Did You Think I Was Kidding About Dantrap.

Did you think I was kidding about dantrap.

I think it’s got incredible comedic and angst potential if Trapper’s marriage falls apart and all he can think is that he needs to get away. The war isn’t over yet, and no, he and Hawk never wrote, but Trap imagines that Hawkeye should have his rotation points by now (he does not know they increased them), so surely he’s home. He drives straight to Maine…and he is not there. But Daniel tells him that it’s gonna get dark soon and he’d rather Trap stay the evening rather than driving in the dark, if he’d be so kind as to keep a lonely old doctor company? And then he might as well stay the weekend because there’s a big fair the next town over and traffic’s gonna be hell. And then he just. Never goes home.

I am thinking about things like how Daniel and Trapper start his time there sitting far apart at the dining table and one on the couch and one in a lounge chair in the living room. And how slowly they begin getting closer in multiple ways. Soon they’re perpendicular at meals, not flinching if their shoes or legs brush each other’s under the table. They end up on the couch together because Trapper wants Daniel’s opinion on a recent medical journal and that’s the fastest way for them to read the article and see any visuals while holding a fervent conversation.

It’s actually. Nice. For Trap to not be instantly seeing someone as a potential sexual partner from the beginning. He’d almost forgotten what that felt like. That’s why it’s so incredibly inconvenient when they lock eyes for a long moment several weeks into his stay and he feels the telltale hunger swelling up in his chest. Daniel’s brilliant. He’s clever. Funny. Compassionate in a way that Trapper hasn’t seen in older doctors for a while—so many of them lose their heart over the course of their careers, so tired and frustrated and forgetting to see their patients as humans. It’s really unfortunate that Trapper began to fall for him before he ever realized how sexually attracted to him he is. It’s harder to cut off. It’s been so long. He was so fucking lonely before getting here.

Imagining a night when they’ve stayed up too late talking about everything and nothing. They’re sitting so their thighs are pressed flush together. Daniel keeps avoiding Trapper’s gaze, but Trap will catch him looking anyway from the corner of his eye. So Trapper does something stupid like he always does. He lightly rests his hand on his thigh. Leans in.

“Trapper,” Daniel warns but without much force behind it.

Trap grins. He can’t help it. He rests his other hand on Daniel’s cheek and watches him shiver. There is a faint sense of horror in his gaze. But there is far, far more heat.

So Trapper kisses him, gentle as anything. Lingers close to see what Daniel will do. “John.” Daniel murmurs, “We can’t.”

“Think I just did,” Trapper drawls. “What if I do it again?”

Daniel takes in a deep, shaky breath. “You know why we can’t.”

“I can help you forget it.” Trapper thumbs over Daniel’s cheek. Daniel still hasn’t pulled away.

But then Daniel says, “We have to tell Hawkeye,” and Trapper’s heart sinks all the way to the floor. He can’t breathe. Hawkeye. Hawkeye who has no idea that Trapper is even attracted to men. Hawkeye who might not make it home.

In the end it’s Trapper who pulls back, gets up, and walks to the window, staring into the infinite darkness of the new moon’s night. When Daniel stands, he doesn’t turn. He’s so busy shoving all of his emotions down like a foot in an overstuffed trash bag that he only comes out of it when he hears Daniel’s bedroom door close. He doesn’t follow.