Title: "Marigold Wine" part 5/?
Pairing: Hawkeye/Trapper, Hawkeye/others
Genre: Drama, romance, longfic, postseries, 60s
Summary: In the 60s, Trapper visits his old army buddy at a hippie commune, where Hawkeye has retreated to find peace.
Rating: R/M

Part 5

The hammock wobbled.

"Never kissed a mustache," Hawkeye muttered against Trapper's lips.

"Never?"

Kissing Hawkeye in the frame hammock at midnight in June was some kind of wonderful. Hawkeye didn't just hold still and wait to be made love to. He groped, he tickled. He wrestled. Trapper was using real muscles to grab Hawkeye's arms above his head while Hawkeye straddled his thighs and pinned him to the hammock. Hawkeye giggled, protesting the restriction of his arms, because above all he was a tactile octopus man. Without arms to grab, Hawkeye wrapped his legs around Trapper's waist, and being gripped by a longer, stronger pair than a woman's was a new sort of sensation. Not to mention that different feeling against his belly.

"Shh," Trapper whispered. "You're so loud."

"C'mon. Bed," Hawkeye said.

Trapper froze.

"What?" Hawkeye said.

"Nothin'." Trapper sat back, releasing Hawkeye.

Hawkeye sat up. "Trap, if this is your first time with a man --"

"No, not exactly --" Trapper looked down at his hands, fisting on his thighs.

"I'm not gonna expect anything more than you want --"

"I know."

"Look, just say the word." Hawkeye stood and held out his hand. "Whatever you're up for is okay with me."

Trapper looked up. "Really?"

Hawkeye beamed. "You lug," he teased. And Trapper was kissed all over.

In the bedroom, Trapper hardly had time to consider the huge, expectant expanse of Hawkeye's bed, for he was being kissed so insistently. Hawkeye had his shirt off with all those busy hands flying everywhere while Trapper toed off his shoes. As Hawkeye was busy pushing him onto the bed so he could sit in Trapper's lap and thumb his nipples, Trapper hesitantly slid his hands under Hawkeye's shirt.

Oh. Okay, that felt nice. Skin on skin. Just like with a woman except firmer, less curves. More surface area to explore. Sometime, Trapper wanted to get Hawkeye facedown on the bed and map each muscle in his back as they played interesting skipping games over one another. But not right now. He wanted to see as much of Hawkeye as he could as soon as possible. He pulled Hawk's shirt up over his head, mussing his dark hair, the silver glittering in the moonlight. Trapper smiled and ran his fingers through it, smoothing it down. He still kept it too long in front. Hawkeye kissed the palm of his hand.

"When did you decide to grow this?" Hawkeye ran his thumb over Trapper's mustache. Trapper kissed the digit.

"Year or two ago. Do you like it?"

Hawkeye smiled. "Makes you look . . . different."

Older, was the word Hawkeye was editing. Maybe that's why he liked it on himself. He got tired of people treating him like such a baby face.

"I'm not the same boy I was," Trapper whispered.

Hawkeye smoothed his hands down Trapper's chest, over his nipples, making Trapper shiver. He scooted back on the bed.

"You look just as good, to me," Hawkeye said.

Trapper smiled. That was good to hear, considered how damn resistable he'd felt since the divorce.

Hawkeye started at Trapper's throat, kissing his way thoroughly from one clavicle to the other, idly nipping an earlobe. His hands slid down Trapper's arms and spread his hands wide. Trapper, feeling useless but well taken care of, let himself be tended to. Hawkeye worked his way down the midline, his tongue doing very interesting swirly things. Ah, kissing his stomach -- Trapper loved that. It made his belly feel a pleasant sort of lurch. He hadn't bothered to make love to anyone that slowly for a long time, to bother with kissing stomachs; he and Hawkeye still had their pants on. Hawkeye worked his way east and nuzzled Trapper's exposed hipbone, a feeling that went straight to his groin. Trapper was ever so glad he'd worn his new low cut white hip-huggers, the ones with the two-inch zipper, that he'd seen in a South End shop.

He knew he looked good in those trousers, and Hawkeye didn't waste much time going for the front button. Hrm, perhaps buying them in super-hideous-tight hadn't been the best choice. Self conscious of the slightest of middle age spread down there (minimal, really, he'd tone up over the summer, he always did), Trapper sucked in and lent a hand with the button.

You couldn't wear underwear under those polyester trousers, even if you wanted to. Trapper wasn't some sort of gigolo, no-underwear-wearer, it was just the fashion. Hawkeye looked like he was unwrapping a present from Santa. Turning giddy, Hawkeye ran his palms over Trapper's thighs and stomach.

"Why, Trapper John."

"Don't start, you. That's how the pants are cut."

"Then let me take this opportunity to thank your pants from the top of my --"

"Get up here," Trapper said.

Grinning like a lecherous jack-o-lantern, Hawkeye came up for a kiss. As he kissed him, Trapper made quick work of Hawkeye's trousers and far less interesting underpants. Trapper pulled his naked friend on top of him and their bodies pressed together, skin to skin, all electrified over-sensation building between them as they kissed lazy, deep kisses. Hawkeye was making little noises in the back of his throat and wriggling ever so slightly. Every time he moved, their cocks rubbed gently between them. Trapper growled deep in his throat. A certain tension was building.

"What do you want to do?" Hawkeye muttered against his lips.

Trapper froze. "Um?"

Hawkeye hovered over him with a slight, teasing smile. "Okay, what don't you want to do?"

Trapper still didn't have an answer, so he hid his utter confusion in Hawkeye's throat. His experience was with over the clothes stuff and seemed very childish compared to the speed that he was rounding the bases now. He didn't know what to ask for. He could extrapolate from the stuff one could do with a woman but was embarrassed to ask for anything women did for him; and then there were things he was curious about but didn't think he was the sort of person who did them; and finally there were things he was downright afraid to try.

"Trap," Hawkeye said, "if you don't say something, one of us is going to pounce and I'm not promising it'll be me."

Trapper laughed. "Are you so sure of your appeal?"

"Appealed to you so far, haven't I?" Hawkeye said with perfect egotism.

"I guess you've done it all, huh?"

Hawkeye shrugged. "I'm up for anything you are." His hand slid down Trapper's stomach, hovering just below the naval. "Like this?"

Trapper nodded, watching Hawkeye's eyes.

Hawkeye slid down his body. He kissed and nuzzled in the hollow of Trapper's hip.

"Lie back."

They lay in bed, kissing, as the rim of the world turned pink. In the purply-grey light, Hawkeye's eyes glittered wintery blue. Trapper breathed in deeply. A wreath of little green dusky leaves the size of his thumb hung over them and smelled like fresh soap. Trapper kissed his way down Hawkeye's throat, to his shoulder and back. Hawkeye smelled like patchouli and sweat. He could see, in the wan light, that Hawkeye's slight, early summer tan covered him all over with practically no tan lines.

"Did that hoist your petard?" Hawkeye said, utterly destroying the mood.

Trapper laughed and pressed his forehead against Hawkeye's chest.

"I don't know."

"Would you do it again?" Hawkeye said.

Trapper slid his knee between Hawkeye's legs.

"Yeah."

He kissed him because the groping and the kissing and the slide of skin on skin was much more pleasant than the talking. It would inflate Hawkeye's insufferable ego to admit he'd just received the most elegant blowjob of his life. Trapper only hoped he'd sufficiently reciprocated.

They dozed.

Hawkeye could sleep like the dead on any occasion, but once the stupid birds started chirping, Trapper could only float in a hazy, half-aware state. Was this foolish? He hardly knew where Hawkeye fit in his life anymore. Maybe that's why this felt so right; all the fun, none of the complications. Maybe in twenty-four hours this affection he felt would go away like the flu. He came here to get away from it all. Maybe he needed a break from women, too. Maybe he needed to explore himself, as Hawkeye seemed to be doing, and Louise said she needed to do by going to college and getting a job. How come when people went somewhere to find themselves, they had to do it far away from Trapper?

He didn't want to stultify Hawkeye like Louise said he did to her; he didn't want to suffocate anyone or cause a bad situation with Hawk and Lena. Whatever "agreement" they claimed to have, he personally knew what it felt like when your number one squeeze decided she liked someone else better. He could have handled Louise sleeping with Duke Squarejaw the dancing grad student, as long as Trapper could have carried on with every nurse at every conference who fell for his sensitive listening ear. But Louise broke the rules: you just don't fall in love with your temporary band-aids. That's not how the modern American affair is conducted.

He sort of understood this crazy love life Hawkeye was living. He could even understand why. If Hawkeye was polyamorous, did that mean Trapper would have to be if he wanted to be with Hawkeye? Did he want to be with Hawkeye? If he had to be truly honest, this wasn't the first time he wondered what it would be like to be in a relationship with Hawkeye, although this was the first time he didn't completely and utterly cock it up.

Trapper hadn't really thought about that day, about five miles from camp, when he and Hawkeye were driving back to the 4077th and their Jeep ran over a nail and someone had stolen the spare. And if that wasn't bad enough, soon the entire Chinese army decided to march past their position. For hours.

Trapper and Hawkeye ran from the road and found a boulder to hide behind. Meanwhile, the enemy idly rifled their Jeep for supplies, slashed the tires, and finally shot out the mirrors ("Now that's just low."). Hawkeye was in fine form that afternoon while they waited for the endless parade to pass.

"They pissed on our Jeep!" Hawkeye shrieked.

"Shh!" Trapper grabbed him by the scruff of the flak jacket and pulled him back behind the boulder. He peered over Hawk's head. "On it or in it?"

"What does it matter, they defaced our car. You know what that gets you in New York?"

Hawkeye climbed over Trapper for better view, kneeing him in the gizzard.

Trapper gasped, coughing. "Get down here, you're a perfect target with your head floating up over your body like that."

Hawkeye settled down, grumping with his back against the boulder. "What's the matter with you? You look like you're going into labor."

Trapper moaned. "Only if I'm passing a bouncing baby hernia."

Hawkeye stared. "Huh?"

Trapper pulled his shirt up, exposing his internal bleeding to the blessed, healing sunlight. "You booted me, right here." He probed his fingers in the divot between his third and fourth ribs.

"You're just projecting your pain to your internal organs," Hawkeye said. "You always loved that Jeep. We all did."

Trapper grunted.

Irritation turned to genuine concern. Hawkeye flitted his hand away. "Let me see."

Trapper moaned, too pained to resist. Hawkeye probed his ribs, but quickly figured out what Trapper didn't want him to: the pain in his belly.

"Tummy ache?" Hawkeye said.

"Comes and goes."

"You should stop drinking on an empty stomach," Hawkeye said.

Trapper squirmed under such scrutiny. Hawkeye still had his hand on his belly in the sunlight.

"I'm fine. It's just stress," Trapper said. "Y'know, someone walking by may get the wrong impression."

Hawkeye affected an implacable accent. "'I should think that if people were to get that impression of us, the one to which you so eloquently refer, it would not be a wrong impression in the slightest'."

Trapper blinked at him.

"Oscar Wilde," Hawkeye said.

"When you talk like that, you sound like you took a blow to the head."

Hawkeye delicately pulled Trapper's shirt back down. "Would you care to talk about your stress?"

"What's to talk about? I'm a million miles from clean showers and sidewalks and little girls and their dollies, and every other day someone either shoots at me or salutes. And I don't know which I find more offensive."

Hawkeye poked him in the arm, as he did to make a point sometimes. "You keep all that bottled up, it's going to put a hole in your belly."

"Let it," Trapper said.

"You don't mean that," Hawkeye said.

Trapper sighed. The Chinese were rat-a-ta-tatting a drum now. Badly. The poor rhythm was making him nauseous.

Hawkeye lounged against the boulder, wiggling his butt down into the dry grass. "It's a beautiful day, we're not ankle-deep in mud and blood, is it really so bad?"

Their Jeep blew up.

Trapper pulled Hawkeye down to the ground and they grabbed at each other.

"You caused that!" Trapper said. "That's your fault, that's fate saying not to screw around in a battle zone!"

"I did not!"

Trapper rolled over to look past the edge of the boulder, behind the cover of the scrubby bush beside it. Through the sticks, he could see the Chinese marching, now giving the smoldering Jeep wide berth.

Hawkeye leaned over him, bracing himself on Trapper's shoulder.

"It's okay," Trapper said. "It was those idiots shooting it up. They ignited the gas tank."

Hawkeye hauled off him, crossed his legs and leaned back against the boulder, comfortable as if he was at the beach. "I guess we'll be here a while."

"How long could a convoy be?" Trapper said.

Hawkeye rooted around in his pockets. He came up with two leathery lengths wrapped in paper. "I dunno. Jerky?"

Eight hours later, the stars were out, the Chinese were in, and Trapper was smacking bugs off all his exposed skin. They'd gone through the jerky, Trapper's flask, and were now sobering up to the reality that they'd have to get home somehow. It was looking to be the shoeleather express.

They stuck to the edge of the path as they walked so they could dive into the bushes if any Chinese soldier came by, someone too slow for the march but quick enough with his gun.

"'They say that spring means just one thing'," Hawkeye crooned, "to little lo-ove birds. Let's misbehave!'"

"Frank would say you've got a little birdie singing that on your shoulder on a long playing record," Trapper posited.

"I've got a woman with red horns on one shoulder, singing me naughty tunes, and a woman on the other shoulder telling me 'Listen to her'."

"Yeah? And what're they both saying right now?"

Hawkeye looked him over for a moment longer than Trapper felt entirely comfortable with.

"What?" Trapper said.

"Nothing. Just idle springtime imaginings."

Trapper grinned. "I know what you were thinking."

"No you don't. Never in a million years."

Trapper shook his head in amazement. "You went to boarding school, didn't you?"

Hawkeye glanced at him, all loose-jointed confidence. "Just for high school. Why? Having your own springtime daydreams?"

"It's nighttime."

"So call 'em night dreams."

Trapper brushed the stubble on his cheeks, considering. "What would you do right now if you knew you had a complete green light?"

Hawkeye's laugh was unnaturally high. "The fact that you're baiting me with a question like that means I do."

"I'm not saying anything. I'm not saying you do or you don't."

The gravel crunched under their feet. The camp was probably twenty minutes ahead. Hawkeye wasn't smiling anymore.

"Then how can I answer if the situation isn't real?" Hawkeye said. "We say we'd do all kinds of things when we know we can't really do them."

"I'm just saying, what happens on the road is road happenings. Not camp happenings," Trapper said.

Hawkeye stopped. Trapper paused, about to say something else, like nevermind, he was just fooling around. He had just meant they should go back to the Jeep and see if there was any alcohol in the spare tire well. Instead, he was yanked off his feet. With a grunt, he felt himself backed up against a tree. He was kissed.

His only regret was that it happened so fast, he hardly realized it was a kiss until Hawkeye was walking away from him. He kissed his Swampmate and practically missed it.

"What was that!" Trapper shouted, arms wide, taking in the whole of his confusion.

Hawkeye waved a hand. "A wild drive-by accostment. Happens all the time. There's all sorts of lip-bandits in these hills. How do you think Frank lost his?"

Trapper caught up to him, falling in stride. "You've been messing with me since I got here, you know that? People are talking."

Hawkeye glanced at him, eyes lidded. "So?"

"They don't say much, thanks to our progressive march through the nurses. But still. They're not the only one who's noticed you noticing me."

"You're crazy. Which one of us started this thing tonight?" Hawkeye's pace quickened. Trapper could see his hand picking at his shirt sleeve.

"Which one of us finished it?"

"I believe if it was finished, we would have ended this conversation ten minutes ago."

"Hawkeye." Trapper took him by the elbow. "Are you a homosexual?"

"Have you been bathing in the ether?" Hawkeye pulled away.

"Are you?"

Anger rolled off Hawkeye that was usually reserved for generals. "No!"

"Okay then."

"Are people saying that?" Hawkeye stuck his hands in his coat pockets.

Trapper shrugged. "Not after the punching starts. If you're not a homosexual, what was about that kissing?"

"There was no kissing."

"Excuse me, but --"

Hawkeye whirled, poking him in the ribs. "You know, I wasn't the one asking to be kissed." Trapper met his gaze, hard. Hawkeye scowled.

"Yeah?" Trapper said.

Hawkeye looked at his finger, buried in Trapper's muscled chest. "This is the kind of thing they talk about, isn't it?"

Trapper glanced around. They were almost at the little strip that included Rosie's Bar. Jeeps came by here all the time. He pulled Hawkeye off the road into a fruit stand that was boarded on three sides for the night.

Under cover of plywood, he said, "Yeah, there's the poking me in the chest all the time, the acting like you're a jealous wife, or someone's girlfriend, or a woman in general. You're more convincing than Klinger sometimes."

Hawkeye waved his hand in the air. "That's absurd. This place is so boring, I'm only fooling around to keep from going stark raving loony."

"That's what they mean, Hawk. Maybe you fool around like that because it's natural to you."

Hawkeye laughed, but his eyes were scared. Trapper suddenly felt guilty. What did he plan to get out of this?

"I'm sorry." Trapper touched Hawkeye's arm. Hawkeye glanced down at the hand. Trapper dropped it. "Look, I don't care when you pretend to flirt with me, I know it's a gas --"

"Then why are you bringing this up? Huh? What's the point here, Trapper John?"

Trapper paused. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I just thought you should know what people are saying."

"Thanks," Hawkeye said. "You know that's always utmost in my mind."

Trapper touched his arm again. "Not too many people say it, just idiots like the guys in the motor pool and, well, Frank, but he thinks 'communist' and 'deviant' are the same thing as 'foreigner.' No one is out to get you or anything."

"I'm not after you," Hawkeye said.

"I know, buddy."

"Or anyone else, except Nurse Charlie."

Nurse Charlie was married and had her hands full with Ugly John, but Trapper didn't say that he knew that, or knew that he knew Hawkeye knew that. Meanwhile, Hawkeye had backed himself into the corner of the stand. Well, hell. Trapper hadn't meant this to get so serious. Rumors went around like this all the time, people just laughed it hadn't thought about the answer before he'd asked the question, or maybe he had, he just hadn't thought how the answer would affect anyone other than himself.

Feeling like a heel, Trapper took him by the elbow. "C'mon. There's a gallon of nurses waiting for us, Romeo."

This happened two weeks before the drag bar in Tokyo, a few months before leaving Hawkeye without a note because what he wanted to say he couldn't put down on paper, where someone could find it, and anything else sounded insipid. As they strode into camp that night, it occurred to Trapper that a guy like Hawkeye had a lot of evidence to back up his claim that he wasn't a homosexual, nursing shifts A through C being his first line of defense. So why hadn't he fought harder?

It was the first time Trapper considered that to some guys, sex was like a martini. And while most like it all gin, and a few only wanted vermouth, a couple of guys mixed up their own recipe along a continuum of sweet to dry.