Author's note: As many readers may have noticed, this fic has been taking a dark turn and, as such, this story will contain violence, alcholism, homophobia, and other content which readers may find distressing or triggering. For more information, feel free to message me via PM.

Boston, August 1960

Trapper was in a lousy mood by the time he returned from work. The factory had been warm and claustrophobic, and the air humid and unpleasantly close. Sweat prickled his skin under his grimy, company-issue overalls.

He fumbled with the key to their building that housed their current apartment and stared glumly at his hands: his nails were grubby and split, his skin blistered from hauling a broom across the length and breadth of the factory floor, and sore from the harsh cleaning chemicals. He shuddered. He'd had beautiful hands once. Surgeon's hands.

Sighing, he pushed the door open.

The hallway in this place was always cold, and on days like this it was a relief. The building was large and old, sandwiched between others of a similar age, and the heat rarely permeated the thick stone walls. In the winter it was an ice box, but it made the summer almost bearable. The interior looked like it had been almost grand once, with high ceilings and ornate railings, but now the mosaic flooring was riddled with cracks, and dirt gathered around the edges of the lobby. Even the air seemed to have a perpetual grubby feel to it.

But this was home. Trapper closed the door to the outside world and breathed a sigh of relief. He had the rest of the day to himself. The 4am starts were hell, but at least he was done early. That gave him the rest of the day to get chores done, relax at home, or hit the bars near the docks. As usual, the final of these three options had proven the most tempting, but with Hawkeye yet again out of work, money was tight, and Trapper was having to force himself to kerb his habit. Some days were more successful than others, but today was one of the good days, and so, he had headed for home after just three beers, albeit begrudgingly.

Before he made his way up the large, old-fashioned staircase that rotated in a clumsy, square-sided spiral up the centre of the building, Trapper glanced, out of habit, at the mail boxes by the door. For the second time that week, envelopes were sticking out of their box.

With a snort of annoyance, Trapper plucked their mail from the slot without even needing the key. "So much for security."

He flicked through the letters with his usual sense of dread. Most were outstanding bills. But the largest made Trapper cringe.

It was a large manila envelope, folded lengthways so it could be stuffed into the letterbox, and addressed to 'Benjamin Franklin Pierce'. One corner of the envelope was ripped, revealing what appeared to be the well-muscled shoulder of some beefcake model, and the words 'Male Physique', printed in vivid yellow across the cover picture. Trapper shuddered, and footsteps on the stairs prompted him to hide the envelope.

He looked up as Joe, the neighbour from down the hall, shuffled down the stairs in his torn jeans and stained singlet, clutching a garbage bag. Joe made Trapper's skin crawl. He had a way of staring at you and making if very obvious he was trying to figure you out.

Trapper didn't want Joe to figure him out. In fact, Trapper didn't want Joe within a hundred yards of him if he could possibly help it. He had already had one altercation with the guy after he'd passed him on the front steps one morning and overheard some non-too-pleasing comments about the young black family who were moving in on the second floor. Joe didn't much like Trapper's contribution to the discussion, either, and some heated words were exchanged. It was only once Joe had realised that Trapper could easily take him in a fight that he had eventually backed off, muttering something about 'lowering the tone of the neighbourhood' before wiping his nicotine-stained moustache on the back of his hand, taking another swig from his beer can and spitting onto the sidewalk.

Not caring to be caught up in another 'conversation' with Joe, Trapper walked briskly towards the stairs. Joe fixed him with a disapproving glare, and Trapper kept his eyes forward. They passed one another in silence. Trapper tensed, his palms sweaty. Joe slipped past him in his tired, shuffling gait, wheezing with every step.

He almost missed it. He could have carried on without comment and it would have been entirely plausible that he just didn't hear, it was that quiet.

Joe reached the hall, sniffed loudly and cleared his throat. "Faggot."

Trapper stopped. A shiver went up his spine and his hand tightened around the bundle of letters. He should be used to this by now. Why could he never get used to it? Why did it feel like a fresh wound every single time? You'd think he had enough battle scars to numb the hurt by now.

He turned slowly on the stairs, narrowing his eyes. His fists clenched at his sides. His words came out in an angry snarl. "What did you say?"

Trapper shook. He actually shook. He wanted nothing more than to knock the smarmy little shit to the ground and beat that knowing sneer clean off his face. But he couldn't. He'd learned from experience that outbursts of violence were only likely to land him in trouble with the super, or worse, the police. He was all too aware, however, that Joe could probably do the same to him and nobody would bat an eyelid. Oh no, that wouldn't matter at all. Joe was an obnoxious, bullying, arrogant piece of shit who beat his wife, left his empties on the steps, and made newcomers' lives a misery, but he was still a more respectable citizen in the eyes of the police than the pair of homosexual army discharges who lived upstairs.

Joe turned to face him, eyeing Trapper as if he was dirt, sneering as he raised his cigarette to his lips and blew the subsequent smoke in Trapper's direction. "I didn't say nothin'."

And neither did Trapper.

"Hawk?!"

Trapper's shout rang through the apartment like a thunderclap, and Hawkeye practically fell off the couch. He'd fallen asleep in front of the morning cartoons, a plate of toasted bagels upended on the blanket he had succeeded in kicking into an untidy lump, and his instant coffee abandoned and tepid on the table in front of him. He was naked, save for Trapper's old black robe, and yesterday's mismatched socks. As Trapper watched, Hawkeye tried to regain some semblance of dignity as he hauled himself back into a sitting position on the ugly yellow couch.

The door slammed, shunting Hawkeye unceremoniously into the land of the living. He looked about himself with bleary eyes.

Trapper glared at him. "Have you been there all day?"

He wasn't all that surprised. Hawkeye was a permanent fixture on the couch these days, both day and night. He hadn't worked for months now, and Trapper used the term 'work' broadly. Usually, when one of the pair of them found himself unemployed, he would pick up the slack with the housework while the other earned their keep, but, for the past few months, Hawkeye hadn't even made an attempt at cleaning.

Hawkeye didn't feel like cleaning. He didn't feel like anything much. It had been four months now since he had accepted the clinic job offered to him by old med school 'friend' Quentin McCauley. The most exciting opportunity to come his way since his residency! Then, not long after, he had discovered just precisely what had been expected of him in exchange for such a favour, when Quentin had trailed his fingers up Hawkeye's thigh as they sat in the empty parking lot in his sporty little Mercedes. The betrayal had cut him deep, worsened by the fact that he couldn't bring himself to tell Trapper what had happened. He also couldn't begin to think about admitting that he was almost inclined to take his boss up on his offer; that he hadn't pushed him away until those fingers had made their way up to his crotch. He'd just frozen, half stunned, half excited. Shame had soon joined the mix, too. It was the shame that resurfaced in his dreams when he remembered how torn he'd felt, how close he'd come to infidelity, and to walking away, and with a man who had treated him like a piece of meat.

He hadn't told Trapper the details. In fact, he hadn't mentioned the incident at all. Eventually, after continued pressure from Trapper to explain why he'd quit, he had offered up a heavily censored version of the truth: that he had quit because it was awkward working with an ex. His revelation was met with the words "I guess that writes off half the medical profession in this city and in Chicago!" Hawkeye hadn't responded. He knew well enough by now how Trapper felt about the notches on his bedpost, particularly those of the male persuasion, and he didn't feel like getting into another argument regarding his former lover.

Now, however, it was his current one who was making him feel awkward. Hawkeye pulled his robe a little tighter around himself and tried to get his bearings. "I just lay down for a nap. I was tired."

Trapper nodded. "Right. It must be exhausting doin' a whole lotta nothin'." He tossed the envelope containing Hawkeye's magazine onto the coffee table. "You wanna tell me what this is?"

Rubbing his eyes, Hawkeye glanced at the publication and cringed. He knew Trapper hated his penchant for erotica. At best he considered it seedy; at worst, a personal affront. Hawkeye considered it none of Trapper's business. Admittedly, Hawkeye's stack of filth had been growing over the past couple of years. You could hardly move in their apartment without tripping over naked girls playing volleyball, or sailors in nothing but their hats and jockey shorts. The recent decline of their sex life had taken its toll in more ways than one.

"It's a magazine, Trapper. You see, they crush pulped wood into sheets and use this machine called a printing press to–"

"We're broke, an' you're buyin' pornography? With my money."

"Magazines. I read them, too, you know. There are articles."

He tore open the envelope and began flicking through, partly to prove a point and partly as an act of rebellion.

Trapper glowered as Hawkeye buried his nose in the magazine. "Ya do know," he spat, shrugging off his grubby overall and ditching his boots under the table, "that the government can track who orders those things? That's the only reason why they don't shut down the companies who print 'em. Do you wanna get us arrested? Again?"

"Ordering a magazine isn't a crime."

Making as much noise as possible, Trapper began to clear Hawkeye's mess off the coffee table. "No. But sodomy is."

Hawkeye couldn't let that go without comment. "Don't use that word, Trapper. We do not 'sodomize'. We screw. Bang. Make love. Have a good time. Have sex. Carnal knowledge. Intercourse. Get off. Get it on. Get it up. Get jiggy with it. Fuck, if you want to be vulgar. Fornicate, if you want to be Biblical. But we do not 'sodomize' in this house." He turned a page angrily, raising his voice as Trapper stomped off to the kitchen and dumped the crockery on the counter. "I've never known a single gay man who called it 'sodomy' and I don't plan on adding it to my bedroom vocabulary any time soon!"

Something in his rant touched a nerve: "Keep your damned voice down," Trapper hissed, shovelling plates into the sink.

It was a complaint Hawkeye had heard too many times already. Over the past year, Trapper had gone from secretive to outright paranoid. It was stifling! Irritated, he launched himself off the couch and followed Trapper into the kitchenette. "Oh, get over yourself already. Nobody's going to hear, and nobody's going to arrest us - not for sodomy or for anything else. How are they going to prove it? Send someone round to plant a camera in our bedroom? Are we gonna turn in one night and find a CIA man hiding in our closet?"

Trapper merely snorted. The CIA would have to camp out in their bedroom a pretty long time before they saw any action these days.

"Besides, it's the ones in the State Department they're going after. An unemployed bum and a janitor aren't exactly a threat to national security. They don't give a crap about us." He turned another page. "Oh, look – a quiz! I love these. 'How to tell if your boyfriend is a paranoid jackass'."

Trapper snatched the magazine off him. "Give me that." He dumped it on the counter and set about doing the dishes in that passive-aggressive way that generally meant more got broken than got clean. Their cheap water heater rattled and the pipes hissed loudly.

Hawkeye cringed at the rattle of the crockery. Clearly, Trapper was in one of his moods. Probably drunk too much, or too little. Either way, Hawkeye's sympathy had long since run dry, and he tended to handle Trapper's moods with either outright avoidance or sarcasm. One this occasion, however, he tried to find it in his heart to reach out: "Okay, I'll bite. What's eating you this time?" he rolled his eyes and lounged against the counter. "Is this because I didn't scrub the apartment like a good little housewife? Or is it because of the nudey magazine? Are you jealous of my two-dimensional squeeze?" He flirted the magazine at Trapper, waving a photograph of some well-built young man who was about half Trapper's age and in far better shape.

"Oh, get outta here with that!" Trapper swatted him away and dropped a stack of plates into the dishwater with an alarming crash.

"What is your problem?!"

Trapper stood in silence for a moment watching the bowl fill. "Old Joe Jenkins from down the hall called me a faggot."

Snorting, Hawkeye leaned against the counter. "Is that all?" Picking up his cold coffee, he took a sip, made a face, and spat it back out.

"Is that all?" Trapper gave him a look of utter incredulity. "You do know what this means, right? It means they're onto us. Your stupid magazine was stickin' outta our mailbox all morning, while you sat up here on your ass watchin' TV. I don't like it when the neighbours start gettin' wise! You think I want us to lose the apartment? You want us to get driven outta this place like the Belmonts were last month? You think I wanna come home an' find you with a black eye an' a split lip? Again?!"

"Trapper, Joe Jenkins says the same thing about the rockabilly in apartment 3B just because he puts too much wax in his hair! He throws words like that around the same way he does beer cans. Don't let him get to you."

"Too late." Trapper turned the tap off and plunged his hands into the hot water. He passed the dishcloth over each plate a couple of times before dumping them on the side.

Hawkeye watched him, resisting the urge to comment on what a lousy job he was doing. "Oh, come on." He was half comforting, half annoyed. "People call us that all the time. Quite frankly, as long as none of them are kicking the crap out of us, I don't care anymore." He dumped his mug on the counter.

"Yeah? Well, I do." Trapper dried his hands. There was a stack of (almost) clean dishes on the counter. "You can do the rest," he said, emphatically dropping Hawkeye's coffee cup into the basin with a clatter. "I'm takin' a nap."

But Hawkeye followed him down the corridor towards their bedroom. He was still talking. Trapper tried to ignore him. He'd had this pep talk before and it never got any easier. "Oh, for Christ's sake! You can't let every sack of crap who calls you a name get to you! This happens every time – every time! I've been telling you this for years – you have to stop giving a damn what these morons think!"

There were no sheets on the bed. Oh, of course – Hawkeye had been 'nesting' on the couch again. Why did he have to keep doing that? Trapper stalked back to the living room with Hawkeye trailing.

"What – like you?" Trapper snorted and gathered up the bedsheets and his prized McIntyre tartan blanket – now covered in crumbs – from the couch. "You think I should start leavin' magazines with naked guys on the cover lyin' around in the hall? Or shootin' my mouth off about our sex life so as the neighbours can hear? Or maybe I should just paint a big purple banner outside our apartment with the words 'homos live here', seein' as you wanna advertise so damned much!" He stomped back in the direction of the bedroom, with Hawkeye in pursuit. Halfway down the hall, he stopped and turned.

"Who said anything about advertising? I'm trying to understand why it's the end of the world because some guy you barely know calls you a queer!"

"Because I ain't!"

Hawkeye shivered. The apartment wasn't cold, but he felt a distinct chill. Trapper's words were like ice. In spite of not feeling in the slightest bit amused, Hawkeye laughed. "This is news to me."

Trapper stared at the floor. "I'm done talkin' about this now. I'm goin' to sleep."

"Oh no no!" Hawkeye grabbed the armful of bedding and pulled it out of Trapper's grasp, blocking him on his way to the bedroom. "You don't get to say something like that and then bail on me!" He stood and stared at Trapper, feeling almost sorry for him. "Where the hell did this come from? You didn't get your end away for a few months and suddenly your heterosexuality grew back?"

Trapper's face twisted into a grimace. He'd already said too much. He was tired and cranky and the beers he'd had that morning had served only to loosen his lips rather than numb his misery. "I'm just sick of bein' called those things every time I step out my front door! Like these people don't see anythin' about me 'cept the fact that I go to bed with you! I was married before all this, y'know? Married! Respectable! I was a father goddamn it! I've been with one guy – one – an' that's you. So when you add it all up, I don't see why I should get slapped with the same label as..." He fell silent, but the insinuation was enough.

Hawkeye narrowed his eyes. "You know, I hate to break it to you, Trapper, but the people who are doing the name-calling aren't exactly stopping to do the math."

"I know that…" He could see the disappointment on Hawkeye's face, but he couldn't explain how he felt. Everything was a hot cocktail of shame no matter which way he looked at it. He'd tried to do what Hawkeye did and take it all on the chin. He tried the label on for size and all it did was make him feel lousy. He'd tried looking himself in the mirror and calling himself those things – everything from the scientific to the profane – and every one made him wince. Every time someone hissed those words to him in the hall, or another potential employer muttered them under his breath upon reading Trapper's military discharge among his records, it felt like a searing brand against his skin. This wasn't a label he wanted. "Look, this ain't about you, so don't take it personal. I know you're all… up in arms over the law an' doctors an' therapists an' all, but it ain't part o' me the way it is for you! I just don't see myself that way, an' I don't like gettin' called that – not by you an' not by anybody. It just ain't me – not by a long shot. You ain't the rule – you're the exception."

He had hoped his words might go some way to defusing the volatile situation. They didn't. Hawkeye fixed him with a steely glare. "Right. A nine year exception. An exception not insignificantly longer than your oh-so-respectable marriage, I might add! If I make a decade do I become the rule? Or is there too much paperwork to apply for fully fledged initiation into the House of Homo?"

Trapper winced. Even in jest, the word stung. "It's just a label, Hawk. An' it ain't even a nice one."

"It's good enough for me." Hawkeye's eyes glistened.

"Yeah, well you can call yourself what ya like, but I ain't like you. So just drop it."

"Oh, because you've slept with women? Is that it? Are we forgetting that you're not the only one here with more than a few notches on that particular bedpost? Or is it your oh-so-successful marriage? Is that what makes you different from me? Because of a shotgun wedding your folks forced you into to preserve the good Catholic name of McIntyre? Is it because of that?"

"No! It's because I ain't interested in men!"

"And what the hell am I, Trapper? Chopped liver?! I'm not your mistress and I'm not your girlfriend and I'm definitely not your wife! I'm the man you've been involved with for the past nine years! The man you left your wife for! The man you're living with! The man you claim to love – not that I see much evidence for that!"

"Hey – I try!"

"Bullshit! You haven't touched me in months!"

"I ain't the one who stopped touchin'! It ain't my fault you'd rather jerk off over a picture in a magazine!"

"Well, maybe if you did something other than climb on top of me and bang away like a jackhammer–"

Trapper cringed. The walls between the apartments were thin. "Jesus, Hawkeye! Keep your voice down!"

Hawkeye's lip curled, and he balled the blankets up and threw them into the bedroom doorway. The door swung inward, banging into the dresser and knocking over a framed photograph from their last trip to Maine. "Will you stop with the damned neighbours?! Why are you like this?! Every time I so much as mention anything personal, no – mustn't let the neighbours hear! God forbid the neighbours hear the dirty queers talking about their dirty sex lives! Oh, sorry – that's just me isn't it? The dirty queer and the staunch, upright, morally superior heterosexual man he's sleeping with!"

"Goddamnit, will you shut up?!" Trapper was actually shaking. He'd gone bright red, his eyes dark and angry, his fists clenched at his sides.

"Are you ashamed of me?" Hysterical now, Hawkeye actually laughed in his face. "That's what this is about, isn't it? It's not the words that bother you – it's the fact that they're true!"

"Hawkeye, I swear to God… If you don't shut your yap…"

"You're so embarrassed by us that you'd rather deny it than deal with it!"

"That's not what I–"

"So why don't you just say it? You don't have to admit it to anyone but me, but just admit it! You're a queer! There are at least two legal documents with your name on that state for the record that you're a homosexual! Face the facts, goddamnit! You're as bent as the guy you're fucking! You're a blue-discharge card-carrying member of the fairy brigade! You're a bona fide fruit – and it won't make a damned bit of difference whether–"

He got no further. Trapper's fist caught him across the jaw, and the entire left side of his skull exploded in agony. Stunned, he fell back, and his feet tangled in the blankets. A second later, he hit the deck, cracking his elbow on the doorframe on his way to the floor.

Trapper's breath caught in his chest. He felt as if a bucket of cold water at been thrown over him. His anger melted away, and the sight of Hawkeye lying on the floor in front of him filled him with a dread he'd never felt before. He hadn't even known what he was doing – he hadn't thought about it. Everything from the hallway to this moment felt like a blur, like he was watching himself through a haze of fog. But not now. Now it was crystal clear, and Hawkeye was groaning in pain and trying to stagger to his feet. Trapper reached out to try and help him.

"Hawkeye? Hawkeye, I'm sorry! I–"

"Don't you fucking touch me, you son of a bitch!" His voice was low, but his message was clear. The hand he put up to stop Trapper coming any closer was shaking, and the anger that flashed in his eyes was tinged with fear.

Trapper backed off instantly. His back hit the wall and he pressed against it, wishing for all the world he could just disappear. He never knew Hawkeye was capable of such venom. His voice was almost dangerous, filled with hatred in a way Trapper had never heard before. Trapper wanted to throw up.

Hawkeye managed to clamber into an upright position, leaning heavily on the dresser. Slowly, he caught his breath, lifted his head, and opened his eyes.

Neither one of them was capable of moving, Hawkeye in shock, Trapper rooted to the ground in fear and shame over what he'd just done. There they stood, each frozen on either side of the doorway, and Trapper could no more step across that threshold than he could swim the Pacific.

Neither of them spoke, an uneasy calm settling in after the violent storm. There wasn't a sound, save for Hawkeye's slightly laboured breathing. He rubbed at his jaw where Trapper had hit him, eyes still locked on him, like he didn't trust him not to lash out again. The punch wasn't hard, but there was blood on his lip where his teeth had cut into it, and his elbow was beginning to throb. He was more shocked than hurt, but the line that had been crossed was a blow he never saw coming, and he couldn't measure in words how much that stung. He could feel blood oozing from the wound on his arm, and pressed his hand to it, wincing.

Trapper's insides squirmed. "Hawkeye?"

"Don't!" There was fire in Hawkeye's eyes as he looked up, and blood on his palm where it had pressed against his elbow.

"Please, let me help?" Trapper's voice cracked.

"I said back off!" Hawkeye took a step away, still shaking. Without taking his gaze off Trapper, he scooped the bedding off the floor, his hands trembling. There were tears in his eyes, but his expression was angry and resolute.

"Hawkeye, I'm s…"

"Save it!" He was actually backing into the bedroom, one hand raised to keep Trapper away. "I'm going for a lie down," he stated, his voice betraying the beginning of tears simmering just beneath the rage as he jabbed a finger in Trapper's direction. "You… stay out."

He kicked the door closed, and it slammed in Trapper's face.

This story will continue next Saturday night. Please feel free to leave comments, or follow my tumblr under "hawkeye_piercintyre". If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, I don't bite.