A kiss to the inner thigh and whatever other kisses you feel like adding- Charles/Hawkeye
(WE FINALLY DID IT, EVERYBODY, baby's first hawkchester.
I rolled one more for you, so you get! A tentative kiss! I couldn't resist that. I haven't written hawkchester until now because Charles intimidates me so much as a character, but I'm steadily gaining confidence in his dialogue. So hopefully more of them soon!)
"Charles, do I ever ask you for anything?"
"Around seven-point-six times a week, on average," Charles drawls as he turns the page of his medical journal, never once glancing away from the page.
"How's that even figure out?" Hawk demands from behind him. "You don't have the numbers. When's the last time I asked?"
Still, he doesn't spare Hawkeye so much as a glance. "This morning, you told me to budge over so you and Hunnicutt could share your inane little quibbles about the duty roster."
"That doesn't count. That's barely—I-I would've asked anybody for that. That's not a you-specific thing."
"Yesterday, you needed to borrow my pen."
"To write on a chart!" Hawk exclaims, sweeping his arm through the air. "Is it my fault my pen ran out of ink?"
"A true professional," Charles intones dramatically, "would never be without a spare."
"Y-You're so—"
"And, for that matter, a man who swears his devotion to the medical practice must be prepared to tend to his duties." Charles finally gives one single look over his shoulder, viewing Hawk from the corner of his eye. "Not scheduling his rendezvous during his assigned shift in post-op."
Hawkeye circles around to Charles's desk and slaps his hand on the surface to head off his point. "It's with Gwen. For the love of God, how many times do I have to miss a date with Gwen before one of you assholes gives me a break?"
Charles, it appears, is utterly unimpressed, simply staring up at him as he clicks his tongue. "Steady. If you spend so much of your time disappointing women..." He considers, glancing toward the wall of the tent. "Mm. On second thought, if we consider the gossip..."
The nerve of him. Though he knows full well words like that are only used to wind him up, the bite of acid stings his tongue all the same. "Hah. Right. Like you're hearing a single word on the gossip train when the nurses won't even give you the time of day."
It's frankly insulting that Charles could sting Hawk like that, then look so completely unaffected by a returned barb. He doesn't even reply. Just goes back to his academic reading like, like he's...
All right. It's not the first time Hawk's had thoughts about him. Notions, even. It was those same mental experiments that led Hawkeye down interesting paths with Trapper, for instance, ones that served them both exquisitely well for the time they had together. He's run games like that with plenty of men—with MPs, aid station medics, and that one extremely interesting occasion with Scully—but he'd never felt bold enough to actually make a move on someone like Charles.
Because it would make sense, wouldn't it? How quickly him and Margaret fizzled out, if they even started down a path together at all. His trouble with finding evening companionship that will have him. God, Charles is in his cot every fucking night, just like BJ, and with a hell of a lot less incentive to be there.
So he...he wonders. He thinks about it sometimes. He...
Yeah. Yeah, okay, he would. Hawk would, absolutely, even if just to push his buttons. To tug strings.
In moments like this, when a concept grabs him, Hawk has trouble surfacing from it, gets so tightly caught in a loop that barely five seconds have gone by, and yet he's spent a lifetime wonderingwonderingwondering, and he's tapping his foot, and he's drumming his fingers on the desk, and—
"What if we make a deal?" Hawk asks.
"You have nothing that could possibly interest me," Charles replies.
Hawk's mouth waters. He swallows. "You haven't even heard my offer."
"Because I already know that it will not interest me."
Undeterred, chest tight, Hawk circles around behind his chair. He grabs the back of it and with all his frail little might, he manages to drag it back a couple of inches.
Charles splutters. "What on earth are you doing?"
"Presenting my case." Hawkeye even manages to sound unstrained, miraculously—he hopes, at least. As he comes back around, there's just enough room to bump past Charles's knees, meet his eyes, and sink down to the floor.
There's such a radical moment of stillness from Charles that Hawk could almost believe that time might've come to a stop. It's not rare to see Charles completely absorbed in his passions, unmoving as he appreciates them with a depth that Hawkeye will sometimes catch himself watching endlessly in return, but this is quite different. It's like for the very first time, Charles is seeing something about Hawkeye, and his body has frozen to allow his racing mind to catch up.
Hawk laces his hands around Charles's calves, giving them a slow rub up and down along rough fatigues. They're not as soft as he might expect when compared to the man's more plush thighs and round stomach. No, there's a rock hard strength in them just like the nurses, like Colonel Potter and BJ both. As much as Charles could be read as a man of utter luxury, he works as hard as the rest of them. He doesn't shirk his duty.
Almost regrettably, Hawk admires that.
He travels higher, easing Charles's legs a little further apart, but he doesn't look down at his goal yet. He already knows he's going to enjoy this—takes a personal pride in his excellent service in this regard. He's very oral. What can he say?
But while Hawk's well familiar with how men will sweat or squirm or even grab him and yank him toward their cock, Charles simply watches him, brow furrowing, like he's...what? A puzzle that needs to be solved? Or an ant crawling up his pant leg?
Hawkeye's mind still hasn't slowed. He was counting on getting his mouth on Charles's dick to make that part happen. But now it rushes ever onward, wondering if it's maybe kind of a shitty sign that he can't read Charles's curiosity from his disdain, and wouldn't that be unfortunate? If not even Hawk's particular skill at pleasing a man could make someone like this—who views everyone around him as imbeciles—thaw?
Somehow he hadn't considered the possibility that after all these months of Hawkeye's irritation beginning to melt into some degree of respect, perhaps Charles still saw Hawkeye as a boy playing doctor, and nothing more.
Hawk's breathing a little too fast now. He gulps down his sudden trepidation as best as he can and leans in, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of Charles's thigh. There's an interesting flutter of eyelashes above him, which seems promising, but the second he glances down, he sees...nothing. Not even the slightest hint of arousal. And he's thinking far too fast for the possibility that he might just need to tease him a bit more.
He knows what he is. Knows the picture he presents. He's pretty enough to be a girl, but his facial angles are masculine enough to be a boy. He can play whatever role someone might need. But he never foresaw the possibility that someone might not want either.
Fingers suddenly find Hawkeye's hair, and they thread through the strands with an elegance that he's unfamiliar with feeling during this act, the kind that half-makes Hawk want to spit on him. It wouldn't take much to read condescension in the gesture. On any given day, it all but drips out of this man's every pore. "Pierce, perhaps these methods are all it takes to sway your endless revolving door of lovers to your whims. But on me, you'll find it's quite ineffective."
Hawk rolls his eyes. Tends to the faint slice through his ribs, the one that nicks the edge of his heart. No, yeah, he realizes that. There's not a bit of lift to be seen. It's actually hilarious how the insult hits him faster than the fear which should rise to the surface. If he just made a move on a normal fellow—completely misread his suspected proclivities—then he could have a hell of a lot more to lose than just a midnight tryst with Gwen.
"I do admit I find your eagerness to sell yourself quite interesting," Charles murmurs.
Hawk sinks his fingers into Charles's pillowy thighs as leverage to start standing up. "You about to take lessons from Sidney?"
Charles tuts out a little laugh. "Oh, hardly." But suddenly his hand shifts, his broad palm dragging over Hawk's cheek, and the intention and warmth there bring him to a sudden stop when they're at eye level. Charles shakes his head with amusement beaming from his eyes. "I have no use for that variety of, ah, pseudoscience."
The interwoven combination of annoyance and attraction strikes him again. "And I'm sure he's crying himself to sleep over it every night."
For once, Charles doesn't have an immediate retort. He tilts his head to the side, and as his glimmering gaze traces along Hawkeye's face, he can feel every inch as he covers it.
"Try not to take it personally, Pierce," Charles finally murmurs. "I'm so rarely stirred at all. Even your best efforts would serve little purpose."
It's interesting that he won't drop it. Hawk chews on his bottom lip thoughtfully, and when Charles's eyes leap to that action, his heart rate skyrockets. As they watch each other, focused on different facial quadrants, an interesting fact occurs to Hawkeye that he can't help but mention. "So why are your cheeks getting so red?"
Charles huffs. His eyebrows rise. "Unfortunately, you are mistaken. See, Winchesters never flush, we—"
As Hawkeye bobs forward, Charles goes deathly silent. Hawk waits. He looks for any feasible sign that he's making a mistake. But when no snide comment is forthcoming, he leans in far slower, and when Charles doesn't so much as move the hand off of his jaw, Hawk settles his weight gently with fingers on his other forearm.
The kiss is gentle. Honestly, it's one of the sweetest that Hawkeye can remember giving in recent memory. And when Charles's mouth doesn't even slightly move beneath his, Hawk pulls back, hesitant, hovering an inch away as he sucks in a deep breath and forces himself to meet those blue eyes.
Charles's lips part. "I..."
"Yeah?" Hawk coaxes quietly.
Charles clears his throat. He shakes his head a little, as though clearing it, then speaks just as softly. "I'm unable to fill your shift for you."
Right. Right. This is a deal. They're bargaining, and Hawkeye is losing. He'd forgotten that part. Forgotten Gwen. Forgotten where they even fucking are. He gives a tiny nod. "Uh-huh." And his mind returns to running rapid calculations for exactly how much trouble he might be in as he continues to stand back to his full height.
"Are you on duty next Saturday night?" Charles asks.
Hawk feels almost dizzy with how much he might've just fucked up his life, and for what? For a pair of pretty eyes? For a brilliant mind and words that so often taste like vinegar? He's a fool. "No," he just barely manages to say.
"Neither am I."
Hawkeye starts to walk away, then pauses. Blinks. He slowly turns on his heel. "Oh yeah?"
Charles doesn't look at him as he returns to his journal. "Quite."
Three long seconds pass. "That's interesting."
"Mm."
C'mon, Hawk wants to say. I just tried to blow you and you barely reacted. I just kissed you and you didn't kiss me back. You can't make me do everything.
But his fingers are tingling. And if he had patience before this war, it vanished barely a week in. Hawk chances, "So maybe we'll see each other."
"I'll be here," Charles simply replies.
Hawkeye huffs in shocked amusement. Okay, so apparently that's all he's gonna get. But it's...it's something, isn't it?
He hovers for a few moments more, staring at the back of the man's head, before he stumbles out into the camp, days worth of thoughts stampeding ahead of him. He's got one date to reschedule, and apparently he's got a new one he wasn't even fucking planning for with a puzzle he might never understand.
