They were at it again when he got back to The Swamp.
Not that he could blame them, really. The last week or so they had severe casualties coupled with shelling from their own team. Hawkeye admitted that when any free time became available he hoarded Trapper's attention, so it was entirely possible that Frank and Trapper hadn't so much as spoken to each other in days.
It seemed as though they were making up for lost time. Both men were almost half naked on Frank's bunk when Hawkeye came in.
"Jeez you guys! I could have been anybody coming in here!"
"In this weather? At this time of night?" Trapper stopped to talk to Hawkeye. Frank was pinned under his hips, tangled up in his own t-shirt. "The only person likely to come in is you, Hawk."
"And here I am."
"We can stop if ya want. Move it over to the Supply Room..."
Hawkeye sat on his cot and raised one hand. "Nah, you have more chance of getting caught in there than if you decided to make out in the middle of the compound. No, you kids go ahead. I'm just going to read for a bit."
"You mean you're going to watch! Pervert!" Frank had finally gotten free of his shirt and glared at Hawkeye.
Hawkeye, who had been in the middle of fishing out a skin magazine, raised an eyebrow. "While I don't mind watching, I prefer the objects of my attentions to be a little more, how can I put this, FEMALE!" He found the issue of Nudist Monthly he was after, one with a particularly voluptuous 'object of his attention' on page three. "Anyway, it won't be the first time you two have fooled around while I've been in the room."
"He has a point, Frank." Trapper began undoing Frank's fly. Over his shoulder he said, "We promise to keep it down."
"Good boys."
And they were silent. Not a single word or moan or whisper. But Hawkeye could hear them. He could hear their touches, their bodies.
It didn't disgust him, he told himself. It didn't affect him at all.
He decided to concentrate on his magazine.
But those sounds...those little sounds...
His fingers moved across the page. His eyes following, across the page and off the side where the static pictures were replaced with moving flesh. Back to the page.
He hated them.
The cold did not cause the gooseflesh on his arms.
It was his pictures... it was...
His breathing picked up a rhythm that belonged across the room. His fingers moved again, always leading from left to right, always stopping a little before his eyes. So much bare skin. His pictures were just ink. Just ink.
No...
The air was heavy, a tactile sensation. An invisible person, The Invisible Man, who touched him. They touched each other.
He didn't want this.
As his fingers, and eyes, moved, he felt. He felt the air. He felt the rhythm of his breathing. He felt his clothes against his skin and the coarseness of its shift as his body reacted to what it felt. What it saw.
On the page.
Off the page.
On the page. Off the page.
On the page. Off the page.
Onthepageoffthepage. Onoffonoffonoff.
On.
Off.
He was gone.
Away from The Swamp. Away from them. Away from himself and the things he thought he knew.
He sat on the edge of a wooden crate, somewhere near the edge of the camp. He was almost not moving. Almost, save a slight tremor that coursed through his body. Almost silent, except for the sound of his breath, that materialised outside his body in a foggy mist. He eyes were moist.
He sat that way for some time. On the edge of the crate. On the edge of the page. On the edge. He was not thinking. His brain, deciding it couldn't cope, had simply shut down.
Then, just by leaning forward sightly, he got off the crate and began to walk back into camp. Not toward The Swamp, not yet, but towards the Post Op tent, towards the things he knew. He looked out over the patients, over men whose life had been in his hands. Men he saved. It was the same scene he saw every day. Little things changed, the patients, the nurses. But it was essentially the same. Even back home it was the same.
"Hawkeye?"
"Yo," Hawkeye said. Henry Blake looked at him like he'd lost his marbles. Maybe Henry was picking up something off Radar.
"You're not on for another few hours."
"I know. I was just thinking."
"Nothing like taking a dip in the old think-tank."
Hawkeye smiled sardonically. He wasn't in the mood for humour.
Henry had seen Hawkeye in moods like this. It generally meant the kid was cracking up under something. "You wanna tell me about it?"
That smile again. "Technically I'm not allowed to."
A response like that wasn't all that unusual, Henry found, when folks were talking to their CO. But then again, usually Hawkeye considered himself above all that.
"Off the record, Hawk, you know me better than that." "It's just... I can't. I don't know." Hawkeye started pacing. Henry waited.
"Do you think people really change? I mean, you can't make something into something it isn't," Hawkeye stopped for a second, "Well, you can. But the thing that it was, is what's used to make it something else, so it's there from the beginning!"
"Pierce. I guarantee you that I don't understand a word you're saying."
Hawkeye resumed pacing. "I'm wondering if I've changed. If this place has actually changed me."
"Oh," Henry said, finally catching up, "I think it does. You can't expect to go home the same person you were before. Who we were is just another casualty of war."
"That's very insightful Henry" Hawkeye's voice had taken on that mean edge. Then he seemed to realize and shook his head. "See. I'm beginning to think maybe that it's already there. And I'm seeing things I just don't want to see about myself, things I could have kept hidden if...if I wasn't here."
"You know Pierce, this is the type of thinking that Sidney would just love."
Hawkeye smiled a little. "Yeah, I'd hate to know what Sidney would think about me tonight."
Henry stopped and looked at him. "It seems like you're having a rough night."
"You have no idea."
"There are some things you can't control. No matter how hard you try." Henry didn't know what the problem was, but he knew Pierce. "But there are some things you can. Like I have to go to the latrine and I would be mighty grateful if someone would keep an eye on these patients while I'm gone."
"Thanks Henry."
"Say, you're not going back to the Swamp tonight are you?" Whether it was a problem with his Swamp-mates or something else, when Hawkeye got restless it was usually the last place he wanted to be. "Coz if not there's a spare cot in here you could use until your shift starts."
"Thanks Henry."
Henry smiled. "No problem."
Most of the patients were still awake. A small few would still be awake when Hawkeye's shift started at two am. There were some soldiers that just didn't trust the night.
He checked patient charts and the duty nurse, slipping into a role he knew well, and well knew was just a role. But, for now, it was enough. Henry took a long time, but Hawkeye suspected as much.
"What's that?"
A young soldier that had come in with a shrapnel riddled leg was drawing in a small notebook. He made a half-hearted attempt to hide it.
"Please," Hawkeye asked, battering his eyelashes, "I'll be your best doctor."
The kid laughed and pulled the notebook back out. "Promise I won't get in trouble?"
"Scouts honour!" Having never been a scout Hawkeye just held up random fingers and hoped they passed as some sort of scout-related salute. The kid laughed again.
"You've got a better sense of humour than the doctor that was here this afternoon. He tried to report one of the guys for telling a dirty joke."
"Aah, that would be Major Frank Burns. He doesn't have a sense of humour. We think it comes from being born without a brain. We hear his parents tried to send him back for a refund because of it. Unfortunately for us, God apparently has a 'no returns' policy." Insulting Frank made Hawkeye feel refreshingly good.
The kid handed over his notebook. Hawkeye burst out laughing.
"This is fantastic! Very lewd, but fantastic! If Nurse Beatty sees this she'll have you skinned alive." Hawkeye laughed a little more. "You're John Hendrickson, right?"
"Yes sir."
"Where'd you learn to draw like this? This is amazing, especially for a cartoon."
"I didn't learn it. I just draw."
"An artist at the 4077th!"
Hendrickson shook his head. "Not me sir, I don't draw much anymore. 'Cept for cartoons sometimes."
"Why not?" Hawkeye sat on the edge of Hendrickson's cot. "I don't know anything about art but it seems to me like you have one hell of a talent here."
"My parents want me to go to art school, but I know I'm not good enough."
"So what?" Hawkeye asked, genuinely confused, "You just don't draw? You don't try?"
Hendrickson shrugged. Hawkeye could tell that this wasn't the first time he'd had this conversation with someone.
"I love drawing, more than anything. But I couldn't handle getting it rejected. And what if I got accepted?"
"I can't say I understand you."
"Haven't you ever wanted something so bad that it would kill you to have it, but it's killing you not to?"
Hawkeye shook his head. Hendrickson shrugged again.
"Anything the problem?" Henry asked. Hawkeye didn't even realise that he'd some back. "No, we were just talking," Hawkeye said, "I'm going to try and get some sleep. Wake me when my shift starts?"
"Okey Dokey." Henry patted him on the back. "And Pierce? Don't worry so much."
Hawkeye humoured him with a smile and went to bed.
Hours later, after his shift was over, Hawkeye found himself wondering about Hendrickson's story. He couldn't imagine wanting something so badly yet being so afraid that it almost stopped you. Being afraid of not getting it, of getting it. And almost stopping because of it.
Inside The Swamp Hawkeye looked at Trapper, lying naked in his own bunk. And it almost made him stop.
"Trapper..."
"Hmm. Go 'way"
"Trapp...it's time to start your shift."
They looked at each other, and Hawkeye was afraid.
Not that he could blame them, really. The last week or so they had severe casualties coupled with shelling from their own team. Hawkeye admitted that when any free time became available he hoarded Trapper's attention, so it was entirely possible that Frank and Trapper hadn't so much as spoken to each other in days.
It seemed as though they were making up for lost time. Both men were almost half naked on Frank's bunk when Hawkeye came in.
"Jeez you guys! I could have been anybody coming in here!"
"In this weather? At this time of night?" Trapper stopped to talk to Hawkeye. Frank was pinned under his hips, tangled up in his own t-shirt. "The only person likely to come in is you, Hawk."
"And here I am."
"We can stop if ya want. Move it over to the Supply Room..."
Hawkeye sat on his cot and raised one hand. "Nah, you have more chance of getting caught in there than if you decided to make out in the middle of the compound. No, you kids go ahead. I'm just going to read for a bit."
"You mean you're going to watch! Pervert!" Frank had finally gotten free of his shirt and glared at Hawkeye.
Hawkeye, who had been in the middle of fishing out a skin magazine, raised an eyebrow. "While I don't mind watching, I prefer the objects of my attentions to be a little more, how can I put this, FEMALE!" He found the issue of Nudist Monthly he was after, one with a particularly voluptuous 'object of his attention' on page three. "Anyway, it won't be the first time you two have fooled around while I've been in the room."
"He has a point, Frank." Trapper began undoing Frank's fly. Over his shoulder he said, "We promise to keep it down."
"Good boys."
And they were silent. Not a single word or moan or whisper. But Hawkeye could hear them. He could hear their touches, their bodies.
It didn't disgust him, he told himself. It didn't affect him at all.
He decided to concentrate on his magazine.
But those sounds...those little sounds...
His fingers moved across the page. His eyes following, across the page and off the side where the static pictures were replaced with moving flesh. Back to the page.
He hated them.
The cold did not cause the gooseflesh on his arms.
It was his pictures... it was...
His breathing picked up a rhythm that belonged across the room. His fingers moved again, always leading from left to right, always stopping a little before his eyes. So much bare skin. His pictures were just ink. Just ink.
No...
The air was heavy, a tactile sensation. An invisible person, The Invisible Man, who touched him. They touched each other.
He didn't want this.
As his fingers, and eyes, moved, he felt. He felt the air. He felt the rhythm of his breathing. He felt his clothes against his skin and the coarseness of its shift as his body reacted to what it felt. What it saw.
On the page.
Off the page.
On the page. Off the page.
On the page. Off the page.
Onthepageoffthepage. Onoffonoffonoff.
On.
Off.
He was gone.
Away from The Swamp. Away from them. Away from himself and the things he thought he knew.
He sat on the edge of a wooden crate, somewhere near the edge of the camp. He was almost not moving. Almost, save a slight tremor that coursed through his body. Almost silent, except for the sound of his breath, that materialised outside his body in a foggy mist. He eyes were moist.
He sat that way for some time. On the edge of the crate. On the edge of the page. On the edge. He was not thinking. His brain, deciding it couldn't cope, had simply shut down.
Then, just by leaning forward sightly, he got off the crate and began to walk back into camp. Not toward The Swamp, not yet, but towards the Post Op tent, towards the things he knew. He looked out over the patients, over men whose life had been in his hands. Men he saved. It was the same scene he saw every day. Little things changed, the patients, the nurses. But it was essentially the same. Even back home it was the same.
"Hawkeye?"
"Yo," Hawkeye said. Henry Blake looked at him like he'd lost his marbles. Maybe Henry was picking up something off Radar.
"You're not on for another few hours."
"I know. I was just thinking."
"Nothing like taking a dip in the old think-tank."
Hawkeye smiled sardonically. He wasn't in the mood for humour.
Henry had seen Hawkeye in moods like this. It generally meant the kid was cracking up under something. "You wanna tell me about it?"
That smile again. "Technically I'm not allowed to."
A response like that wasn't all that unusual, Henry found, when folks were talking to their CO. But then again, usually Hawkeye considered himself above all that.
"Off the record, Hawk, you know me better than that." "It's just... I can't. I don't know." Hawkeye started pacing. Henry waited.
"Do you think people really change? I mean, you can't make something into something it isn't," Hawkeye stopped for a second, "Well, you can. But the thing that it was, is what's used to make it something else, so it's there from the beginning!"
"Pierce. I guarantee you that I don't understand a word you're saying."
Hawkeye resumed pacing. "I'm wondering if I've changed. If this place has actually changed me."
"Oh," Henry said, finally catching up, "I think it does. You can't expect to go home the same person you were before. Who we were is just another casualty of war."
"That's very insightful Henry" Hawkeye's voice had taken on that mean edge. Then he seemed to realize and shook his head. "See. I'm beginning to think maybe that it's already there. And I'm seeing things I just don't want to see about myself, things I could have kept hidden if...if I wasn't here."
"You know Pierce, this is the type of thinking that Sidney would just love."
Hawkeye smiled a little. "Yeah, I'd hate to know what Sidney would think about me tonight."
Henry stopped and looked at him. "It seems like you're having a rough night."
"You have no idea."
"There are some things you can't control. No matter how hard you try." Henry didn't know what the problem was, but he knew Pierce. "But there are some things you can. Like I have to go to the latrine and I would be mighty grateful if someone would keep an eye on these patients while I'm gone."
"Thanks Henry."
"Say, you're not going back to the Swamp tonight are you?" Whether it was a problem with his Swamp-mates or something else, when Hawkeye got restless it was usually the last place he wanted to be. "Coz if not there's a spare cot in here you could use until your shift starts."
"Thanks Henry."
Henry smiled. "No problem."
Most of the patients were still awake. A small few would still be awake when Hawkeye's shift started at two am. There were some soldiers that just didn't trust the night.
He checked patient charts and the duty nurse, slipping into a role he knew well, and well knew was just a role. But, for now, it was enough. Henry took a long time, but Hawkeye suspected as much.
"What's that?"
A young soldier that had come in with a shrapnel riddled leg was drawing in a small notebook. He made a half-hearted attempt to hide it.
"Please," Hawkeye asked, battering his eyelashes, "I'll be your best doctor."
The kid laughed and pulled the notebook back out. "Promise I won't get in trouble?"
"Scouts honour!" Having never been a scout Hawkeye just held up random fingers and hoped they passed as some sort of scout-related salute. The kid laughed again.
"You've got a better sense of humour than the doctor that was here this afternoon. He tried to report one of the guys for telling a dirty joke."
"Aah, that would be Major Frank Burns. He doesn't have a sense of humour. We think it comes from being born without a brain. We hear his parents tried to send him back for a refund because of it. Unfortunately for us, God apparently has a 'no returns' policy." Insulting Frank made Hawkeye feel refreshingly good.
The kid handed over his notebook. Hawkeye burst out laughing.
"This is fantastic! Very lewd, but fantastic! If Nurse Beatty sees this she'll have you skinned alive." Hawkeye laughed a little more. "You're John Hendrickson, right?"
"Yes sir."
"Where'd you learn to draw like this? This is amazing, especially for a cartoon."
"I didn't learn it. I just draw."
"An artist at the 4077th!"
Hendrickson shook his head. "Not me sir, I don't draw much anymore. 'Cept for cartoons sometimes."
"Why not?" Hawkeye sat on the edge of Hendrickson's cot. "I don't know anything about art but it seems to me like you have one hell of a talent here."
"My parents want me to go to art school, but I know I'm not good enough."
"So what?" Hawkeye asked, genuinely confused, "You just don't draw? You don't try?"
Hendrickson shrugged. Hawkeye could tell that this wasn't the first time he'd had this conversation with someone.
"I love drawing, more than anything. But I couldn't handle getting it rejected. And what if I got accepted?"
"I can't say I understand you."
"Haven't you ever wanted something so bad that it would kill you to have it, but it's killing you not to?"
Hawkeye shook his head. Hendrickson shrugged again.
"Anything the problem?" Henry asked. Hawkeye didn't even realise that he'd some back. "No, we were just talking," Hawkeye said, "I'm going to try and get some sleep. Wake me when my shift starts?"
"Okey Dokey." Henry patted him on the back. "And Pierce? Don't worry so much."
Hawkeye humoured him with a smile and went to bed.
Hours later, after his shift was over, Hawkeye found himself wondering about Hendrickson's story. He couldn't imagine wanting something so badly yet being so afraid that it almost stopped you. Being afraid of not getting it, of getting it. And almost stopping because of it.
Inside The Swamp Hawkeye looked at Trapper, lying naked in his own bunk. And it almost made him stop.
"Trapper..."
"Hmm. Go 'way"
"Trapp...it's time to start your shift."
They looked at each other, and Hawkeye was afraid.