Chapter Text
Hawk turned up two days later.
The first glimpse Tim caught of him outside his apartment building—profile backlit against the sun, hair slicked back, cigarette in hand—had pulled him up sharp, blinking away the vision of a Hawk plucked from twenty years ago. Then he stepped closer and noticed the worry lines around his eyes, the greying hair. Not Hawk from the past, but the Hawk he’d grown into.
“Hawk,” he said.
“Hi, Skippy,” said Hawk.
For a moment, it was just like any other year, Tim caught and held suspended in Hawk’s mere presence. Then he blinked and the world resettled. “You came here for Jackson.”
“Is he here?”
Tim shook his head. “No. But he’s stopping by tonight. Or I can give you the name of the hostel where he’s staying if you want to chase him down.”
He was half-joking, but it seemed lost on Hawk. He said, simply, “I’ll wait. If— that’s okay with you.”
So now Hawk was here, sitting in his back garden. “Garden” was an overreach, as was “his”. Technically it was a patch of scrub grass shared by the entire townhouse and the shop Tim lived above. It backed onto a narrow alley, where trash collectors drove through and pickup soccer and hockey games were played, so the garden itself wasn’t very popular. Tim liked it though. There was a weathered wooden picnic table where he and Frankie had hosted barbeques, and he’d been coaxing some crawling ivy to grow on the fencing surrounding the tiny plot.
He’d brought Hawk up to his apartment first, but it had felt so weird seeing him among his things, a shiny gold bauble among buttons, that he’d ushered him outside instead, out his back kitchen door and down the narrow fire-escape steps to sit at this weathered table, grabbing two beers from the fridge and popping the caps off them on his way out.
Hawk seated himself gingerly on the bench facing out, leaning back against the table. Tim sat down beside him. It was nice out. Chill but clear, the sky still bright. Hawk lit a cigarette and Tim picked at the label of his beer. Hawk looked wildly out of place. And yet, here he was, sitting in Tim’s garden. His heart gave a stupidly loud THUMP.
“I spoke to Lucy,” Tim said.
“She told me.”
“You moved out?”
“Separated. Who knew divorce took two years?”
Tim wanted to ask, For me? but didn’t have the courage to voice it. Instead, he just gave a breathless, wheezy, “Why?”
Hawk was silent for a long time, his fingers twitchy around his cigarette, ashing it when it didn’t need to be ashed. If Tim didn’t know any better, he’d think Hawk was nervous.
“You were right,” Hawk finally said. “Last year, I mean. I hadn't thought about it. What we would do—what I wanted—when the kids moved out and I didn't have that excuse anymore. I didn't let myself think about it, because… I couldn't even imagine it. Completely outside the realm of possibility. And then there was Lucy…”
“You made a commitment,” Tim said hollowly.
“’Til death,” Hawk said. He blew out a long trail of smoke and watched it disappear into the sky. “She knew, you know.”
“About— not about us,” Tim said, incredulous. “For how long?”
Hawk nodded. “That year you came to the cabin. What was that, ‘68?”
Tim remembered. He could hardly forget. He and Hawk were supposed to have had the house to themselves for the week, and instead Lucy and the kids crashed in for some party Hawk had apparently forgotten about and Tim was shunted off to the cabin. He’d been so bitter. Crazy with longing for the life that had been so tantalisingly close, so hopelessly out of reach.
And then he’d met Jackson.
It hit him like a bolt of divinity as he was watching over Jackson sleeping: if Tim had gotten what he most truly and desperately desired in 1954, if Hawk had decided not to get married and to run away with Tim instead, this miracle of a human being, who was so like Hawk and so not like him at the same time, would not now exist.
He’d prayed right then and there, begging for the strength to surrender himself to God’s plan. But God had kept putting Hawk back in his path.
Lucy had come to the cabin that night looking for her son.
Tim heard the car on the drive and went outside to the porch, expecting to see Hawk, and was shocked speechless when his wife got out of the car instead. Their mouths gaped as they stared at one another. Finally, Tim said, “He’s inside,” and Lucy had walked back out five minutes later, a sleepy Jackson trudging beside her. And that had been that.
He’d assumed… well, he’d assumed that Hawk did what he always did, which was to lie. Effortlessly. Play him off as an old army buddy or something, in town for the weekend to catch up. Apparently not.
“All this time?” Tim asked, still shocked.
“Longer, even,” Hawk said. “She knew from the start. Or, suspected, anyway. She just never said anything. Until then.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What would it have changed?” Hawk said with a shrug. “By the time I saw you again, things had already settled. But it was… bad. For a long time. She was so angry. Hurt. Understandably. I didn’t want to lose the kids, but I told her I’d do… whatever she wanted. But she decided—we decided—we wanted to keep raising a family together. We’d built a life. And… for what it was, it was a good one. I didn’t regret that.
“But that was the deal. No more bringing him—you—home, limited contact. If I was going to be there, I wanted to be there.”
Tim swallowed, hardly believing what he was hearing. “And… the vacations?”
“I don’t know how long she suspected, before— but yes. After that, she knew. She… allowed me that. And I was grateful.”
“Wait, that was the year— you bought the Fire Island house after that.”
Hawk nodded. “She knows.”
Tim felt dizzy. He said again, “I can’t believe… all this time…”
“Does it change anything?”
“I’m— not sure.” What did it change? That he had unknowingly been part of this—arrangement, there was no other word for it, that Lucy had known about, had allowed—all this time?
“She knew my name,” Tim said. He known—at least, he’d assumed, had hoped—that he was more than just a hookup to Hawk. He’d never been jealous, not really, of the one-night stands, the twinks on Fire Island. But there was a difference between knowing—hoping—he wasn’t just a hookup, and Hawk’s wife knowing his name. He’d thought those lines between Hawk’s worlds had been sealed with mortar.
Hawk waved a hand, looking sheepish.
“If you were going to make me part of a throuple, I would prefer to have known about it,” Tim said with mock-affront, and Hawk spluttered around his cigarette, launching into a bent-over coughing fit. When he straightened back up, his eyes were red and watery but he was grinning.
Tim laughed, feeling manic, as something else occurred to him. “Wait, so when you called, a few months ago…”
Hawk winced. “Let’s just ignore that.”
“You were trying to—”
“I just wanted to keep you in my life, Skippy. In whatever way I could. And I knew we wouldn’t be able to see each other without—” Hawk gestured with a wave of his hand.
Tim huffed out a pained laugh. “Always so sure of yourself.” He was still thumbing at the label on his beer, and it was hanging on by a thread, wet with condensation. He took a quick swig to steal himself. “Did you know we’d broken up?”
“Ah—” Hawk glanced at him, then away. “I may have asked Marcus.”
“What would you have done? If we hadn’t.”
“I have no idea,” Hawk laughed. “Wait it out?” When Tim bristled, he added hastily, “I honestly don’t know, Skippy. Really. This is new to me. Should I have come riding in on a white charger to steal you away? You seemed like you knew what you wanted. And…” He reached out, as if to touch, but then turned the gesture into a meaningless flick of his wrist, his cigarette dangling between two fingers. “Anyway, what did I really have to offer?”
Tim shook his head, incredulous. Very nearly angry.
“You know, last year…” Tim cleared his throat. There seemed to be something caught in it. “It felt like we broke up. Which was stupid, right? How could we break up when we were never together? But it was… the worst I’ve ever felt, in my life. Outside of when you told me you were going to marry Lucy. And when Jackson was— when we—”
He took a breath. Their lives had been nothing but a series of partings, every single one of them painful. But it was only after this most recent time, when he thought it would be for good, that it finally hit home that the partings meant that at least they’d been able to see each other at all.
“I kept telling myself it didn’t matter. That it was never real, so it shouldn’t matter. But when I thought I’d never see you again…” His voice broke. “I didn’t want to never see you again.”
Hawk huffed out a breathless laugh, as if in wonder. He swallowed once, twice. Then he said, “Were you ever going to let me in on this?”
Tim grinned around the lump in his throat. “I was working up to it. I sent you a postcard, didn't I?”
“Hardly a ringing endorsement.”
“Likewise,” Tim said pointedly, just to watch Hawk squirm. Then, more seriously, he added, “It took me a while to stop lying to myself. I really thought I could make it work with Arthur.”
“I really thought I could make it work with Lucy,” Hawk said, and when Tim gave him a look he waved him away. “Not. Like that. Obviously.” He shuddered. “But… we were close, once. I thought we’d stay that way. I thought we’d be able to raise a family together.”
“How is she?” Tim asked. It was weird to think of her and not feel the usual stirrings of bitter jealousy. He didn’t know what he felt. Awe, maybe. And, empathy. She was just one more person who didn’t get exactly what they wanted out of life. It didn’t matter that all the pieces Tim wanted, she had, because maybe the opposite was also true.
“She’s… things have been better, these past few years. But she’s worried about Jackson. He’s been so… teenagers are supposed to be moody, right? But this is— he’s impossible to reach. Out all the time, barely graduated, doesn’t want to go to college, and now he’s run away from home? I don’t know what to do with him anymore.”
“Did you know he sold his guitar to buy a ticket here?” Tim asked, and Hawk looked at him sharply, shock clear on his face. “He doesn’t want to go back, Hawk. And… he came here because he was chasing a friend.”
“He— what?”
“I didn’t ask,” Tim said quickly. “I don’t know if it’s more than that, and I didn’t want to push, but— you really should talk to him, Hawk. Honestly.”
He let that sit a minute, gearing himself up before adding, cautiously, “And… there’s something else you should know. He’s read your letters. Our letters.”
Hawk blanched. “Well, fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. But… now you can talk to him, right? The band-aid’s off.”
“God,” Hawk said, then let his head crash into his hands, elbows on his knees, the smoke from his cigarette still trailing into the air above his head. “Skippy… what am I doing? I have no clue what I’m doing.”
Tim hesitated, his hand hovering above Hawk’s back. Then, cursing himself for being silly, he let it drop, rubbing comforting circles between Hawk’s shoulder blades. “Talk to him, Hawk. Just talk to him.”
Hawk coughed, straightening, then wiped roughly at his eyes with the back of his hand.
Tim said, “You know, Berkeley has a great music program. World-renowned. If he’s dead set on staying here and you wanted to offer a compromise.”
Hawk stubbed out the butt of his cigarette, then dug out a new one from the case in his jacket pocket. Tim watched him go through the ritual of tamping it down and lighting it, and for a few minutes they just sat side by side in silence as Hawk smoked and regathered himself, the distant noises of the city around them a familiar backdrop. It was… comforting.
Eventually, Hawk turned towards him and, swallowing, said, “What about you and me?”
“I guess that’s up to you.”
“I’m sorry about the poet.”
“Arthur,” Tim corrected.
“Arthur. I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t…” Tim shook his head, an ache in his chest. “Wasn’t meant to be, I guess.”
Hawk nodded. Then, almost like he was nervous about it, he said in a rush, “I started working for Senator Cranston.”
Tim blinked. “What?”
“A few months back. D.C.’s basically dead in the summer and his home base is here, so we’ll be having him doing a lot of fundraising—”
Tim’s head was spinning. He said, senselessly, “But he’s— a Democrat.”
Hawk laughed, almost manic. “Kimberly still has one year of high school, and I want to be there for that, for her, even if I’ve moved out. But she’s away at camp for most of the summer and I thought— thought we could—”
“Hawk,” Tim said. He felt lightheaded. “Hawk, what are you—”
“I’m saying I’m going to be in San Francisco for most of the summer, Skippy.”
“You— wha— were you ever going to tell me?”
“I was working up to it,” Hawk said. Then he grinned, all wide eyes and faux innocence. “I sent you a postcard.”
Tim laughed, and for a heady moment it was as if the world fell away. Just him and Hawk, just like always.
And then, like always, the world reimposed itself around them.
“You’ll be here for the whole summer,” Tim said, smiling. It made him so happy. And already he could feel the ending contained within it. “And then what?”
“Skippy…” Hawk stood, and it wasn’t until he was pulling Tim to his feet that Tim realised how tense he was. “Skippy,” he said again, and by inches, pulled Tim into his arms. One arm came around his waist, one over his shoulder, and before Tim realised it, he was clinging to Hawk’s back, his face pressed to Hawk’s neck. Hawk said, “Can we figure that out together?”
Together? Tim pulled back, blinking through tears to gauge Hawk’s seriousness. His smile was wry but his eyes were imploring.
“This doesn’t fix anything,” Tim said, partly to remind himself.
“I know,” Hawk said.
“We need to— talk. Really talk.”
“I know,” Hawk said. “Skippy. I have no idea what I’m doing here. I need you to meet me halfway.” He took Tim’s face between his hands. “Make it easy for me?”
“You’re really getting divorced?” Tim asked wonderingly.
“I’m really getting divorced.”
“You really… want to leave D.C.?”
“Ahh, let’s call Cranston a trial run.” Tim stiffened, and Hawk hastily amended, “I meant for you, Skippy. You don’t know— I’m impossible to live with, and it’s been so long since we’ve been together for more than a week at a time, and—”
Tim cut him off with a finger to Hawk’s lips. “Hawkins Zebediah Fuller, I know you. And if you think I will ever let you go now…”
Hawk brushed Tim’s hand away and kissed him.
When they finally pulled apart, aeons later, Tim couldn’t stop smiling. “What about— the foreign posting you've been working towards all this time? What about complete personal freedom?”
Hawk shook his head. He said, solemnly, “I found my freedom.”
Tim spluttered with laughter, half out of his mind with giddy joy. “That is— the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard in my life,” he said, his voice choked, but he leaned in to kiss Hawk anyway, and the world melted away.
***