Hawkeye lay in a pleasant, golden-scented alcoholic haze. He was drifting, flying, high as a kite and still higher...

Ben Franklin’s kite. The self-reference pleased him; in his current state of mind, free association reigned. Thoughts ran slowly through his head, loosely connected...

He wondered vaguely if considering a Martini glass and olive an old friend was veering off the general curve of things considered “normal.” After a moment, he recalled where he was and who he was and decided being normal wasn’t really that high on his list of priorities any more, if it ever had been.

During a long and illustrious career of being Hawkeye, he had, on various occasions, experimented with a few life-and-lifestyle altering substances. But he’d never really got over his early close attachment to alcohol. It was just something that happened to people who regularly dowsed themselves with medical ethanol. Even when reduced to a lowly antiseptic, it had a kick.

Talking of lifestyle altering...

Hawkeye had seen too many bloodstained, damaged, ruined versions of the human body to be unaffected by it as a beautiful, abstract concept.

With Trapper, it was always an abstract concept. The other Swamprat lay with one arm flung over his eyes, sleeping easily. His breathing was the only sound in the tent. Hawkeye had never thought of himself as a particularly inhibited person, not even when he was sober, and he clearly wasn’t.

Wasn’t sober, that is.

Or inhibited, either.

The free associations were kicking in again.

He wasn’t sober, and he wasn’t inhibited, and his hands were already on Trapper’s sleeping form, light, gentle hands. Trapper moaned in his sleep at the featherlight touch. He rolled over and opened his eyes. There were no words as they sank into each other. Neither was fully conscious, which was perhaps just as well. The emphasis was on touch, always touch, holding on and never letting go, escaping into each other like they had escaped into the alcohol, falling in love and lust and into each other...

The increased body heat soothed Hawkeye; it compounded the soporific effect of the alcohol and lulled him away into a place where he was drifting again, higher than high and falling...

Outside in the compound, crickets chirped in the dead of night. Hawkeye was dreaming of the kite with the key attached, hanging where he couldn’t catch it. Lightning struck.

Trapper caught him before he rolled and fell, settling him back into sleep. He kissed him and watched him sleep, listened to his shallow breathing, the only sound in the tent.

I love you, Hawkeye...

Trapper reached for the pitcher with hands that had abruptly stopped trembling. With precision, he poured himself a drink. 

Why do you only love me back when you’re drunk?