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“Hey,” the stranger said, setting into the seat next to George’s at the bar. “Buy you a drink?”
His eyes were a warm, friendly brown, but more compelling were the dimples as he smiled, and the curly hair that was starting to grey at the edges. He was familiar, somehow, though George couldn’t say how.
“Sure,” George said, shifting his body so he was facing the other man. “That all, or you looking for something more?”
The stranger laughed a lot harder than George felt the line strictly deserved. “You’re cute,” he said. “I feel like I’ve met you before, but I couldn’t say where.”
George nodded. “I’d say the same thing, but I couldn’t say I remember anything else.” It was a relief, though, finding a familiar face in a mostly unfamiliar city. He’d only just moved east, and was still trying to find a replacement for the community he’d found in New York after the war. “George. I mostly drink beer.” He was working himself up to a cocktail joke. Maybe someday he’d even make it.
“John,” the stranger said. He turned to the bartender to order, and George took the time to look him over a bit more. The corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled, and he carried himself with a confidence that George couldn’t help but find compelling.
Over their drinks, George found out that ‘John’ (even odds that was his real name) was a surgeon, and that he lived nearby.
Given the mood George was in, he didn’t need anything else.
-
The location of John’s apartment wasn’t as nice as George would’ve expected from a doctor, but once he stepped inside the apartment he realized that the money John wasn’t spending on rent was going to art.
Some of it looked kind of expensive, but most of it was just interesting to look at.
John looked embarrassed once he realized George had noticed. “I still have no idea what to do with money,” he said. “So I just buy stuff that looks nice.”
“Does it impress the guys you bring home?”
John shrugged. “Sometimes. I think most of the time I’m keeping them too busy for them to spend a lot of time looking at the walls.” He flashed his grin at George again. “You still looking for a good time?”
“God, yeah,” George said.
“Then c’mere,” John said, pulling George towards him and bending down for a deep kiss.
George was shorter than John, but all that meant was he could pull his favorite trick and take control unexpectedly. He’d come to terms with what he liked, but that didn’t mean he was going to be any less of a man for it.
Sometimes other guys were surprised by that, especially if they were older or bigger than George. John, who George guessed had a good decade on him, didn’t seem particularly troubled, instead leaning into the change in dynamic with gusto.
“I see where this is going,” he said. “I don’t mind.” Christ, John had a nice smile.
“Good,” George said. “Now show me to your room.”
-
John’s enthusiasm as George fingered him open wasn’t strange, exactly. Other guys George had been with had shown equal amounts of enthusiasm, but usually they were younger than him, not older, and if John felt any shame at all he wasn’t showing it.
He was really hot, though, in a way that made George think of cowboys more than doctors, or like the kind of guys he’d trained himself not to look at when he was in the Army.
“You’ve got more experience doing this than I do,” George said, trying to cover his nerves with jokes. He’d picked up a reputation for being serious that he was still trying to shake, a decade after he’d left the service.
Still, it was nice when John laughed. “I haven’t had to give a prostate exam since I left Korea,” he said.
Again, something twigged in George’s mind, but he ignored it. “So you’re not that kind of doctor?”
“God, no,” John said. “Now get on with it.”
-
After, John passed George a cigarette as he came back from the bathroom.
“Aren’t you supposed to tell me those are bad for you?” George said, accepting it.
“I’m not that kind of doctor, either,” John said.
“You’re a surgeon, right?” George said. He’d finally figured out why the other man looked familiar, after noticing one of the photographs on the wall that wasn’t covered in art instead.
“Yeah,” John said. “I guess my ego gave me away again.”
George sat on the bed, not sure exactly where to look. He didn’t actually have to bring any of this up. He could leave one of the roughest parts of his time in the service in the past, where he usually preferred to keep it.
“No, it was the photo of you and Hawkeye Pierce,” George said.
“Ah,” John said. “I was wondering if I recognized you from somewhere.” Suddenly, he looked a hundred thousand miles away, and maybe ten years back in time.
“You guys saved me,” George said. Now that he knew where to look, he could see the Trapper John who’d followed around Hawkeye Pierce like a shadow in this man’s face, though aged by a decade.
John pulled a face. “I’m not sure about that,” he said. “We patched you up and you went right back up to the line, and it’s only luck that you made it out.”
“You know why I had to,” George said. If he’d hung around in the MASH he’d’ve proved his buddies right--it would’ve been like admitting that he was weak, deserving of every slur, joke, and fist to the eye.
“Sure,” John said. “Same reason you wanted me to be the woman.” He grinned, just as charmingly as before. “You’re lucky I enjoy it for its own sake, and that you’re good with your hands.”
George felt himself flush. He’d been much less subtle than he’d assumed, then. “I just--”
“If you ever wanna try it, I’m here,” John said. “I think you’re cute.” At George’s expression, he shrugged. “No pressure. But we’re not in the Army anymore. You don’t have to worry about that kind of thing.”
John didn’t look like he entirely believed what he was saying, and George wasn’t sure either.
“I thought you said you weren’t that kind of doctor.”
John laughed. “Oh, my experience there has nothing to do with doctoring.”