The bathroom tiles were cool against my hand

[notinflictthem]

CHARACTERS: Hawkeye and you! Yes, you!
DATE: November
LOCATION: Hawkeye’s Clinic
SITUATION: Settling in, making waves, shaking hands, making friends
WARNINGS: Blanket warning that war and injury may come up

Press my corpse against the wall

Hawkeye wakes up to sunlight instead of Radar yelling for helicopters. He has his coffee unhurried, plans out his day. No Frank to yell at him for not shaving, but no Trap to chew the fat with, either. Nobody to complain with about breakfast. It’s too quiet. If he doesn’t see a human person in the next hour, he’s going to start gnawing his own limbs off.

So from about 8am-6pm, the clinic is staffed. The sign out the front reads ‘Hawkeye’s Clinic, happy hour 6-7pm’, and underneath that, more recently, a smaller sign reads ‘100% satisfaction rate; just ask the survivors!’
Inside, Hawkeye is either cleaning, running his tabletop still for alcohol to disinfect with (or drink), or organising his small array of client notes.

I told the band to leave without me

If you actually visit during the signposted happy hour, the table in the middle of the clinic has a tablecloth draped over it, and Hawkeye stands there polishing the couple of glasses he owns. Someone should get him some decent barware. There’s a couple of stools, and he grins as you enter. He’s playing bartender. Indulge him?

I'll get the next flight

After happy hour, the ‘bar’ gets packed up and the clinic gets scrubbed down. If you’ve got a standing invitation for cards, a date, or just want to check in on him off-hours, this is the time to do it. Find him out on his front doorstep with his nose in a book, leaning out the window with a martini in hand and watching the street, or doing something upstairs, the sound of a pleasant baritone muddling through something jazzy.

And if I make it to the mornin' (wildcard)

(Hit me!)

Comments

[notinflictthem]

"Well hey- that's neighbourly of you," Hawkeye beams, moving to take the plate from his hands, peaking at what lays under the cloth, inviting him with a gesture inside.

"Y'know I'm gonna be glad when I can finally stop introducing myself. I'm Hawkeye, name's on the door, who are you?"

[batteryacid]

What lies beneath the cloth is a pound cake -- the same recipe that River la Croix likes so much, so Eddie figures it's already proved its mettle as a good basis for friendship.

"My name's Eddie Kaspbrak, and according to Angel, I'm another one of your marriage prospects," Eddie replies with a wink.

(Of course that little chat with Angel got back to Eddie. In universe we'll say that they discussed it, but really you know this mun is a nosy parker.)

[notinflictthem]

"Lucky me," he beams, tilting his head before he places the cake down- away from his nice clean examination table- and rifles through his surgical gear for a bone saw. It's fine he hasn't had to use it yet.

"Eddie- you're the other guy from Maine, right? The uh- the farmer? You should've heard how Angel was talking about you, absolutely smitten. You want some?" he holds up the bone saw illustratively, "I'll just eat it myself if you don't have some."

[batteryacid]

"Ayuh," Eddie replies (which Hawkeye will likely recognize as a very Maine way to say 'yes'), and he smiles at the mention of Angel. "Well, it's mutual. But I won't bore you if you've heard it all from Angel before."

At the offer, Eddie says, "Sure, I'll have a slice. Breakin' bread together is a good start, so breakin' cake together might be even better."

[notinflictthem]

There's something kind of comforting about Eddie's accent. Reminds him a little of his dad's, in parts, and Hawkeye sets about cutting two equal slices. Being a surgeon, he has better success than most.

"Here- scuse fingers, I don't have any plates down here," he offers Eddie his slice, "and I don't think you want to be using one of my trays. I didn't hear much, except praise and the fact you run a farm. Which part of Maine are you from?"

[batteryacid]

"Not a problem," Eddie says, accepting the slice with a smile. "The farming is new. I used to run a chauffeur service back home, but there's not much call for that out here. I'm originally from Derry, which is in Penobscot County. A little north of Bangor."

(Far more inland than the place Hawkeye has been name-dropping, not that Eddie knows it yet.)

He waits for Hawkeye to take a bite of the pound cake, hoping that it goes over well.

[notinflictthem]

"Oh I see- you're north from me. I'm from Lincoln County, little place called Crabapple Cove, right on the Medomak. I never got to see too much of Maine- I went south for my training and all, and whenever I went back I'd just end up back home."

He takes a bite, planning on continuing to talk, but he has to pause in his tracks for just a moment.

"This is potentially one of the best pound cakes I've ever had."

And that's only mostly the army rations talking.

[batteryacid]

"I suppose that's just what happens when home is a nice place," Eddie says with a smile. He won't elaborate just yet on the darker parts of Derry. Besides, he's found a better home since.

And that smile broadens into a grin. "Family recipe," he says. That it originated in his ex-wife's family doesn't matter. (Though he does wish he could thank Myra, for that and other things.) "Glad you like it. Always seems to make me friends."

[notinflictthem]

"You said it," he agrees around a mouthful of cake, "made with real family, I can taste it."

He swallows the mouthful, still beaming.

"Anyway. Swell little place. My dad had a clinic and my mom had a poetry club with more internal politics than Congress some days. Always used to complain about everyone writing about wildflowers. But back home, there wasn't much else to write home about."

[batteryacid]

Eddie chuckles at that joke, silly as it is.

"It sounds like a nice place, and a nice way, to grow up. I always figured having a dad would be..." Eddie trails off, and then goes a little red. "Sorry, don't let me make it about me."

[notinflictthem]

"Ah," he exhales, "don't- don't worry about it. That's... it's hard, yeah? Sorry to bring it up."

He shakes his head.

"Anyway. Not all it's cracked up to be, sometimes. I had to pretend I was interested in running around and catching a ball every weekend for ten years. He would've jumped for joy if my mother had a dog instead."

[batteryacid]

Eddie nods, and lets that topic of conversation drop in favor of the topic change. He visibly considers the description that Hawkeye gives, smiles a little wryly, and asks,

"You mean he put you in a sport, or he actually took you out to play fetch in the park?"

[notinflictthem]

"Usually in our backyard but yeah, most weekends we'd go out and throw a ball around. It would've been easier putting man on the moon than getting me into a sport. He wanted to put me in scouts, too, but there wasn't a 'pansy scout' division at the time."

CW: language stigmatizing mental illness

[batteryacid]

"Oh boy, do I have news for you about 1969."

It's kind of a smartass comment, and it pops out of Eddie's mouth without him even thinking -- but Eddie is a bit off kilter thanks the 'pansy scout' comment. (It's the kind of insult that Henry Bowers and his gang of bullies would've tossed Eddie's way, had they been a little more clever.) He adds, more on topic,

"Parents really are shit sometimes, aren't they? I always figured my Ma was a special kind of headcase, but I guess not."

[notinflictthem]

"Why, what happens in 1969, other than presumably a spate of orgies across the country?"

So Eddie's further ahead than him, huh?

"No, no, I don't mean to- my dad is great. Really, fantastic, both of my parents are. I just was never a very sporty kid, that's all."

[batteryacid]

"Men walk on the moon," Eddie answers.

At Hawkeye's protests, Eddie looks sheepish. He scratches the back of his neck and says quietly, "Man, I'm getting as bad at tripping over the things I say as Richie was, and we called 'im Trashmouth." Pause. "I don't mean to speak ill of your folks. I just... got similar insults thrown at me, and I made assumptions."

[notinflictthem]

"THEY WHAT?!"

Good news Eddie, that whole business is firmly on the backburner.

"THE MOON IN THE SKY?!"

to steal from Vox... Damn canon characters and their one liners

[batteryacid]

....

"Oh shit, I probably should've eased you into that."

[notinflictthem]

"Now listen Eddie, there's one thing I need to know and I need to know it now."

Hawkeye leans in uncomfortably close.

"Did they find. Aliens. On the moon."

[batteryacid]

Oh, Hawkeye. You remind him so much of Richie.

Eddie can't help but pull a somewhat exaggerated frown, as he reaches out and pats Hawkeye on the shoulder. "I'm sorry. There were no aliens on the moon."

[notinflictthem]

"Goddamnit!" Hawkeye peels away, "I owe one of my buddies $100 when I get back!"

Which in 50's money is basically half a house.

"To think, all of those b-movies preparing us for the alien menace! Wasted! I oughta get a refund on every ticket to the movies I ever bought."

[batteryacid]

Eddie nods understandingly. "Yep. No radar men from the moon. Talk about false advertising. And, uh... depending on when you're from, you sound like you've got some time to save up for that lost bet."

[notinflictthem]

Aw. Man he misses Radar. Misses everyone, but especially misses Radar.

"1951," he explains, "so it's two decades away, more or less. Might need to dip into my retirement fund but I'll make it work."

He scoffs lightly, "Toby will never let me live this down. When are you from? Much later than that?"

[batteryacid]

"Huh," Eddie says, "I was five years old in 1951. As for when I died, before coming here, it was 1985."

(He remembers the year that he was five years old particularly. Not because of any real memory on his part, but because his mother often brought it up as proof of his delicate health -- how he'd nearly died of bronchitis, and that so soon after his father had passed away. If he thinks back on it now, those two events are probably what shaped his mother into the overprotective, smothering woman he knows.)

It's a tiny little overlap of time, but it's more than the almost nothing or the 'I wasn't even born yet' that Eddie hears from other newcomers.

[notinflictthem]

"And if you listen closely, you might be able to hear the arthritis settling in."

Hawkeye does not want to run the numbers on how old that would make him in 1985. So he simply will not.

"Anyway uh- just to circle- circle back, it's nothing my dad said about me. Just what I say about me, that's all. Got distracted with the aliens. Or lack of aliens. Say- we didn't get blown up by the Soviets, did we? New Hampshire isn't Novvy Hampshenberg?"