#which is something i should keep in mind actually bc sometimes i assume that margaret was his first platonic female friend but

[marley-manson]

RE: Hawkeye and friends like, first there’s the point that his personality is aggressively extroverted to the point where he has multiple subplots about all his friends being busy and trying to find someone to hang out with, and he’s pointedly willing and eager to emotionally engage. This already paints him as someone who we ought to assume has many friends, both close and casual.

But when it comes to narrative framing and implication, I’m pretty sure he also has the most friends that we actually see on the show, either through letters or through them appearing, aside from Potter whose character role is Military Guy Who Knows Everyone in the Military.

Like Hawkeye happens to have two friends who also got drafted and are in the area, Stosh and Tippy, and while sure Stosh sucks lol, Tippy seemed like a great guy, and close enough to Hawkeye to go awol because he was worried about him. And of course there was also Tommy, who very much sold the childhood-but-still-quite-close friend vibe. He also gets an invitation to a party in the mail in season 1 lol, and there’s Amy in Letters, in which she mentions previous letters exchanged between them (”You said in your last letter,”) so yk, he’s clearly regularly corresponding with at least one friend and we can assume that there are probably more that we don’t get to see, since this isn’t depicted as unusual or surprising or unique.

Not a friend but incidentally he also reads a letter from an aunt to a patient in one episode to entertain him, which is mentioned as one of several letters Hawkeye has brought for that purpose, and in general he expects to get mail at mail call, such as when he’s surprised that Klinger has nothing for him in The Late Captain Pierce. So we can assume that he corresponds with more people regularly than just his dad.

And within the context of the show this is more than anyone else gets. In terms of people we see on screen or through letters, BJ has his wife and one friend, Trapper has his wife and kids and a Chicago hook-up, outside the military Potter has family, Henry has a wife and his neighbours, Mulcahy has his sister, Radar has family and an ex fiancee and friend who hooked up with her, Klinger has same lol, Charles has his sister, Frank has his wife, Margaret has family and two friends who pointedly exist to show how isolated she currently is...

Like the nature of the show being an episodic sitcom in a setting far removed from the characters’ home lives means that we’re not going to see recurring characters from those home lives. Each character basically has a designated family member at home who gets referenced, and not much else. Hawkeye having three friends from home plus an ex girlfriend who show up in the middle of the Korean war plus a mention of a friend he’s sending regular letters to is a lot more than anyone else gets, and pretty telling imo.

And the two episodes I’ve seen people cite while suggesting Hawkeye may not have good friends at home are The More I See You and Hawk’s Nightmare, so:

I don’t think The More I See You suggested that Hawkeye was a workaholic who couldn’t manage a work/life balance. He prioritized work over Carlye, but he also mentions needing to see her constantly or he’d get the bends. He doesn’t sound like he was too busy for her, or emotionally unavailable, just that he couldn’t place her above his career in terms of importance.

And Hawk’s Nightmare doesn’t suggest that Hawkeye expected his old childhood friends to still be his bffs, or that they’re the closest friends he has currently, or anything like that. He reaches out to them and tells them about his nightmares because a) he’s extremely emotionally open - this is the same episode he tried to have a serious heart to heart with Frank, after all, and b) he’s acting a little extra irrationally here and he knows it, hence his wry “people are gonna know I’m as crazy as I think I am” in reference to him calling random dudes he probably hasn’t talked to in years and describing his nightmares to them lol. It’s weird behaviour. I don’t think we’re even meant to see his friend as particularly cold or cruel in only caring about his $37, it’s meant to show that Hawkeye is being overly familiar with him because his nightmares are freaking him out.

So yeah, imo Hawkeye is a very social person who I fully believe the show intends for us to assume has a big social circle back home with at least a few pretty close friends in it. If we don’t see them (aside from Tommy and Amy and Stosh and Tippy that is) then it’s because the show isn’t about their lives back home.

[let-it-raines]

Did you see that post floating around about the couple who were dating before they started at an office but didn't tell anyone and everyone kept calling them Jim and Pam and trying to convince them they should date bc they were friendly with each other??? Yeah, you should write that for CS

Nonnie, I did not see it floating around because I, well, don’t really check my feed, but @shireness-says did send it to me to write last night. Then you did too, and it seemed like I had to write a little something!

original post | here |

on ao3 | here |

-/-

This is a bullshit job.

Okay, it’s not, and Emma knows it. It’s a job that’s getting her insurance and enabling her to pay her bills after she lost her last job due to her asshole boss’s gambling problems that burned Queen’s Bail Bonds to the ground. Figuratively, not literally, but Emma really wanted to literally burn it down when it meant she was out of a job. And none of the other bail bonds places in town would hire her because Regina burned a bridge with anyone and everyone she could since she is the actual worst and made enemies with anyone who challenged her. Emma doesn’t exactly have much of an education and has a history that’s a little less than pretty, so after eating three saltine crackers for dinner and considering selling her car for grocery money, she bit the bullet and started applying for office jobs that have always seemed like her worst nightmare.

So, that’s how she got here, sitting in a closed off part of Mass General with no windows and possible mold with a stack of files bigger than her that she’s having to put in the computer because they’re going digital. She’s never thought about medical files before and has assumed they’ve always been digital, but the entire department full of filing cabinets says otherwise.

She’s probably going to be vitamin D deficient by the time she finds another job.

Really, it’s fine. It’s not all that bad. She likes her coworkers, and most days she can listen to music all day and get lost in the repetitiveness of her job. Today Emma’s a little cranky because her car wouldn’t crank this morning, and she should have sold that piece of junk when she had the chance last month.

Spinning in her chair, Emma pops an earphone out and looks across her desk where Mary Margaret and Ruby are talking. They both work in Community Outreach, which is an entirely different department up in the land of people and windows, but their boss sent them to help with the digitization because the hospital realized the temps they hired would take at least six months to do all the work if left to their own devices. Emma wouldn’t mind that, no matter how much she sometimes hates it, because it would mean she has a few more months to figure her shit out.

“Morning, Swan.” Emma groans and leans back in her chair, the wheels squeaking underneath her. Killian stops by her desk, taking a peppermint out of the bowl in the corner, and pops it in his mouth. He’s far too peppy this morning, and she just knows he went for a run this morning and then spent an unnecessary amount of time fixing his hair to give it that disheveled look. She doesn’t understand morning exercise people. They may not be people at all. “How are you today?”

“Exhausted.”

“What? No sleep last night?”

“Only a little.” She shrugs and holds her hand out. He tosses her a new peppermint, and she quickly unwraps it, the mint soothing her throat. The cold weather outside always dries out her throat, and having to walk to work this morning did not help. “My car wouldn’t start this morning, so I think I’m exhausted from walking here and knowing I’m probably going to be out of a car.”

His eyes glance up and down her, lips pressed into a firm line, and she expects him to make a joke that will have her rolling her eyes. Instead, he leans over her desk and presses his cheek to his palm, blinking slowly. “Do you need a ride home? I can give you one after work.”

“I can walk.”

“Swan. It’s no problem.”

Emma sighs and leans back, running her tongue against the peppermint. “You sure?”

“I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t. Pick you up at five thirty?”

“See you then.”

Killian knocks his knuckles against the wood and flashes her a smile, walking away from her desk and down the hallway to the IT department, where he’ll spend the rest of the day answering calls from elderly doctors who don’t know how to log into their patient portal. Emma watches him walk away, knowing he won’t notice. Winter in Boston may be hell, but it does have benefits, such as the way Killian owns several fitted sweaters that hug his biceps. There are few perks to this job, and even though there are no windows, there are sometimes views.

When he disappears around the corner, Emma goes back to her files, typing in more patient information, when she hears Mary Margaret and Ruby rise from their chairs, heels clicking against the tile. They’ve got Cheshire Cat grins on their faces, every tooth showing, and if Emma ignores them, maybe they’ll go away.

She knows better than to hope for impossible things.

“So,” Ruby starts, incessantly tapping a pen against the desk to make Emma look up. Her desk has one of those tall, barrier-type things around the top because it’s an old secretary’s desk, which is great for hiding out. The problem is that people know to look for her now, and when they do, there’s no way for her to escape unless she wants to roll right out of the room. “He’s taking you home, offering you a ride.”

“Ruby,” Mary Margaret hisses, “don’t say it like that!”

“Why not? That’s what could happen! He takes her home, she invites him inside for some coffee to thank him, and then one thing leads to another…bam! They’re going at it on her couch!”

“Emma is going to file a complaint with HR about you.”

“If it gets she and Jones together, it’ll be worth it. I mean, come on. They’re adorable, and my God, the sexual tension makes me need some water to cool down.”

“Do you guys have anything new to say or is it going to be more trying to convince me to date the IT guy who walks in here to steal our peppermints and fix our computers when they break down three times a day?” Emma asks, half pretending to still be working.

Ruby and Mary Margaret stop looking at each other and look at her, brows to their foreheads and smiles slipping away more and more each second. “He comes in here to flirt, and you know it.”

Emma shrugs and grabs another peppermint. “He’s a friendly guy, easy to talk to, likes peppermints. I have peppermints.”

“Oh my God,” Ruby groans, dropping her head to the desk. “You’re killing me. Absolutely killing me.”

“You know, Emma, there’s no rule against office romances,” Mary Margaret suggests. “I think you should give it a shot.”

Emma rolls her eyes and keeps typing in patient information. “Maybe I will, but maybe I’m not going to ask him out until my time here is up just to torture the both of you.”

She has no intention of asking him out, but they don’t have to know that.

They gasp, and Emma knows she’s won this round. It doesn’t matter, though, because they’ll be back at her desk to have this conversation again after the next few times Killian walks through the office. And he does walk through the office at least seven more times that day. He has to fix her computer, then Ruby’s, and then there’s a near catastrophe where the digital filing system shuts down. Another time he comes in before lunch, asking everyone in the office if they’d like anything from the hospital deli, and then he comes back with salads for everyone, eating with the three of them and Jeff from IT. Once more he comes in for a peppermint, saying he just couldn’t have his breath smell any longer, but he stays and chats for fifteen minutes about a new ice skating rink he’s thinking of taking his friend Rob’s kid to. He suggests Emma should check it out, and then Ruby makes a sexual joke about ice skating, which is something Emma didn’t even know could be sexual if you weren’t a professional who could do all those lifts and dances or whatever. Emma is fit, but she couldn’t do that.

Finally, he comes into the office a little before five thirty, his car keys in hand, and Emma grabs her things and walks with him out of the office and back up into sunlight, which she forgot existed. She’ll barely get to see any of it, however, because it’s December and the sun basically sets at noon.

She is definitely going to have a vitamin D deficiency soon. Maybe she should start taking vitamins.

She and Killian talk about their days during the ride to her apartment, but mostly Emma sits in silence and listens to the radio, letting her eyes rest from staring at small print and a computer screen all day. It’s an adjustment for her to work regular hours, and all she wants now is to consume an entire pizza and have a large glass of wine.

Or two. Two large glasses of wine sound good.

When Emma opens her eyes, Killian is parked outside her building, his car idling, and she blinks herself away, undoing her seatbelt and sitting up. “Thank you for the ride, Jones.”

“Not a problem, love.”

She twists to the side, looking at him, and thinks of what Ruby and Mary Margaret said earlier.. “You want to come in for some coffee?”

“You know I won’t be able to sleep tonight if I have caffeine this late.”

Emma shrugs and leans over the console to press her lips to his, lingering as Killian’s hand comes to cup her cheek, his fingers threading through her ponytail as he tugs her closer. He tastes like peppermint, and it makes Emma smile.

“I know,” Emma sighs, pressing her forehead to his. “But I need coffee if I’m going to stay up until a normal hour, and I need to deal with my car tonight. Do you think it’s a goner?”

Killian pinches his brows and kisses her again, his tongue teasing her bottom lip, but he pulls back and crosses her arms over her chest, waiting for his real answer, even if she already knows. “I think we can look at it, have a mechanic look at it, and then look at it again when you disagree with the mechanic, but I think it may be time to lay the bug to rest. It had a good run, and I will always hold dear the memory of you nearly hitting me with it.”

“You can’t say I don’t make a great first impression.” She laughs at the memory and the way Killian had told her to go fuck herself, but quickly her heart drops and she groans, wondering how many curses she can mutter in a thirty-second time frame. Probably not as many as Killian did that day. The British know how to curse. “I don’t have the money for a new car. What am I going to do?”

“I can take you to work. We’re going to be at the same place for at least another month or so. And who knows? Maybe you’ll get another job at the hospital. And if not, I can still take you to work and pick you up. We’ve been sleeping at each other’s places most nights anyway. If you don’t want that, there are several different public transportation options. But I think Mary Margaret and Ruby would die if I took you to work in the morning.”

He waggles his brows and smirks, leaning into her, and Emma can’t help the smile that creeps up on her. They didn't want it to be a thing that they were dating because Emma wanted to get the job on her own, so they never told anyone. “They would actually die. I mean, seriously. They told me I should invite you up for coffee and then ride you on my couch, and you know, that doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea.”

“Well, I would have been up for that even without the coffee invitation, love.”

“That a double entendre?”

“Of course.” He reaches over and grabs her hand, threading their fingers together. “When do you think you’re going to tell them we started dating months before you started at the hospital?”

Emma shrugs and leans back, smiling. “Eh, I think one day we should walk in holding hands and let them think it’s new.”

“Tomorrow? I could give you a mark on your collarbone to really drive them crazy.”

“Absolutely not, but nice try buddy.” She nods her head toward the building. “Come inside with me and let’s get dinner. Pizza sound good?”

“Pizza sounds fantastic, love.”

-/-

They walk inside holding hands a month later, and Mary Margaret stumbles while Ruby drops her coffee over her computer’s keyboard. Killian is the one who fixes it, and Ruby is still so shocked she can’t interrogate him while he works.

Emma has a feeling Ruby Lucas has never been shocked silent, and Emma can barely hold in her laughter.

She never does tell them how long she and Killian were dating. She doesn’t think their computers could take it.

-/-

She does find them in their office a year later, though, when they’re back in Community Outreach and she’s working in the conference center – which has windows! – and shows them the ring on her finger.

Ruby, thankfully, didn’t have any coffee in her hands.