation, trying his hands in his lap, then under his armpits, then by his side, then giving up. Ordinarily he supposed it would be a non-issue, but the active awareness of his empty hands left him out of sorts.

With a small snort, he gave up. "So tell me, if you're not drinking, what do you do with your hands?"

"Ah! Trade secret. I'm not supposed to spill to outsiders, but for you, I'll make an exception. Usually I drink coffee. Strong, black and lots of it. It might sound strange, but it amuses the hands and mouth. It also works to my advantage. Women tell me that I'm good to the last drop."

"Isn't everyone?" BJ asked. "Although sometimes it's an acquired taste."

BJ knew men flirting when he heard it, but wasn't sure if this was real or another joke, one made sharp enough to displace the mass of his discomfort.

He wondered if Hawkeye himself knew for sure.

Hawkeye studied him with a pointed stare.

BJ paused. Perhaps he'd gone too far. Hawkeye was anything but unobservant. Chances were that Hawk had known before he had himself. If so, he wished to hell that Hawk would have clued him in. It could have saved him and Peg many sad years of pain.

He changed the subject, just in case. "And if there's no coffee?"

"Needlework."

"What?" Hawk's voice was teasing, and BJ relaxed again.

"Needlework. Crochet, embroidery, knitting. Ones where you get to thread the needle are the best, as it gives you something to do with your mouth too."

"Needlework?" BJ chuckled and shifted on the sofa. He tried resting against the cushions, but that didn't solve the dilemma of his unoccupied hands.

"Yeah. But I had to give that up, too." Hawkeye rambled on with ease. "It became almost as expensive as booze. Plus I was running out of room. With all the time I was spending not drinking, I made an afghan big enough to cover Rhode Island. Delaware would have been next."

BJ chuckled again and draped an arm over the sofa back. His fingertips grazed the soft curls at the nape of Hawkeye's neck and he went with it for just a little bit.

He'd wanted to do that for as long as he could remember. It felt just as he had always thought it would.

"Well, this is funny," Hawkeye said.

BJ froze. "Funny ha-ha or funny strange?"

"Funny that I always figured I'd have to get you drunk for this."

BJ snorted a little ruefully, but his heart resumed its normal beat. "You could have asked me. I would have told you that you didn't. Although back then I wouldn't have been at all proud of it." He let his hand return to Hawkeye's neck.

"So maybe it's just as well we didn't?"

"Maybe." BJ's fingers twirled lightly against the silky curls. He was yearning to do more, but he wouldn't overstep or push. Lonely people do stupid things sometimes. Things they regret in cold, clear light of morning. He knew from first-hand experience what a lonely man would do or permit for a few moments of another human's touch.

He could live with an unconsummated maybe, but he never wanted to be a definite regret.

"Mm. That feels nice." He felt Hawkeye's muscles melt soft and pliant under the suggestion of his touch. Hawkeye leaned back into the motion, and BJ expanded the area of massage. His penis had swollen so that his importunely located fly dug into it without mercy, and he shifted just a little, mindful not to move any nearer.

He cared much too much to press himself in any way.

"We were so stupid, Hawk." BJ swallowed to clear the throaty congestion from his voice. Sex was nice—very nice, very, very nice--but he would not risk a mistaken impression that that was what this was about.

"Stupid? Hey there, speak for yourself!" Hawkeye's eyes shot open and focused fast. He turned toward BJ, their faces now much less than friendship distance apart. "I've been many things in my life, but never stupid.

"Back then, I hated everything about where we were. I couldn't stand the thought of bringing love or happiness into that cesspool. I was miserable every moment and, if I had been living in that kind of life and not been miserable, I never could have forgiven myself for that kind of inhumanity.

"I hated it, Beej, and I was determined to keep hating it. That, and I was scared out of my wits."

"Are you still scared?" BJ asked very softly.

Hawkeye's eyes were clear and sharp. "Of course not. What's there to be scared of?"

BJ leaned in and kissed him like he had a million times in dreams.

The kiss grew and became wild. Hawkeye licked and sucked, as if to draw everything he had been missing in life out in this one connection. He pulled BJ close and, with his tongue, drove as far into him as he could.

BJ put a hand to Hawkeye's slacks, and with blind finesse, popped Hawkeye's erection free. Hawkeye thrust within his palm, until the cramp from the awkward angle became too much, and BJ had to move for the sake of a better grip.

Hawkeye jerked his mouth away. "More," he panted, tasting all around BJ's lips.

"What?" BJ tried to reconnect their kiss, but Hawkeye stayed committed to the sensitive hollow of his chin. The nibble rippled the stubble of his beard, and the tickle shot clear to his groin with electric force.

"More," Hawkeye repeated. He fumbled for the liquor bottle and splashed a dollop between their faces. "Drink." His face was glazed and distant like an addict mesmerized by a siren song that other men can't hear. He pushed the bottle against BJ's lips, and reflexively BJ swallowed. The bottle was tipped far back, and the unexpected bolus stretched his esophagus to a spasm of pain. Overflow ran from his lips--down his chin, neck, and shirt.

"Mmm." Hawkeye lapped the spillage up, then hungrily fell to kissing his mouth again.

This seemed like the mother of all bad ideas. Even as the familiar warmth suffused his brain, BJ quickened his strokes. He set his fingertips to work maximally along the underside, and he flicked rapidly over the corona as Hawkeye chased madly after every splash and drop. His free hand he sent to stimulate one nipple, as Hawkeye garbled muffled chants for more, but it proved unnecessary for Hawk choked out one last sound and then was spilling out and over his hand and wrist.

Thank God. BJ exhaled and moved away from Hawkeye's lips.

Hawkeye craned his body and kissed him once again. Just a normal kiss, this time. He fell limp against the cushions and offered a sluggish nod to the damp over BJ's front. "Sorry. Looks like I made a mess of your shirt."

"It's okay. If you think that's bad, you should see the one in my shorts."

Hawkeye laughed.

It hit BJ how much he had missed that sound. They say you never forget your first love, but you never forget the one that got away either. "I'm going to go wash my face," he said.

"Okay." Eyes closed, Hawkeye settled down against the arm of the couch.

BJ struggled to his feet. His groin still chafed against his fly, the damp friction becoming more unpleasant with every step, but that was the least of his concerns. He grabbed the bottle and took it with him, listening to the rhythmic glug-glug as the contents drained away down the bathroom sink.

"I told you, you didn't have to do that." Reflected in the mirror, Hawkeye watched from the sofa.

"And I told you, it's no fun without you." With only a twinge of ruefulness, BJ tossed the empty in the trash. He peeled of his shirts and kicked them into a corner. He stuck his head under the faucet, splashed water down his chest, and scrubbed with a cloth, hoping it would carry away most of the alcoholic smell. He wished he had thought to pour himself just one last swallow from the bottle--maybe two--in the other still Sani-wrapped hotel bathroom glass.

"That's not it. You think I'm going to start drinking again."

"I have no idea what you're going to do, and that's your own business, but I don't want to be a part of one of your mistakes." BJ blotted a towel against his chest with somewhat more force than he had planned.

"You've already been that." Hawkeye's words were almost too soft to carry across the distance.

BJ jerked his head out the door, fearful that he hadn't—or that he had—heard them words right.

"But I think we're well on our way to fixing that." Lounging back, Hawkeye flashed a silly grin, and suddenly everything was again okay.

Still, BJ chucked the soggy towel at Hawkeye's head.

Hawkeye collapsed to the sofa in gales of helpless giggles, batting the wet terry cloth away from his face. Mission accomplished, BJ thought. At its most basic level, sex should be, well, fun.

BJ toyed with the idea of discarding his pants. His dick still ached, though not as severely as it had before. Letting it loose would feel so good. But walking out naked seemed more intimate, more personal than the sex, and so in the end he didn't.

He told himself that maybe Hawkeye wouldn't be comfortable with that.

Not that the rayon weave of his slacks hid much anyway. As a compromise, he tossed the belt and trousers into the pile with his shirts and left his boxers on. His penis thanked him mightily for the favor.

"Ah, Twenty Questions!" Hawkeye joked as BJ made his way back to the sofa. "Let me guess what it is that you want." His eyes were fixed on the tent of BJs crotch. "Animal vegetable or mineral, you animal? And I'll be very disappointed if you pick either of the last two."

BJ shook his head. "No games. That's your thing, not mine. I want to touch you. But if you don't—"

Hawkeye sat up and dropped the smirk. "You know Beej, you're one of the smartest people I've ever met. But sometimes you get so focused on what you think, or know or have come to expect that you don't see what's there. What's right in front of you. That used to confuse me, but I think now it's just starting to piss me off."

Hawkeye moved over to make room on the sofa, and BJ lay his body down.

"I want to touch you," BJ repeated, running his fingers all up and under Hawkeye's shirt.

"I'm pretty sure you've already done that," Hawkeye quipped. "Either that, or there's Magic Fingers in the sofa. And if that what's Magic Fingers does, I'm having it installed the second I get home."

"No, I want to...see you. I want to touch you all over." BJs fingers moved continuously over Hawkeye's skin. "Take your clothes off." BJ murmured. With practiced ease, he began undoing shirt buttons with his teeth.

Hawkeye wrenched away to reach the buttons himself and swung to his feet. "My mother told me it's not polite to make people ask twice." In two instants, his clothing was on the floor. "Well?" He gestured to his body, his trousers in a ludicrous puddle around his feet.

"If I told you what I was thinking, you'd beat a path for the next plane back to Maine."

"I don't think so." Hawkeye kicked free of the pants and stripped back the bed covers. He sprawled out across the expanse of white. "It's forty degrees there tonight, and I don't have any clothes." He held out his arms. "Warm me up?"

His own mother had taught him similar ideas about manners, so BJ went straight to him.

"You too," said Hawkeye, tugging at the shorts. Somehow BJ's shorts were kicked off and to the carpet.

Splayed over Hawkeye's naked body, BJ licked and kissed and massaged and caressed as if somehow the action could scrub away every pain, every loss, every hurt inside. His penis throbbed, but he purposely ignored it. After nine years, he could stand a few minutes more of delay. He never wanted this exploration to be over, as frankly, he couldn't imagine any greater intimacy than this.

But Hawkeye had hold of his own penis now. Only semi-hard, he stroked and concentrated as if to coax it up.

Where there's a will there's a way, and BJ had plenty of will. He fell onto the organ with his mouth. To his delight, Hawkeye began to swell and fill again. With Hawk hard enough for careful penetration, now, BJ changed his speed and rubbed his own self in tandem. This dilemma always drove him insane. To be fucked would be heaven, but would mean passing up drinking the wad he had worked so hard to earn. Fucked or suck, fucked or suck, the mantra rang over in BJ's head and his pulls became more frantic.

Very soon there would be no more choice.

"Beej, wait." Voice raspy, Hawkeye pulled away.

"What?" BJ's tone was harsh. A patient man, yes, but given time and pressure enough, even his must eventually wear too thin. He inhaled the promise of Hawkeye's sex and longed to swallow it whole again. His own sex was slick not just with sweat but with ample precum, reminding him of how imminently close he was.

"Don't make me say it." Hawkeye spread his legs and pleaded into BJ's eyes.

"Hawk?"

"Don't make me say it." Hawkeye repeated. "Please. I mean, if you want to, that is." He rocked his hips upward and stroked a finger around his little hole.

"If I want to!" BJ would have laughed had he had the resources to spare . "If I want to? Does a bear shit in the woods?"

"Does Cincinnati have woods?" Hawkeye pressed a finger inside himself.

Does Cincinnati have bears?" BJ licked his finger and, knocking Hawk's hand aside, placed his finger on the certain spot instead.

"Chicago does." Hawkeye choked as BJ made tiny little circles.

"Do they shit in the woods?" BJ pressed his finger in. Hawkeye was so tight. He tried to feel around, but Hawkeye squeezed against his knuckle and held him still. So sweet; so tight. If Hawk'd done this before, it couldn't have been often.

That thought made BJ fight down an orgasmic surge right then and there.

"Come on Beej. Be a pal." Hawkeye's face was contorted with need. "If I don't get it soon, I'm going to burst."

First time or not, BJ knew how that felt. "Hold on." He crawled off the bed and dashed back to the bath.

"Do I have a choice?" Hawkeye called after him.

"Trust me," BJ answered. "I'll make it worth your while."

When he came back, Hawkeye was spread-eagled across the mattress.

"Take me big boy; I'm yours," Hawkeye said. His dick would have shamed a California Redwood, but there was an uneasy edge to the words.

"Here's a tip, Lollobrigida," BJ said as he unscrewed the cap. "It goes a lot easier doggie style."

"Who says I want it easy?" Hawkeye mumbled, but he flipped over anyway and pulled a pillow to his chest.

"Who cares about you? I meant me. I'm too old to be doing mattress push-ups these days." Not trusting his control to slather himself up, BJ put the gel onto his fingers and smoothed it into Hawkeye's depths instead.

The mix of cool and hot and wet and tight was almost too much, and BJ summoned up the Phillies, the office, his accountant, even Peg's architect—every trick he knew—to avoid the ignominy of coming right then and there with his dick jutting out in midair and touching absolutely nothing.

"I'm ready," Hawkeye ground out.

"No, you're not." But he'd better be soon, for one of them sure was, and his best intentions weren't going to count for much longer.

BJ fingered him faster until the statement became insistence, and the insistence a demand, and then the demand a plea. When there was finally no cool left and hardly any tight, BJ pressed his penis in.

But Hawkeye wasn't ready. How could he be? Nothing in his experience had ever prepared him for anything like this. Suddenly he was full, full to the gills with BJ. After the long years of emptiness, the full was too much to bear, and he cried out mindless pleas for BJ to put this terrible pressure to an end.

It hurt, yes, but in a good way. In a way that told him he wasn't dead; he could in fact feel and live and love again. The knob moved over his gland where every feel-good nerve in his body seemed to have ended up, and his gut twisted with the overwhelming sensation of the inside-out touch.

"Hawk?" BJ voice came in thick bursts next to his ear. He'd stopped, but the lack of input only made the expectation worse.

"Hawk?" BJ repeated, louder now. Every muscle on BJ's body quivered, save for the one inside of him. That one he held stock still.

"I'm good," Hawkeye choked. "Just do it. Do me, please."

Then BJ moved and the acuity was much too much. Hawkeye came in a dry orgasm that wrenched his middle until it threatened to draw his insides into a stream and squeeze them though his penis and out.

BJ stopped again. "Hawk, talk to me. Talk to me." His voice was raw and barely hanging on. BJ's entire body shook. His thighs rested sweaty and tense against Hawk's ass.

"I'm good," Hawk repeated. "And when I'm good I'm very, very good, and when I'm bad, I'm better." Then he began to laugh.

The jiggle of laughter was the final straw, and BJ came with a force that made him feel sixteen years-young again.

"What'cha thinking?" BJ asked when he had returned back to himself. With some effort, he pushed off and to the side. He was definitely not sixteen years old anymore.

"I don't even know." Hawkeye rolled over to rub his own belly. His eyes stared up into the particle board sky.

"In a good way or a bad way?" BJ tried.

"Good. Very good. So good it's over the top and could wrap itself around and almost become bad again, that's how good it is." Hawkeye roused and grabbed him around the waist.
BJ chuckled and stroked the unruly curls as if his touch could magically restore order and peace—both to the hair and to the thoughts beneath.

Suddenly, Hawkeye jumped up and sprinted. "Back in a sec."

The bathroom light flickered on, startling BJ's eyes. Somewhere in the midst of all this, dusk had fallen. The room was submerged in gloom.

"You all right?" BJ struggled to his elbows. "I know a good doctor. He's even been known to make house calls in special cases."

"Oh no!" Hawkeye called through the open door. "No you don't! I've heard of him! He'll inject my breasts with fat from Khrushchev and inflate them to monstrous proportions for his own sick and deviant pleasures. I only wish I'd thought of that first."

"He might make an exception for a first date," BJ said. "Say, if you want, in my toiletry bag, there's some--"

"No, no, I'm fine. Honest. Just caught me by surprise is all. I'll be out in a minute. Wait for me; don't do anything I wouldn't do. Or if you do, take notes so you can show me how."

"You're really not going to tell me, are you?" BJ listened to the for clues from the bathroom, but nothing set off any mental alarms. He switched on the bedside lamp, and the thickening darkness scampered away to beyond the edges of the walls.

Funny how a little light could drive away uncertainties and insecurities, even when it didn't change a damn thing.

"Okay, I confess. Now that you've discovered my deep, dark secret, you leave me little choice: I'm not a natural blond."

"No, seriously." BJ straightened the sheets as best he could. A towel would be good, but the one he had tossed out was too damp. There were dry ones in the bathroom, but granting a man his privacy was worth more than dodging a little wet spot for a time.

Besides, it was on Hawkeye's side.

"Seriously what?" Hawkeye called back. The toilet flushed and water ran after it. "Answering a question that hasn't been asked is harder than doing a hysterectomy without seeing any naughty bits. My mother would be so disappointed in me if I peeked."

"Seriously...are you going to tell me if that...Olive Jar Special was the only virgin I got to take tonight?"

The bathroom light winked out. Hawkeye emerged naked in the doorway, his skin lit golden in the mellow glow of the incandescent lamp. "You're kidding. Do you really want to hear all about what I've done with whom?"

No. "No, I don't."

"Good. Good, because that's not what I want to think about right now."

Hawkeye lay back down and snuggled close. "You know, I thought you'd be a dirty talker."

"What?" Too tired to work up laughter, BJ hoped the gist of it could be deciphered in his eyes.

"A dirty talker. The quiet, reserved types usually are. Or maybe that's just with the girls."

"No, it isn't," BJ said. "And what makes you think I'm not? I've got to save something for next time--to keep you interested."

"No," said Hawkeye. "You don't."

They kissed for quite a long time.

"So what did you think of me?" Hawkeye asked when they rolled apart. "Or did you?"

"And you tried to tell me that you weren't stupid."

"So what did you think?"

BJ smiled a little wistfully. "I thought that you'd probably break my heart."

There was nothing to say to that that either hadn't thought of already, and so they both just lay in silence and stroked each other in the yellow glow.

"Was it hard?" Hawkeye asked at last.

"Huh?" BJ tried to think.

"You know. Was it tough? Deciding. After all that time. With Peg and all."

"Not as tough as when I was trying to fight it. Living with it gnawing at me every day, thinking that I could be--should have been—stronger. That if I just kept trying, I should win."

"Yeah, I know how that is."

"Yeah, I guess you do." BJ nuzzled his face into the hollow of Hawk's shoulder and listened to his heart beat.

"What do you think would have happened if we had done this then?" Hawkeye asked.

BJ let loose a sigh. "I don't know, Hawk. I probably would have been so eaten up with guilt that when I got home I would have sworn to stay with Peg through anything as some kind of twisted penance or something."

"Really?"

"I don't know." He spread his hands. "How do you answer a question like that? All I know is that I don't want to believe in wasted time."

"That would be nice," Hawkeye whispered almost to himself.

Outside the window, dusk deepened into night.

BJ broke the quiet. "I hear that Disneyland is really something."

"Hm?" Hawk seemed to drift back from a ways away.

"I'm taking Erin when school's out. I thought maybe you might like to see it too."

"Oh, no!" Hawkeye sprang back to life. "I hate that mouse! He gives me the creeps. The idea of my fishing cabin being overrun with two-foot tall sentient rodents every time I leave is just too much to take. I can't believe they peddle that horror show to kids!"

"Well, there are other things to see in California. Muir woods, Napa..."

"Ah! Trees and wine. Terrific!" Hawkeye made a face.

"I just thought you might want to come out some time," said BJ. "If you get the chance."

Hawkeye kicked himself. For as good as he was working on people, it amazed him that he wasn't better working with them. But BJ had never held that against him before. "I have always wanted to see the sunset over the ocean."

"Ah, it's beautiful," BJ waxed on again. "The sky explodes in color, and you can taste the salt water in the air. The water crashes in and out like the heart beat of the world primeval. It's one of the most romantic things I've ever seen."

"And Erin would be there. In her bathing suit." Hawkeye forced an ridiculously lascivious leer.

BJ rolled on top and began punching his chest. "Knock it off, you dirty old man!"

"Hey, now! I'm not old!" Hawkeye punched back lightly. Then they weren't punches. Then they were kissing again and BJ had forgotten how the subject had turned to jokes in the first place.

"I'm serious, Hawk. In Korea, we made a difference. It was hell, but we saved more lives in a week than I do in a year now. It was hell, but it was real, and we did good. I did good. I want that feeling back in my life. I envy you and your career. I want to be part of it again."

"You can do it Beej. It's not magic. You just...do it. You tell people that you can help, and they come. You don't need Korea--or Maine--or me for that."

"I was at my best when I was with you--"

"Beej--"

"—and I can't leave California while Erin's there." Ouch! He hadn't meant to say it; it had just slipped out. Hawkeye was right. Drinking was more trouble than in it was worth: of the top ten ways of how to lose a man, that encompassed numbers one and two.

Hawkeye balked. "You're serious."

He was, but he still hadn't meant to say it. Nobody should be pushed into a corner like that. Look where it had landed him. Well, it had landed him Erin, the joy of his life, but that was beside the point.

"I'm serious that people have to go after what they want. It doesn't drop from the sky into your lap. It hasn't dropped into mine."

"Sometimes it does." Hawkeye pulled their groins together.

"Sometimes, but you have to be on your toes, or it'll fly away, and where does that leave you then?" BJ ran a hand down Hawkeye's back.

"So what do you want?" Hawkeye asked, when they had finally kissed enough.

BJ was not a man to make the same mistake twice. "For starters, I want to hear the Phillies game." He got up. For a moment he considered his boxers, but stepped over them to turn the radio on again.

On the way back to bed, he picked up Hawkeye's clothes and draped them neatly over the sofa back. "'Fraid your clothes are a little worse for the wear. You want to borrow something clean of mine?"

"Uh-uh. I'm pretty comfortable like this. Unless that's a problem." Hawkeye nestled into the hotel pillows.

"Uh-uh. Not from where I sit." BJ climbed back into bed.

"So, who's on first?" Hawkeye asked over the pre-game chatter.

BJ grinned. Any self-respecting wiseacre knew that there could be only one response to that. "What?"

"What's on second."

"I don't care."

"Short-stop!" They knocked heads together.

Time may pass and the world may change around them, but the finest things never go out of style