Korea – March, 1951

One drink turned into two, and two seductively sashayed into three. Four was reclining and biding its time in the pitcher when Radar wandered sheepishly into the Swamp, by which time Hawkeye was nicely horizontal with his head hanging over the edge of the bunk.

"The thing I don't get about Frank," Hawkeye was slurring, gesturing with his glass, "is why he acts so damned sanctiminim… sancshimonim… sanshimi... why he's such a goody two shoes!"

"Uh… Cap'n Pierce, Sir?" Radar tried timidly, prodding the doctor's shoulder. "Hawkeye?"

"I mean, everyone knows he's banging Hotlips! Why's he gotta go pokin' around in everybody else's business, huh? Why go all judgemental on somebody else's ass? He ought to take a good look in the mirror – if he can stand to, that is."

Trapper watched his inebriated bunkmate wax upside-down philosophical with mixture of amusement and concern. Heavy drinking was normally the staple after-show entertainment to a heavy O.R. session, but this was the second time this week Hawkeye had drunk himself into a stupor this week, and they hadn't had a serious batch of wounded in days.

Radar poked Hawkeye again.

"Radar," Trapper said quietly. He waved a hand, signalling Radar should forget whatever message he was supposed to be giving Hawkeye and deliver it when its recipient was more on the sober side.

Radar's eyes bulged a little behind his glasses as his frustration grew. "But he's supposed to have a date tonight! Nurse Mitchell's been waiting in the O.C. for an hour, and she's gettin' real tetchy!"

Hawkeye rolled off his cot, and Trapper rolled his eyes. "Nurse Mitchell, huh?" He would have been pissed, but the sight of Hawkeye trying, with limited success, to stagger to his feet was too pitiful for him to stay mad long.

"Oh god…" Hawkeye groaned, leaning heavily on the crate that doubled as his nightstand. "I can't believe this! Tell her… tell her I'm sorry! I'll make it up to her. I just…" His words were muffled by an exhausted grunt as he keeled over back onto his mattress, his head at the foot end and his face buried in his sleeping bag. Amazingly, he was still clutching his Martini glass.

Trapper crossed the room to retrieve it before it ended up as another casualty of war. "I think you'd better tell the lady her date is indisposed."

Radar's eyes widened still – with fear this time. "But she might get mad! She's already pretty ticked off! Aw Jeez, now she's gonna yell at me!"

Shrugging nonchalantly, Trapper downed Hawkeye's drink for him. "Just tell her he's sick and he's not allowed out. Doctor's orders." He coughed a little at the taste of the liquor.

"Oh… okay." Radar glowered at the near-comatose Hawkeye, and then up at Trapper. "Why'd ya have to let him pickle himself anyway?"

"Hey, since when's it my job to keep an eye on 'im? Am I my bunkie's keeper?" Trapper pressed a hand dramatically to his chest.

But, as he chivvied the reluctant Radar from the Swamp, that was how he distinctly felt. Any other time, he might have swanned into the O.C. himself and delivered Hawkeye's apology personally – especially as Lt. Mitchell was originally supposed to be seeing him tonight before Hawkeye had wormed his way into her plans – but the idea didn't sit right. As he watched Hawkeye struggle to roll over in the tangled mess of his sleeping bag, he shook his head. Something was up with Hawkeye.

Hawkeye managed to right himself, and Trapper sat beside him on his cot, eyeing him with some concern. "What's up with you, huh? You're puttin' the sauce away like it's goin' outta style, an' that's the first time I've seen you cancel on a date for anythin' other than the 'flu. So spill. What's up?"

"It just really got to me, you know," Hawkeye muttered, more at the ceiling than at Trapper.

"What did? Frank?"

"This whole thing with George. Poor kid." Hawkeye let out a weary sigh and slung an arm over his head, closing his eyes and hiding his face.

Trapper shrugged. "We took care of 'im. He's safe – well, as safe as he's gonna get 'round here. What else are we gonna do?"

"It's not just that." Hawkeye worried at his lower lip, and peering out at Trapper from under his arm. "It's what his buddies did to him. You're supposed to be able to confide in people. If you can't trust your friends, who can you trust?"

Suddenly, the atmosphere in the Swamp seemed startlingly sober. Hawkeye was no longer slurring, and Trapper felt an urgent need for more drink, especially if the conversation was about to get heavy. He stood and took a walk to the still, and tried to ignore the fact that his hand was shaking as he poured himself a large glass of neat gin. "You know what Marines are like, Hawk. 'Specially when it comes to dealin' with somebody who they think don't belong."

"I mean," Hawkeye gesticulated at the canvas above him, "if I told you something like that, you wouldn't kick the crap out of me, right?"

Trapper stared at him. Hawkeye had now sprawled over his cot like some kind of creeping weed, limbs trailing everywhere, and he wasn't looking at Trapper any more. The question seemed to lodge in Trapper's brain for a moment or two, and he realised with a slight sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that it wasn't a rhetorical. Hawkeye was genuinely asking…

"Course I wouldn't." His voice was strangely tight, his head thick, like someone had stuffed his throat and skull with cotton wool. He took a drink to try and clear his head. "You think I'd do that? C'mon, I was on your side through this whole thing. You know that." Giving Hawkeye an affectionate pat on the shoulder, Trapper slumped back into his usual chair. His legs were feeling strangely shaky.

Hawkeye wetted his lips and continued to stare at the ceiling. "George was a stranger, though. A name on a duty roster. You didn't even know who he was - barely spoke to him. And in a couple of days' time he'll be on a truck back to his unit and neither one of us'll ever see him again."

"So? What's the difference?" Trapper's voice sounded way more casual than he felt.

"So, the difference is you have to live with me. I'm your room-mate; your bunkie; your... comrade in squalor. And more importantly I'm your best friend."

Trapper swallowed, a little awkwardly. When had Hawkeye moved in from the third person and hypothetical rhetoric and started talking about himself? This was sensitive territory, if it was going where Trapper sensed it was going.

Passing his glass anxiously between his sweaty hands, Trapper released a shaky breath as he tried very carefully to put his racing thoughts into words. "Sure I am. And I sure as hell ain't like those Marines who did a number on that Weston kid either."

"So I can tell you?"

Mulling the question over, it occurred to Trapper that they probably wouldn't be having this conversation if it wasn't for the drink. And yet, to refuse might seem like a rejection, and he didn't want to do that to Hawkeye.

Not wanting Hawkeye to draw any undue attention to himself, Trapper slid off his chair and scooted over to the side of Hawkeye's cot, planting a cushion on the floor and reclining a little uncomfortably at his friend's bedside. "Somethin' you wanna get off your chest?" His voice was little more than a whisper. He didn't turn to look at Hawkeye – he just stared ahead, and raised his glass to his lips. Right now, he thought, gin was a necessity. "Somethin' been botherin' you since all this business with Frank?"

Hawkeye giggled. It was a giggle that was far cry from his usual, boisterous laugh; a giggle that said 'I don't know why I'm telling you this', with maybe a dash of 'this is kind of embarrassing' and topped up with a sprinkle of 'please don't hate me when we're sober'. And still Hawkeye wouldn't look him in the eye. But, eventually, he spoke. "You know that story I tell sometimes? About how my dad caught me smoking in bed with a girl when I was fourteen?"

Trapper shrugged. He didn't recall it specifically but he figured that wasn't the important part. So many hours in O.R. and so many stories – they all blurred into one. "I guess."

"I lied." Hawkeye fidgeted kicking his booted feet back and forth so the cot creaked. "For a start, I was sixteen – nobody would have dated me at fourteen. I was a weird-looking kid. All... knees and elbows."

"I'll take your word on that." Trapper couldn't help but laugh at the image of a scrawny, pasty, utterly undateable, teenaged Hawkeye. Somehow, it wasn't difficult to conjure up.

"And it wasn't my dad who caught us – it was Mrs Everett, the neighbour who lived across the street."

"Right…"

"And it really wasn't a bed – it was really just pile of throw pillows and a couple of blankets we'd found up in the attic. The Everetts had the biggest house on the street, with this big gable roof and a huge window looking out right across the Cove. The sunsets were incredible, like nothing you'd ever…" He trailed off, either lost on his memories or attempting to claw his way back to reality. He took a deep breath and exhaled, and Trapper realised he'd been holding his own, and wasn't about to release it until Hawkeye spoke again. "And I… I wasn't with a girl. I was with Mrs Everett's son."

The revelation hung in the air. Trapper's mind raced, not just over the huge amount of trust Hawkeye had just placed in him by sharing this secret, but also – perhaps rather selfishly – over the possible implications.

No, he shouldn't go there. This wasn't about…

At last, Trapper breathed out. He tried to act calm, nodding thoughtfully and staring into the middle distance. What should he say? He had no words for this. They'd traded stories of sexual exploits before, but never like this. What was the correct response for when your best buddy was discussing his teenaged homosexual romps with a boyhood friend? He closed his eyes, swallowed hard, and then spoke. "Oh yeah? What was he like?" Trapper's voice sounded odd, like it wasn't his own. Like he was trying to impersonate himself in one of their usual talks about women and act like it was no big deal.

He saw Hawkeye glance at him out of the corner of his eye. "You really wanna know?"

"Sure." Trapper risked turning to look at him, hoping his face wouldn't give too much away. "Just… keep your voice down, huh?"

The tense look on Hawkeye's face vanished, and the warmest smile Trapper had ever seen spread across his features. Shifting on his cot, Hawkeye rolled onto his side, his face inches from Trapper's as he continued his story in the tiniest of whispers. "He was beautiful. Stephen Christopher Everett. A year older than me, real handsome devil. And built too – he played football, and he had the body for it. I had this dumb fantasy about making the team, so he'd coach me during the day, and then when it started to get dark we'd go up to the attic. It was like a sanctuary."

Hawkeye paused, glancing away, as if it suddenly felt too personal to share. "That sounds… cute," Trapper said by way of encouragement.

"My first kiss was in that attic – with him. I mean, my first real kiss. I'd pecked a few girls on the cheek, like you do when you're a kid, but… you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I know…"

"By the time we got to the end of the summer, we were skipping the football practice and heading straight to the attic. There were a couple of other firsts in there too."

Trapper bit his tongue and tried to resist the urge to ask for more details. He failed. "Oh yeah? Like what?"

There was that giggle again. "Let me think… Oh! My first cigarette, naturally, because that's what they did in the movies."

"Naturally."

"And then his mom caught us." No other details were forthcoming. Hawkeye made the announcement with a dejected air of finality, flopping onto his back once more. "So that was that." To Trapper's amazement, he laughed for a moment, finding the memory tragically comic more than anything else. "She dropped the lemonade she'd brought up for us. I swear, you could have heard her scream all the way from Vermont! Then the oldest of his two brothers chased me out of the house before I could even get all my clothes back on. Told me to stay the fuck away from his brother or he'd break my nose and tell my dad I was a fruit."

"That must'a been awful."

"Yeah, it was." Hawkeye sighed mournfully. "I never did get my socks back."

Hawkeye grinned, his mood suddenly light again. Trapper laughed, right on cue, and Hawkeye's boisterous laughter rang through the tent as it always did, rattling the tent poles. His hand beat down on the mattress, making his cot shake.

It was strange. He told the story like it was another one of his escapades; another funny, raunchy story in which Hawkeye had an intimate encounter then escaped a pummelling by the skin of his teeth and ended on a joke. But Trapper knew it meant far more than that. He felt a little uneasy, like he'd been given a glimpse into some secret part of Hawkeye's life that he had no right to see, and had only been allowed in because Hawk was too drunk to know better. A shiver ran up Trapper's spine and he fidgeted, sliding forward so he was slouching, half sitting, and half lying on the floor of the tent. He took another drink, letting the comforting taste of liquor settle his nerves. "So, what did you do?"

"Easy. I stayed the fuck away from Steve Everett. And to this day, my nose remains unbroken and my father is still talking to me. He was a man of his word, I'll give him that."

Trapper was stunned. He couldn't imagine Hawkeye giving in to threats – not at any age – especially not where a lover was concerned. "What happened to… uh…?"

Hawkeye shrugged. "Steve? I'd pass him in the street. We'd kinda… nod to each other. Like you do, you know. But he got drafted during WW2. I never saw him again after that."

"So, you don't know whether he–"

"I don't wanna know." Hawkeye's voice hitched, and Trapper's heart broke a little. He couldn't imagine what it must be like not knowing whether your childhood sweetheart had wound up dead on some battlefield in Europe, or in the jungles of the Pacific. "So…" Hawkeye broke the painful silence, suddenly chipper again, big soulful eyes catching Trapper in their gaze, a nervous smile on his lips. "You sure you're not gonna kick my ass all the way to San Francisco?"

Trapper laughed only to cover his indignation at such a suggestion. The thought couldn't be further from his mind. What was on his mind, however, he planned on keeping well under wraps. "Why would I do that? Since when was it any of my business who you made out with when you were sixteen? We all do crazy stuff when we're kids." He hoped his words were a comfort to Hawkeye, but it was Trapper who felt weighed down by the heavy tone of the conversation. The air was thick, and his skin felt clammy and prickly all over.

"I guess," was all Hawkeye said.

An uneasy silence followed. Somehow, it seemed, they had wandered from their usual conversational path, and were now lost in an unknown, wordless void. The quiet droned on, and Trapper sank a little lower as he leaned against Hawkeye's cot. Silently, he sipped his drink.

At last, Hawkeye spoke again. "Except… this wasn't just crazy kid stuff."

"It wasn't?"

Hawkeye picked at a loose thread on his mattress. "I said he was my first – not my only."

Trapper stared up at Hawkeye for a moment. "There were other guys too?"

Hawkeye shot him a drunken, slightly devilish grin. "Trapper, since when have you ever known me to do anything just once? You know me. I'm a man of excess; a man of extremes; a man with a great love for debauchery, hedonism and pleasure!"

"I noticed." Trapper averted his eyes and tried, without success, not to think too much on it. He slid down the rest of the way onto the floor, and soon found himself lying on his back staring at the ceiling. The tent was spinning a little. How much gin had he had now? Oh – his glass was empty. The urge to pry was too much to resist, and he was glad his little hiding place on the floor. Staring at the underside of Hawkeye's cot and knowing he was totally concealed as strangely reassuring. "How many are we talkin' here?"

Hawkeye thought about it for a while, and just above his head, Trapper could see him counting off on his fingers. Those long, dexterous, surgeon's fingers… Hawkeye had remarkably beautiful hands.

"Ok, I get it. Never mind."

The boisterous laughter exploded from above him once more, then died down as Hawkeye was suddenly timid and quiet again. "Sorry – is this too much for you? I'll shut up."

"No!" The exclamation came out with a little more emphasis than Trapper would have liked, and he bit his lip for a moment. "What's it like? Y'know… with a guy." He was sweating. His skin prickled and he swiped at his brow with the back of his hand.

"Depends what you do."

Trapper rolled his eyes. This conversation was tough enough without Hawkeye's cryptic bullshit. "What did you do?"

"Everything."

There was nothing cryptic about that. Trapper's mind was flooded briefly with images he wasn't entirely sure he didn't want. But he pushed them back, not wanting to cheapen Hawkeye's openness with his fantasies. It didn't seem right.

Above him, the cot creaked as Hawkeye shifted and fidgeted. His hand appeared over the edge again, and Trapper stared at it, its owner gesturing as he spoke.

"It's hard to describe," he was murmuring in hushed tones. "I mean a lot of it's not so dissimilar. Warm skin, hands, lips… Kissing someone with a beard – that's different. Nice, but different. God, I miss the kissing! I could take or leave the beard, but… you hardly ever meet a woman who kisses like that. Forceful, passionate… hard, masculine kissing!"

His hand clenched into a fist for a moment and there was another creak of the cot. Trapped licked his lips. "Keep your voice down, Hawk…"

Hawkeye tossed and turned again, instigating another cacophony of creaks. A second hand dangled down over the side, its fingers an inch from Trapper's forehead. Trapper stared up at them, and Hawkeye carried on, his voice a hushed, intense whisper. "The sex, though… oh, the sex – that's… that's a whole other ball game."

"Is that right?" Trapper did his best to sound nonchalant, but his throat was tight and his skin was hot and if he didn't know better he'd swear he was blushing.

"Do you have any idea," Hawkeye purred with almost poetic articulation, "of the intoxicating sensitivity of the prostate gland?"

Now, Trapper knew he'd gone beet red. "Can't say as I do, no."

"It's exquisite. There's no other sensation in the human body that even compares." He sighed deeply. "It's been too long… way too long."

Trapper found himself holding his breath. He was sure his every exhalation was an admittance of guilt – a sleazy, lecherous indication of the sinful thoughts Hawkeye's words were conjuring in his brain. He tried desperately to rein in his thoughts, but it proved impossible. His body was evading his control, too, and the rush of arousal that he'd been wrestling with was now followed by an undeniable stirring in his pants. He shifted awkwardly, wiping his sweaty palms on his knees.

This was beyond embarrassing. He couldn't possibly be getting a hard-on over the idea of Hawkeye… over that – could he?

Through his haze of unwelcome arousal, he was vaguely aware of Hawkeye clambering off his cot and going to the still to pour himself another drink. He glanced up at him, and for a dreadful moment realised that he was sprawled on the floor with a very obvious erection tenting his fatigues. He sat up swiftly, scooting back and leaning against the cot once more, his nearside leg bent to conceal the boner Hawkeye had given him.

Hawkeye didn't seem to have noticed. He sipped his gin contentedly and eventually sauntered back over. Only instead of climbing back into bed, he dropped onto the floor beside Trapper, stretching his long legs out across the floor. His hand clapped onto Trapper's knee, and stayed there. "You're still talking to me then?" he asked Trapper with a smile. "Criminally indecent degenerate that I am?"

Trapper performed his best impersonation of someone without a care in the world, and smiled back. "Looks like."

Then Hawkeye's gaze flickered up and down Trapper's body, and Trapper felt a stab of panic. Could he see? Had he already seen before Trapper managed to cover himself? The slightly naughty smirk that crept onto Hawkeye's face suggested he had. "Yeah," Hawkeye purred. "Looks like."

He continued to look Trapper right in the eyes, and Trapper had to break the silence. He felt like Hawkeye's gaze was boring into his mind, laying his thoughts open. He twitched, a violent shudder that ran the length of him and rattled him to the core. He tried to disguise it with a casual shrug. "Surely you weren't expectin' anythin' less of me?" Trapper asked, hoping he sounded nonchalant. He didn't. He sounded drunk.

Hawkeye shrugged. "I didn't know," he said. His eyes were earnest and soulful, but with the glassy look of someone who'd had too much liquor and needed to go lie down. "But… do you see me any different now? Because of this, I mean."

"I don't think so." That was a lie. "Why? Do you want me to?"

Another shrug. It was phoney and exaggerated, and combined with the shaking of his head, he looked like someone had pouring itching powder down his shirt. "Oh, well, you know. I could handle a little difference. You know, I just bared my soul to you; shared something even my father doesn't know. I'd like to figure it had some kind of impact!"

And Trapper realised through his haze of drink that there was a whole other reason why Hawkeye was telling him this. He couldn't quite let himself believe it at first, but now he did. "Hawk?" The name came out quietly and naturally as it always had. Hawkeye looked up, and Trapper smiled. "I'd say it had an impact."

Hawkeye's face seemed to light up, and that knowing grin returned. "Yeah? I thought it might."

Trapper barely had time to register Hawkeye moving closer; barely noticed the way his gaze flickered from eyes to lips and back again; barely noticed that he moved in, too, and met Hawkeye halfway. Neither one would ever be really sure who kissed who, as they met in the middle. They both jumped in at once, as they did with so many things, unified and unanimous as ever. Together, in all kinds of weather.

And Trapper had to agree – it was different. Nice, but different.

Trapper awoke to a pounding head and a hazy, jumbled mess of memories. His eyes opened hesitantly, and the first thing he saw from across the room was Hawkeye, sprawled upside down on his cot. He still had his boots on, and his shirt seemed to have collected a small measure's worth of gin in spillages. He was snoring softly, and Trapper decided not to wake him. Instead, he rose and staggered over to the still for a little hair of the dog that had savagely mauled him.

He sat, finding his chair even less comfortable than usual. That was weird, he thought as he nursed his glass. Why was the cushion on the floor? Puzzled, he stood to retrieve it. He never put anything on the floor near Hawkeye's bed. The man's socks contaminated everything they touched.

And then he remembered.

It came in flashes at first: Hawkeye's halting confession; the way Trapper had sat and then lay beside him, watching his hands; the feeling in his gut as Hawkeye's stories grew more erotic, and Trapper's questions more probing.

And then they'd kissed. Holy shit – he'd kissed Hawkeye! Or Hawkeye had kissed him, or some combination of the above, Trapper could scarcely work it out. He gripped his glass like his life depended on it, shaking. His hand trembled, his knees went, and he had to lower himself back onto his cot so as to avoid falling.

"Shit," he breathed, clutching a hand to his head. "Shit!"

Suddenly he never wanted to drink again, and he tossed his gin aside. He couldn't be trusted! This was beyond humiliating! He tried desperately to force back the torrent of unwanted feelings that arose at the memory of Hawkeye's lips on his, his hands in his hair, the brush of his tongue against his own…

"Goddamn it!"

He couldn't stop it. Tears prickled his eyes. He couldn't stop it last night either, he thought bitterly. It had been Hawkeye who had pulled back, mumbled something about being too drunk for this and how Trapper would hate him in the morning, and reluctantly bundled him into his bed before retreating to his own.

Inebriated as he was, Trapper couldn't begin to tell him his own equivalent to Hawkeye's confession: the story of that one man who turned his head for the first time, and subsequently turned his whole world upside down. His version, he thought bitterly, was less sweet: Hawkeye had a summer of soft kisses and youthful experimentation with a boy he still remembered with a nostalgic smile and a wistful sigh. Trapper had a hastily buried crush on a man he had never imagined he stood a chance with; a man he had chastised himself for even thinking about in that way; the man who was now sleeping soundly a couple of feet away from him, snoring softly and drooling on his copy of Nudist Monthly.

It was a crush that was getting harder and harder to keep burying.

He had never been able to even contemplate how to put his feelings into words - not here, not in this place – and so he hid them under jokes and tomfoolery and a friendship so close they were practically the same person. They slept together, ate together, showered together – he'd seen the guy naked more times than he could count, and had himself so well trained he could laugh about it. He would look away, or prod him in the ribs and joke about how he needed to put some meat on his bones, or even smack him on the ass and tell him to go put some clothes on because he was putting him off his breakfast.

Trapper sighed and buried his head in his hands. His denial ran so deep it had crocodiles swimming in it.

And now – now – he had to live with the knowledge that his feelings were mutual, only… he had a wife and kids waiting back home. He had a career that could be ruined if this were to ever get out. It was too much. Too much to even contemplate.

"Goddamn it!"

His exclamation was louder than he'd anticipated, and a moment later he heard Hawkeye yelp in alarm and make a valiant, if not entirely successful, effort at sitting up in bed.

Their eyes met, and Trapper hoped and prayed that the redness around his own would be excused as a hangover. The silence seemed to stretch out, thin and fragile, as Trapper looked at the man he had kissed the night before. The man he adored.

"How much did we drink?" Hawkeye asked at last, moaning and clutching his head.

Trapper blinked. "Too much." He dropped his gaze and stared at the floor. Across the tent, he heard Hawkeye fidget in his cot, twisting so that he was the right way round and able to lean against the pillows he had, until recently, been resting his boots on.

"Trapper?"

Hawkeye's voice was tentative, and when Trapper looked up, he thought he saw fear in his eyes. And he knew it was matched by the fear in his own. "Yeah?"

Hawkeye stared at him for a moment, then his eyes narrowed and his head rolled a little, and he gave another weary sigh. "What happened last night?"

His heart leaping, Trapper nearly cried out in his relief. He practically collapsed as the weight lifted from his shoulders. He had a way out! He had an escape! He stared across the Swamp, almost in a daze, his eyes focusing on Frank's empty cot, bedecked with immaculately pressed army issue blankets. Two thick volumes – a book of Army regulations and a Bible – sat on the table beside it. Frank would be returning soon... And Trapper knew that this was neither the time nor the place to be experimenting. "I don't remember," he said as convincingly as he could.

Hawkeye turned away too, and from the corner of his eye, Trapper saw him wipe at his face, the heel of his palm rubbing at his right eye with unusual, vigorous force. "Oh," he said simply. "Me neither."