Author: Holly
Email: shipperslut@hotmail.com
Website:
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None
Pairing: Trapper/Hawkeye
Archive: Just tell me where it's going
Summary: Friendship has no bounds, it can survive anything.
They met for the first time 8 years before they were drafted.
A college football game started the friendship in 1942. Hawkeye had tackled Trapper in mid-game, and for one second that seemed to last a lifetime, brown eyes met blue.
They didn't know each others name until that evening, when both men had ended up in the same bar. Hawkeye had sat on the bar stool next to Trapper, and as he looked over their eyes met and a feeling of recognition passed between them.
"Want a winner to buy a loser a drink?"
Hawkeye laughed, and the two strangers became friends that night, finding out that they had a lot in common, even sharing a preference for a dry martini. And when the bar closed that night, having drank their share of the gin, they went back to Trapper's place.
The next morning they claimed that it was easier for Hawkeye to stay there than to get home, and that Trapper's couch was uncomfortable so naturally they ended up in the same bed.
While they were both in Boston at different colleges their friendship grew, and soon the pair were inseparable, neither going anywhere except for dates without the other. For two years they were Trapper&Hawkeye, or Hawkeye&Trapper, at least, that was how their other friends knew them.
Louise didn't like Hawkeye when she met him, she thought that he was cocky and rude, but Trapper loved her and so he didn't say anything to his friend. The longer he dated Louise, the less time he spent with Hawkeye and for the first time in his life, Hawkeye felt alone.
It ended when Hawkeye told Trapper he was going back to Maine to go to Medical School. Trapper drove Hawkeye up there, not wanting to say goodbye to his best friend, and when they got there, he spent the night in Hawkeye's arms, feeling loved by someone he shouldn't feel loved by.
He left the next morning, having said goodbye. They each promised they would write or call, but neither did, afraid of spoiling the balance they had created between friendship and love. And although they didn't speak to each other for six years they thought about the other often, wondering what would have happened if they had worked up the courage to call.
When Trapper arrived in Korea he never expected to see a familiar face waiting for him. Hawkeye was walking out of a building with a nurse, but he stopped when he saw the face of an old friend, and ran to greet him.
Hawkeye realised that he no longer felt alone with Trapper by his side in Korea, and soon the two friends were laughing and joking with each other. Leaving the nurse, Hawkeye talked Trapper to their tent where they sat on the small army cots and proceeded to get drunk on homemade gin after Trapper produced a small jar of olives from his luggage.
They were known around camp as Hawkeye&Trapper, or Trapper&Hawkeye again, and everything felt like it used to, their bond of friendship having survived six years apart. And although they never mentioned the two nights they spent together, they knew that the other thought about them late at night when the shelling could be heard outside, just to have a little bit of comfort in their lives.
And one night when Hawkeye climbed into bed with Trapper, he didn't refuse; he just put his arms around the other man. They had a small piece of comfort in a world that denied them any comfort, and all it took was friendship to restore the balance.
When they were in each others arms, they felt protected; they felt safe. And they felt loved.