The events of the 1957 timeline in Episode 8 add a new layer of bleakness to the events on Fire Island in 1979 (portrayed in episode 7). In 1957, Hawk betrayed Tim to the M Unit in an attempt to sever their connection for good because he had realized that he was incapable of being a good father while also having Tim in his life in any capacity. In 1979, it seems that at least part of the reason Hawk started making overtures to Tim after Jackson's death was because Hawk concluded that he was incapable of being a good father at all, so he and Tim might as well pick up where they left off.
This becomes all the more tragic when rewatching Episode 6. The main cause of both Lucy and Hawk's struggle to be the parents that Jackson needs is Hawk's secret eating away at their whole family. When Tim takes care of Jackson while he's high on acid and talks to Hawk about it afterwards, we get a glimpse of what a good parenting team they would have been if they'd been able to live in a society where they could have raised a family together. There are also some hints that, even apart from the strain of Lucy being Hawk's beard, they were probably both a bit stymied by needing to fit into proscribed gender roles of "mother" and "father" as parents, like Lucy telling Hawk that it's "the mother's job" to worry about the baby.
In Episode 2, Hawk's father offers to reinstate Hawk in his will if Hawk will apologize for "having no shame" and for the fact that his father walked in on him having sex with his First Love Kenny when they were teenagers. Hawk refuses to apologize. This refusal seems principled and admirable at the time, but becomes Harsher in Hindsight almost immediately when Hawk starts making romantic overtures to Lucy that very evening. Earlier in the episode, Hawk had stated his intention to live out his life as an unattached bachelor, so it is clear that (1) his primary motivation for pursuing Lucy was financial and (2) while he was unwilling to injure his own pride by offering his father an insincere apology, Hawk was more than willing to marry Lucy under the false pretence that he was in love with her, and condemn her to a life completely devoid of passion or romantic love in order to get his hands on her family's money.
Fridge Horror
More recent research into the early days of the AIDS crisis suggests that HIV was already spreading amongst the gay communities on the East and West coasts from the mid-to-late seventies before the first official cases of AIDS started appearing around 1981. So Tim was probably already positive by 1979 without realising it. It was really only luck that he didn't have sex with Hawk or anyone else while he was on Fire Island.
Even though Craig was displeased with Tim's presence during the threeway, it's ultimately very lucky for him that Tim returned when he did. If Tim had not been there to intervene when Hawk saw the photo of Jackson on the nightstand, Hawk truly might have killed Craig.
