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When Hawkeye first came home, he slept for two weeks straight in Crabapple Cove, packed his car full of everything he would need to start a new life in a 48-hour fit of mania, and arrived at Trapper John McIntyre's house to continue his sleep perchance to dream until such time as he was either forced awake or succumbed to dehydration. When he was awake, he did little other than eat and let himself be forced into Monopoly with Trapper's daughters, who lived in Boston most of the time with the apparent exception of spending their summers in London with their mother and her new husband.
He knew Trapper was worried. He knew his behavior was worrying. It didn't stop him from hiding under Trapper's bedsheets in Trapper's bedclothes, smelling the man he'd missed for two years all around him.
Click. The scent of a cigar wafted through the air with Trapper's breath, rousing Hawkeye from his half-sleep. "We'll split it," Trapper announced.
Reluctantly, Hawkeye emerged from his cocoon. He held out a hand and waited. Trapper was dry by the lack of alcohol in the house, though Hawkeye had no idea when he'd stopped drinking. Maybe he could kill himself with nicotine and tar, instead.
"Nah," Trapper said. He jerked his head and stepped towards the bedroom door, smoke trailing behind him. "Balcony. C'mon."
Even more reluctantly, Hawkeye flopped into Trapper's too-big slippers and wrapped himself in his yellow terrycloth robe, more gin than fabric even after countless washes.
Trapper was leaning over the balcony railing when Hawkeye finally shuffled out to join him, cigar precariously dangling from his lips, ashes drifting in the evening light.
He turned. The crow's feet around his eyes crinkled, eyes like honey. Softer, undemanding: "Hey."
"Hey yourself," Hawkeye murmured, voice rough. This time, when he held out his hand, Trapper placed the cigar in it and watched with half-parted lips as he took a long drag. "It's cold."
"It's drafty. S'different." No steam blew from Trapper's lips as he spoke. Hawkeye felt like he might freeze from the inside. "Girls want Chinese tonight. I told 'em you might think you ain't allowed, still."
"Who's not allowed?"
Trapper shrugged. Hawkeye ashed the cigar against the balcony and passed it back, watching the ember-red tip glow in Trapper's grasp. "Ah, you know."
It was cold. Hawkeye wrapped the robe tighter around himself. "I want shrimp."
"You wanna see a menu?"
"No." Three floors below them, a woman passing by on the well-occupied sidewalk might have caught ash in her hair, if the wind was blowing the right way. "You know what I like."
Click. "Up and at 'em, honey."
Hawkeye groaned beneath the covers. "I got up yesterday."
The rich scent of cigar smoke tickled his nose, even through four layers of blanket. "Why don't you come back to bed?" he suggested.
"'Cause I got work. You're a growing boy and you'll eat me outta house and home." A pause, the press of lips against each other around a cigar wrapper. "You want a smoke?"
Hawkeye peeked. "Are you making me come outside again?"
Trapper shrugged. "Yeah. Get you some fresh air."
"Contaminated with cigar smoke."
"Yeah."
When Trapper turned to leave, Hawkeye followed, only pausing for a moment to find Trapper's slippers and robe.
Click.
"Your lighter's loud," Hawkeye complained from where his face was buried beneath his arms at the dining room table.
"So?"
"I'm just saying."
"Dunno how I'd get a quiet one."
The patio door slid open. Hawkeye could see Trapper waiting for him in the sliver of light beneath his arm.
"What?"
"Come smoke with me."
No slippers, this time. Hawkeye padded out to the balcony in stocking feet and accepted the cigar. "Freud would say you're propositioning me."
"Freud's a quack."
"Really? I thought he was Austrian."
"There's Austrian ducks."
"You're thinking of a platypus."
Trapper snorted, then waggled his fingers for his cigar. "You know somethin', Hawk?"
Hawkeye watched the ash drifting on the wind, like fireflies in Maine. "Hmm?"
"Glad you came."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Trapper shrugged and leaned against the railing, barely acknowledging the slight creak. "Nice to have someone to smoke with."
Click.
Hawkeye peered over the cover of his book, squinting against the light filtering through the porch door. "I'm busy."
"Doin' what?"
Hawkeye shook his book. It flapped like a lame bird.
"Quilting?"
Damn him. Hawkeye hauled himself off the couch and took the cigar from Trapper's outstretched fingers. "I could quilt. It's not that different from surgery."
"They got veins in there?"
"How much do you think I could charge for a varicose batting operation?"
"Ten, maybe twenty bucks."
"You wound me, sir."
Trapper shrugged, smile impish and gorgeous as ever, and let Hawkeye place the cigar in his mouth.
Click.
"I've been waiting for you for an hour," Hawkeye protested, stamping his feet like an impatient toddler on the patio of Boston General.
Trapper just laughed and chucked him on the shoulder. "You drove all this way just to see me on my smoke break?"
Hawkeye shrugged. "Gotta get out of the house some time. I've cleaned everything I can."
"Spotless. Hasn't been that neat since before the girls."
Hawkeye sighed as he took a long drag from the cigar. He never would have expected to become a smoker, but it calmed his nerves. Both of them were smoking half as much as they might otherwise, anyway. "I like them."
Trapper's smile was like a spotlight. "Yeah?"
"I almost wish I owned them."
Trapper laughed and pressed his cheek to Hawkeye's shoulder for half a moment—all they could get away with on the patio at his job. "We'll set up a timeshare."
Click.
Hawkeye stretched with a long yawn, barely emerging from beneath the covers. "It's early."
"Yeah, well, get up, 'cause I ain't lettin' you miss your first day'a work."
A hand uncovered Hawkeye's face and ran the mouth-end of a lit cigar beneath his nose. Hawkeye reached out to take it, only to have the hand snatch it away. "You're a rude man, Trapper John."
"Never said I ain't. C'mon, balcony."
Hawkeye grumbled the entire time, especially when his bare feet touched the cold wood slat floor of the balcony, but Trapper's warmth against his side made up for it.
Click. "Yo, Hawk. Smoke break."
Gratefully, Hawkeye surrendered to Trapper's strong hand on his shoulder to guide him away from the rich relative of someone or other on the hospital Board. His hand snaked down to take Trapper's under his overcoat.
The cigar in Trapper's hand wasn't lit. "You Pavloved me."
He wanted to grab the corner of Trapper's smile to straighten it. "Maybe. What's it to you?"
"You Pavloved me into being happy, you fink."
Even more lopsided. "I conditioned you into spendin' time with me. That's different."
Hawkeye squeezed his hand beneath the overcoat. "No, it isn't."