Fandom: M*A*S*H.
Author: Epigone.
Pairing: Hawkeye/Trapper, Trapper/Louise, hints of future Hawkeye/BJ..
Rating: PG.
Warnings: Innuendo, present tense. And me attempting to write Trapper, which is terrifying in its own right.
Archivists: Ask first.
Summary: Trapper has to face up to the repercussions of his actions.
Date Written: April 20, 2003.
Feedback: Can be sent to kmaru1701 [AT] hotmail [DOT] com, and is much appreciated.
Colorless
Black and white. That's what they've been reduced to: scraps of paper covered with obscene endearments that Trapper keeps hidden in the bottom of his duffel bag; a few hastily taken photographs of too-bright eyes and too-blank faces; and, one Sunday evening, a television broadcast.
Louise is sitting beside him on the overstuffed couch in the den, and on the screen they see that Clete Roberts is there. He's in Korea, but he's more there than that, he's there, at the 4077th, in the mess tent, as close to Hawkeye as Louise is to Trapper, her hand warm in his. She doesn't see, but Trapper does. Hawkeye looks much paler than before, with dark smears under his eyes like charcoal and his face half in shadow. For a moment, it's Hawkeye's fingers touching him, insistently, fervent as a prayer.
And then the camera turns elsewhere -- to the others, Frank, Margaret, Radar, Klinger, Mulcahy, even a strange new commander, Potter, who looks like a real regular-Army clown -- but finally to him. This new guy, this Captain Hunnicutt, who doesn't seem quite comfortable in black and white yet; he has a softness about him still, a grayness. He probably has the same trouble adjusting to all the green. Hotly, Trapper thinks, How long before Hawk helps him forget those green clothes?, but he is instantly ashamed of the thought.
There's another shot of Hawkeye, but their television set is so bad that almost all they can hear is static.
"Turn it up, goddammit," says Trapper to no one in particular. Louise jumps a little and tells him it can't be fixed.
And he hates this, suddenly and fiercely, so he stalks over and turns it off. He doesn't want to watch Hawkeye talking without speaking anymore, breathing without caring. He doesn't want to see him living without color and know whose fault it is.
~Fin~
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