Chapter Text
That the headline reached all the way across the country to Hawkeye's front step was less surprising than it could've been, since he'd moved back to Boston in 1954 and got the New York Times and Boston Globe alongside that old stalwart, the Crabapple Cove Courier. The headline itself was a great deal more surprising, to the point where Hawkeye almost dropped his newspaper.
Gay San Francisco Doctor Fired, Sues VA Hospital for Discrimination.
That itself was surprising, though not as surprising as it could've been. Hawkeye didn't know Frank Kameny personally, but they'd traveled in some of the same circles for a while, and it wasn’t too surprising that his attempt to take the federal government to account had inspired copycats.
What he hadn't expected to see was B.J. Hunnicutt's grimacing face staring up at him in black and white.
Instead of reading the rest of the story, he dashed to the kitchen and dialed one of the few numbers he knew by heart, permanently embedded in his memory since the Hunnicutts had gotten their new phone number.
The last time he'd spoken to B.J. he'd given every indication of being a happy, well-adjusted family man, well out of the hole they'd both fallen into when they first got home. The last time he'd seen B.J. he'd stayed in the Hunnicutts’ guest room and listened to them speak to each other through the wall, just quietly enough that he couldn't make out the words. If there had been any problems in their marriage, he hadn't seen them, and he liked to think that he and B.J. had become real, honest-to-god friends in the last decade, and while he'd never become as close with Peg, he did genuinely like her.
It was one of the reasons he'd never, ever made a pass at B.J., even though he was handsome enough that Trapper had been offended on Hawkeye's behalf that they hadn't fooled around even a little. He didn't want to hurt Peg Hunnicutt, who'd dealt with her husband going off to war during what should've been the beginning of their perfect family bliss.
Usually, if he called at this hour--checking his watch, it was so close to 9 O'clock you could just call it that--Peg would pick up, since the house served as her real estate office and B.J. would still either be in traffic coming home from work or working a late shift.
Hawkeye grimaced back at the photo of B.J.. That wasn't going to be a problem, most likely.
“Hunnicutt household, if you--”
“B.J.!” Hawkeye interrupted, eschewing etiquette. “I've seen the paper.”
The line went so quiet Hawkeye was worried it had died, but no, he could hear the staticky puffs of B.J.’s breath.
“It's not a good photo of me,” B.J. said, sounding more tired than joking. “God, Hawk, I'm sorry, I meant to tell you myself but things have been kind of hectic.”
I'll say, Hawkeye thought. Suing a hospital--especially one run by the goddamn Army--was beyond any scheme that he'd ever concocted. “Are you suing them for defamation?” he asked. It didn't feel great to phrase it that way, not when those things just said about Hawkeye weren't defamation but true, but it made the most sense to him. It was, technically, defamation to swap out the prefix and call a happily married heterosexual male a homo instead. Probably.
Hawkeye had never even for a minute wanted to be a lawyer, but an intimate familiarity with the human thorax was not helping him here.
B.J. chuckled like Hawkeye'd been joking. “Wrong part of the dictionary, Hawk. I'm suing on grounds of wrongful termination counter to my right to equal treatment under the law.” He cleared his throat. “My lawyer really likes the argument Kameny used.”
“B.J., it's real noble of you to take a bullet for the oppressed, but you don't need to go the whole mile and pretend--” He stalled out. This may be direct dial, and unlike back home in the Cove this wasn't a party line, but old habits about what you said down the line died hard.
And, considering everything, maybe B.J.’s line wasn't secure.
“I'm not pretending, Hawk.” B.J. sighed, and it was hard to remember that Hawkeye was older than him. “This is why I wanted you to find out from me. I can't believe the news has made it all the way over there, it really isn't that interesting.”
Hawkeye could imagine the crease forming in B.J.’s forehead as he spoke.
“If they hadn't fired me, none of this would matter,” B.J. continued. “It wasn't affecting my work, and most of my colleagues agree with me, even if some of them think I've got the miasma now, or something.”
“B.J., you don't need to defend yourself to me,” Hawkeye said. “About--about any of it. I just don't understand.”
“What's there to understand? They fired me for being a homosexual, I'm suing them for discrimination.”
“But you're not--” Hawkeye stopped. He'd been on the backfoot this whole conversation. “Are you?”
“I don't think the court cares about the nuances of bisexuality, Hawk,” B.J. said. Hawkeye hadn't realized he even knew that word. He chuckled darkly to himself. “Frankly, I don't think most people think it's possible.”
B.J. being homo- or bisexual wasn't really what mattered; what mattered was the fact that Hawkeye had spent over a decade telling himself that anything he felt between them was entirely one-sided, the result of a grade-A pervert corrupting the wholesome overtures of friendship from a man so Apple Pie-American Captain America could use his face on his shield.
“I never realized,” Hawkeye said, into the silence. He stared out over his apartment, not seeing it. In his bedroom, on the nightstand, was a photo of him and B.J., arm in arm in Tokyo, each holding a brightly patterned umbrella.
Trapper had spent a full day teasing him about it, calling it a wedding photo, until he'd figured out that Hawkeye's feelings were matched in their intensity only by their one-sidedness. Then he'd just been sympathetic, which was much worse than the teasing.
“God, B.J., if I'd known--”
There was a defensive edge to B.J.’s voice when he said, “You'd have what, if you'd known?”
Hawkeye swallowed compulsively, wetting his mouth. “How secure is this phone line?”
“I don't think anyone's tapping it on my end,” B.J. said. “I have to hire people to figure that out, now.”
“Jeez Louise,” Hawkeye said. “That serious?”
B.J. was out in the newspaper, not entirely by his own will. Hawkeye had spent his whole life one foot out the closet door so nobody would look behind him and see what was really looming there.
He chuckled into the silence, not feeling it.
It wasn't a big deal, he thought. That's what he always told himself.
He wished, now, that George had come just three months later, so that B.J. had proof of--of what? That Hawkeye thought Army morality regs were bullshit? That was nothing new.
“I--B.J. If I'd've known, I would've--I don't know, Beej, I would've kissed you.” He tried to sound as serious as possible. “I'm not kidding either,” he said, not giving room for B.J. to tell him to pull the other one. “Or at least I would've felt less in danger in a tent with Frank Burns.”
B.J. laughed, this one a lot happier. “You're serious?”
Hawkeye could imagine his smile down to the tooth. “As a heart attack,” Hawkeye said. “I know that being into guys doesn't mean being interested in me, but Beej--I mean I guess I probably would've still felt weird, you being married ‘n all, but Christ alive I know I spent a lot of my days thinking it was proof that God was cruel that he made you straight when you looked that like.”
There was something neither of them was touching.
“That's probably flattering,” B.J. said. “I can hear your next question. The answer is I was arrested. The answer to your other question is that Peg is my best friend, and I only figured out most of this after I got home.” He coughed, suddenly embarrassed. “We got married so we could have sex, so when that stopped being interesting it made everything else kind of awkward.”
“But I heard--I was in your house three months ago, and you were sharing a room!” He wasn't touching the arrested statement. He could fill in all the blanks himself.
Thank God he had a phone cord that was long enough that he could pace. This call was going to cost so much money, though less than it would've even five years before, but it was worth it. Anything they didn't say now he'd have to pry out of B.J. in person.
Because of course he was going to California. Even if there wasn't anything between them, even if being into men didn't mean being in Hawkeye, this couldn't be easy. B.J. needed friends who'd be there with him no matter what.
B.J. also, probably, needed a job, but that was something to start lobbying Charles about.
Fucking Army. Yes, the VA wasn’t the Army, but it still felt like a meanspirited cosmic joke that the only one of them who had actually stayed affiliated with the military was getting screwed over, again.
Getting to California was going to be its own problem, since Hawkeye had never really kicked his hatred of flying.
“At the time, it felt like our business,” B.J. said. “Not anyone else's.”
If this were any other context, Hawkeye would feel absurdly, improbably hurt that B.J. didn't consider him on the same level as his literal wife when it came to his personal life, but he pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind. “And then this?”
“And then this,” B.J. said. “You can share a bed with someone--love them, even--and be married without...”
“Was it never...?”
Silence, as B.J. presumably shook his head into the phone without thinking. “God, Hawkeye, when we were teenagers I couldn't keep my hands off her. But you know how it is with Catholics, especially back then. We had to get married first, so we weren't living in sin.”
Hawkeye didn't, entirely, know how it was. He'd grown up Catholic for his mom's sake, but his father had never been allowed to take communion and they'd stopped going to church when she died.
He certainly hadn't felt any pressing need to marry Carlye for that reason. He'd probably skipped that part of Sunday school.
“Was it... me?”
He expected a lot of possible responses to the question. He was maybe kind of hoping for a yes, so that B.J. could be the one doing a proper love confession down three thousand miles of wire. He didn't expect B.J. to start laughing so hard he started coughing, the kind that made Hawkeye imagine his chest heaving under a too-tight shirt.
“Hey come on, now, Beej, I'm trying to be vulnerable here.”
“Not everything's about you, Hawk,” B.J. said between wheezes. “Talk about surgeons and their egos.” The laughter died off. “You're a good looking guy, Hawk, but not enough to make me queer.”
“I guess the two of you were better at pretending than I figured,” Hawkeye said, trying not to sound hurt. B.J. was right, Hawkeye wasn't the one actively engaged in a lawsuit, but it wasn't like Hawkeye could think B.J.’s thoughts for him.
“That's the thing,” B.J. said. “It's not pretending. Or, it wasn't. The marriage is pretty much over now, we finally figured out something we can't agree on.” There he sounded a bit rueful.
“What?” Hawkeye asked, feeding him the obvious line.
“That, I think will be easier to explain in person. There's a lot of paperwork involved. And some of it's Peg's business, which I'm less comfortable saying on the phone.”
“How'd you know?” Hawkeye asked. “That I'd want to come visit?”
“I didn't,” B.J. said. “I just hoped.”
The call wrapped up shortly after that, leaving Hawkeye standing in his living room unsure of what to do with himself.
He needed to pack, figure out a route, and get time off from his job. That wouldn't be too much of a problem; he'd just say there was an emergency (which there was) and he needed to take some time off to go to California and deal with it (also true). The problem was that while this seemed like a three-step plan on the surface, the more Hawkeye thought about it the more he could feel the panic tighten against his ribcage.
So, Hawkeye did what he usually did when he was feeling something intense and annoying in the direction of one B.J. Hunnicutt; he dialed Trapper John, his best friend in the whole world, and hoped he was home.
-
Trapper picked up after three rings, which told Hawkeye that he'd been asleep.
The yawn down the line was his other clue. “Someday you'll call at a human hour,” he said.
“In my defense, I was on the line with a Californian,” Hawkeye said. He was now stretched out on the couch, trying not to fall asleep himself. He could afford two long phone calls back to back, but not that long.
Trapper laughed at him, which was fair. Usually when Hawkeye called about B.J., it was to whine about how handsome and straight he was, which was a complaint so well worn Hawkeye could feel the shape of the words in his mouth no matter how absurd they would now be to say. “‘Course you were. Let me guess, he’s still straight and married, you’re not straight and not married, these are related problems?”
“Well...” Hawkeye trailed off. He really did not have a joke ready for this occasion, which was yet another scary novelty in a day full of them. “Trapper, what newspapers do you get?”
“The normal ones, why?”
“I think you should go through your copy of the New York Times.” He wasn’t going to say it. It wasn’t that Trapper would be upset. It was that he wanted to hear Trapper’s reaction, wanted someone else to get how utterly world-rearranging this all was. For B.J., obviously, but for Hawkeye too. Pining for a straight guy who lived across the country was hard when that guy wasn't straight.
“Hawk, I know you're not a Yankees fan so if this is a way of glo-oh.” He stopped, clearly, on the headline. “Damn. This is how you found out?”
“Yeah,” Hawkeye said. “I guess he's been busy.”
“I'll say. Have you read the article, because--damn.”
Hawkeye hadn't. He'd seen the picture and that had been enough to send him to find out from a source he trusted a lot more.
“They tried to get him for taking a vice cop up on his offer, Hawk, and he wouldn't pay ‘em off,” Trapper continued. “Fucker at the VA found out and--”
“I just thought I'd know,” Hawkeye said. “I lived with you for nine months and we figured each other out in a week and a half. I lived with him for two years and I'm finding out... now.” He was having to face up to the fact that not having known was a serious blow to his ego. He’d been certain he’d figured out most of the queers in camp, if only so he could know who to warn about Flagg, and there he was, living with one.
“Look, Hawk, I assumed the two of you were screwin’ until you corrected me,” Trapper said. “You were all over each other at the reunion where I meant Charles, it was honestly kinda cute.”
Trapper and Hawkeye had not reinstated their relationship for a variety of extremely good, mostly Hawkeye-related reasons, though Hawkeye sometimes thought that maybe if they had he could’ve prevented Trapper from shacking up with Charles fucking Emerson Winchester the fucking Third. But that was a nightmare to contemplate on another day.
“We weren’t--what?”
“Did you seriously think you were hiding your feelings?” Trapper asked. “I think he was the only person who didn’t notice, and at this point I’m guessing that was on purpose.”
Hawkeye digested this.
“I’m an idiot,” he said, finally. Feeling uncertain about his own attractiveness was not something he enjoyed, but he couldn’t assume that his feelings were reciprocated, even now. “Look, Trap, you don’t know B.J. that well, you can’t say for sure he’s actually into me.” He made a pointless hand gesture to nobody. “He said I wasn’t the reason he’s queer.”
“Hawkeye,” Trapper said, marking the second time that day that someone he cared about deeply was laughing at him. “You’re not even the reason I’m queer.”
“But we did fuck!” Hawkeye said. “I have evidence you’re attracted to me, even if you now go for rich boys with egos the size of the sun.”
“All this tells me is I’ve made a lateral move,” Trapper said, eliding what Hawkeye considered a decade’s worth of extremely complicated emotional rapprochement in one sentence. He was quiet for a moment. “You’re going to him?”
“Yeah,” Hawkeye said.
“Going to tell him ‘I told you so’ about sticking with the military?”
The thought made bile rise in Hawkeye’s throat. He and B.J. had fought--their worst fight, worse than any they’d had in Korea--over whether going to work for the VA like Potter was in Missouri was a good idea, and he’d said some things he now had pretty decent cause to regret. Peg had agreed with Hawkeye, technically, though her reasoning had been more practical, his more philosophical.
They’d patched things up, like they’d patched everything up, but whatever Hawkeye’s feelings on the military that didn’t make any of this okay. All this meant was that veterans in the Bay Area were down a doctor, and a damn good one.
“No,” Hawkeye said.
“Don’t read the rest of the article, by the way,” Trapper said. “The rest of it isn’t particularly sympathetic.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“They’re trying to paint him as some kind of danger to his patients,” Trapper said. “I think. You know the Times, their crosswords are good but half their articles are shit.”
“They didn’t care this much when they drafted me,” Hawkeye said, trying not to sound bitter. He’d tried the queer gambit out of a combination of cynicism and naivete, and the doctor had rolled his eyes and said Hawkeye didn't fit the profile, and that he had too much of a reputation as a lady's man around town for that sort of confession to be plausible.
B.J. had, presumably, just lied, same as Trapper, since that wasn't the sort of thing you wanted on record.
“Didn't work for Klinger, didn't work for you--I wouldn't be surprised it never worked for anyone. And why should it?” Trapper sighed. “I get into this argument with Charlie all the time now. About whether or not that sort of thing is rational.”
Charlie, Hawkeye mouthed to himself. “You tell him about George?”
“Sure. But it's like having a kid, when we talk about it I'm not talking to him, I'm talking to his dad.”
“I get it.” The war had shaken some things loose in Charles, mostly for the better, but Hawkeye knew that his own upbringing was exceptional in this regard, and old lessons were hard to unlearn. “If he says anything bad about B.J.--”
“I don't think he will,” Trapper said. “He respects you guys, you know that? And B.J.’s doing something brave and stupid, which I know he likes.”
“You're not brave,” Hawkeye said, because he couldn't help himself.
“No, but I suck cock like a vacuum cleaner.”
“Thanks for the vivid image, jackass.”
Talking to Trapper always made him feel better, but it was hard to feel better about this. “I need to be there for him. Even if... even if nothing happens, I have to make sure he's okay.”
A list of worries unspooled like receipt paper in his mind. “Oh, god, he's not working, how's he making any money?” The VA did not pay anything comparable to working for one of the big research hospitals in San Francisco; that'd been one of the things that had surprised Hawkeye about B.J.’s decision to work for them, after all his worries about money.
“So take him out to dinner and a show. You've got money to spare; you still live like you're a resident, I've seen your apartment.”
“Not everyone has Emerson Winchester funds at their disposal.”
“I'm entirely self-funded, thank you, I just spend most of my money on the girls.” There was a short, thoughtful silence. “You need to pack. I'll lean on my guy to give you an indefinite leave of absence, and in exchange you'll have dinner with us at the compound.”
The compound was what Trapper called the “modest” house on Beacon Hill where Trapper technically did not live and where the Drs. Winchester lived their separate but compatible lives. Hawkeye didn't like going there, not because he minded the company, but because having his meals cooked for him and then served up by two different paid members of staff always made him think of his days working at the resort.
Still, he hadn't spoken to Charles or Margaret in person in a while. He might as well let them all know his plans at the same time. As soon as he figured them out, of course.
“Deal,” Hawkeye said.
“See ya tomorrow,” Trapped said, and hung up.
It was strange, Hawkeye thought, holding on to the receiver for a moment. He still was worried about “outing” B.J., even though that was no longer really possible, and even he had only known that there was something to out for a handful of hours.
Ridiculous, since the only one who probably didn't know was Klinger, since he was still over in Korea, and maybe Radar, though maybe he'd known all along and just never thought to mention it.
He hung up the phone and went to the closet off his bedroom where he stored his suitcase. He'd pack tonight, and figure out all the details later.
“You jackass,” he said to himself. “You're only doing this because you think you might have a chance.”
It could be both, he thought, desperately. He'd bring comfort to B.J. in his hour of need, whatever that need was. It was only human to hope that it was the fun kind.
-
There was one more phone call Hawkeye wanted to make, but it was getting even later so the chance he'd be waking Sidney from his bed was all but guaranteed.
Unfortunately for Sidney's sleep schedule, some things were more important, and this meant he could delay the decision of what the hell he was going to pack for this journey to the west another few hours.
“Dr. Sidney Freedman speaking, is this an emergency?” Sid didn't sound like he'd just rolled out of bed, but he was the kind of guy who could stay more-or-less put together eight hours into an evening of hard drinking, so that didn't mean much.
“Kind of, but not the kind you're used to dealing with,” Hawkeye said, pulling back on the even darker joke that had popped into his head. “I'm going to California to see B.J., and I was wondering if I could bunk with you in Chicago so I can sleep in a real bed for at least a night.” He could probably afford a sleeper on his current salary, but the way you stayed comfortable was by not doing that, and he could already feel how sleeping in his seat was going to murder his back.
“Hawkeye Pierce, I see you're handling the news about as well as could be expected,” Sidney said, his tone making it fond instead of cutting.
“How do you know?” Hawkeye asked, as though Sidney didn't also get the Times.
“He called me for advice,” Sidney said. “I wasn't really able to help him, but it still surprised the hell out of me.”
“I think he was more perceptive than I gave him credit for,” Hawkeye admitted. “Of all of us, I would've never picked him to go public first.” His total respect for Sidney was at war with his total jealousy at the fact that B.J. had gone to someone else.
That was the other reason he was taking the long way across the country; once he got there, he'd confirm one way or another whether his hopes of being the most important person in B.J.’s life had been dashed.
“Still waters, I suppose,” Sidney said. “And, Hawk, of course you can stay with me,” he added. “If you tell me the time and date, I can even pick you up at the station.”
Sidney, Hawkeye knew, lived in Hyde Park both because it was close to his work and because it made things easier for some of his extracurricular activities. Hawkeye could've probably made his way there on his own, but it'd be good to catch up with him as much as possible.
“Sounds good,” Hawkeye said. “I'll call you tomorrow when I've sorted out the tickets.”
“It's okay to be startled,” Sidney said, surprising Hawkeye.
“Startled, who's startled? My best friend never told me he's bisexual, and now I've gotta reevaluate a decade's worth of memories.” Hawkeye blew out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. “I just don't get why he didn't tell me.”
“That's not true,” Sidney said, not unkindly. “It's the same reason you didn't tell me, or why Sam Pak had to tell you a password.”
“I thought I was being obvious,” Hawkeye said. He's spent all of Korea dancing along the edge of a knife with Flagg's name on it, risking his career every time he agreed to an anonymous captain or major's offer of a role in the hay. “I was obvious enough for some people.” There were ways you looked at another man to give him permission; B.J. had never, ever looked at him that way.
Then again, Hawkeye had never thought to check. He'd simply pined, and cursed his luck, and grown to like Peg as her own person, to the point that the idea of pursuing B.J. was one he always had to put out of his mind.
“Obvious enough for me, perhaps, but not for someone who put so much stock in his image,” Sidney said. “But as I said. It is understandable that you're surprised.”
“You're not surprised I'm going to California,” Hawkeye said.
Sidney Freedman was now the third man Hawkeye cared deeply about to laugh at him over the telephone in one day. “Why would I be surprised? You two would crawl over broken glass if you thought it'd help the other.”
It was hard to doubt Sidney's unshakeable confidence.
“Yeah,” Hawkeye said, feeling like he sometimes did like Sidney was his confessor, and Hawkeye was still twelve years old and admitting to stealing bubblegum he'd paid for just so he'd have something to tell the priest. “I just wish... I just wish he'd told me,” he said, finally.
“It's no fun thing, losing your work like this,” Sidney said. “How would you react if you were in his shoes?”
Just the idea of it made him feel sick. Hawkeye had Charles, Margaret, and Trapper, and a few nurses he was pretty sure of but wasn't about to ask. He knew he lived in a bubble they'd all made together, but the reminder of how bad it was outside it was unpleasant.
Especially when that reminder was someone he was in love with.
“Do you have any advice for me?” Hawkeye asked.
“None I'm willing to say over the telephone,” Sidney said. “Good night, Hawkeye. It's late.”
It was nearing midnight now.
“Of course,” Hawkeye said. “Thank you. I'll wire you more details later.”
With the call with Sidney finished, there was no more time to stall. Hawkeye hung up and went to his bedroom, where a robe in a deep navy blue hung on the back of his door. It had been a Christmas gift from B.J. some years previous, and now Hawkeye was left to wonder if it meant anything.
That he loved B.J., and would support him in this insane crusade against a hostile enemy, wasn't even a question. It was just that Hawkeye was used to being the one tilting at windmills, with B.J. at his side, not the other way around.
He put his head into his hands. This was why his friends kept laughing at him today. B.J. had been at Hawkeye's side many times over the years, and at the very least he owed it to him to return the favor.
For the first time since he read the headline, he also let the reality of what B.J. was actually doing wash over him. B.J. was suing the government. Sure, he was probably doomed, but even so, Hawkeye could not imagine doing the same.
Then again, Hawkeye had his father to fall back on. If his life was publicly ruined like this, he could retreat to Maine, and simply hide from the world. B.J., he was pretty sure, did not have an equivalent relationship with his own family.
This wasn't the point, of course, but it was making him fall in love with B.J. all over again, just as when he'd stood up on that table in the mess tent after he'd knitted that soldier a new stomach.
It was also hard not to feel like he'd been wasting his time. The Hunnicutts were a place he could return to, a static, beautiful family that only changed in that Erin was almost a teenager, now. He'd taken it for granted that B.J. would always be there, in Mill Valley, perfectly accessible and completely out of reach.
He'd bring the robe with him. Maybe--maybe B.J. thought he looked good in it.