Chapter Text
It all started with a soldier. A patient of mine. Quite possibly the most beautiful man I'd ever met. Brunette, chiseled jaw, finely sculpted muscles, extraordinary green eyes. Sergeant Ross Reynolds. A more fitting name would have been Adonis.
He had (fortunately for me) fallen into a foxhole and sprained an ankle. He was (even more fortunately for me) homosexual and interested. As a general rule I only had sex with women while in camp, and I didn't exactly make a habit of taking advantage of my patients, but this sergeant was so stunningly handsome that a eunuch couldn't have passed him by.
Really. I swear.
And what a sweet talker, too. He made me feel like I was doing him the favor. I know that I'm a handsome devil, but this man... damn. My scruples never stood a chance. Surely it didn't count as taking advantage of the physician-patient relationship if said patient made the first pass. No concussion; no potentially inhibition- or judgement-compromising medication: all considered, good enough for me.
Well, that's what I was going with. A eunuch, I was not.
So, there I was, shirtless and pinned against a shelf in the supply hut by this gorgeous infantryman. His tongue was teaching mine astonishing new tricks as his hands made impressively short work of my belt and pants – 'impressive' given the utter lack of coordination that had landed him at the 4077 in the first place, at least.
Meanwhile, I delved below his clothing with one hand to map the smooth muscle of his back and side, the contour of his hip, and the curve of his ass, reveling in his sensuality as well as in the sheer size of the man. Because, honestly, it was nice to feel delicate every once in a while.
My other hand was beneath his shirt, pressed to the small of his back, both holding him close and providing support; he'd lost the crutches a couple of feet away and we hadn't yet made it to the cot. I didn't feel like breaking off the kiss long enough to point out that I couldn't walk there with my pants around my boots, and, anyways, the way his hands were dipping below the waist of my boxers made me think that those wouldn't be around my hips for much longer either. My free hand was teasingly working its way toward the fly of his trousers when I heard the door open.
You are so fucked, my mind informed me helpfully.
And that was why I didn't have sex with men in camp. Some inconsiderate person fails to heed the hanger on the door – the camp-wide signal indicating that the room was occupied (Yep, something to see here, kindly move along), because the Army, in all its infinite wisdom, was for once probably correct in thinking that there was officially no good reason to be able to lock that particular door from the inside – and suddenly you find yourself on a plane home with a dishonorable discharge dogging your steps for the rest of your life. Unfortunately the safer, more remote locales that I'd desired for our little tryst – the minefield, for example – weren't easily accessible on crutches in the dark. And we'd been impulsive.
So here we were. Screwed. And not in the sense I'd been anticipating since Reynolds and I had made eyes at each other earlier that day in Post-Op.
I broke the kiss, panting for breath, and looked at the door to my left. Before Reynolds even had a chance to yank his hands out of my boxers there was a flash of bright light and an oddly familiar clicking noise that reminded me a lot of— oh, shit. I blinked frantically and when my vision cleared I saw Private Donner silhouetted in the doorway, camera in hand.
Well, that answered the question of who would come to the supply hut at 3 a.m.
And, most likely, why. After all, a private had to make his gambling money somehow, I supposed. While the military was probably making its soldiers' overseas duty at least somewhat financially worthwhile, especially considering the messy state of the job market back in the states, what with so many veterans from the last world war returning to an economy full of competent women in the workplace, there were plenty of servicemen in this war – sorry, this police action – willing to set aside their principles (assuming they possessed them in the first place) for some extra spending money – though Donner's approach seemed a bit over the top, in my humble opinion.
With my mind going a mile a minute, I locked eyes with Reynolds for a split second and we silently shared a moment of mutual panic. Then he jerked away, abruptly untangling our limbs, and hopped awkwardly over to the shelves I'd been pressed up against, his injured ankle carefully upraised in its brace. By putting space between us he inadvertently showcased the very obvious erections tenting our fatigues. I self-consciously bent to pull up my pants and retrieve his crutches.
It absolutely horrified me that our futures were so abruptly held in this kid's hands – or, more specifically, in the kid's camera. And I do mean 'kid' – despite his impressive height, the blond corpsman hardly looked 18.
"Donner," I greeted him with caution as I fastened my pants and belt. I was (I felt) exhibiting great restraint, holding my tongue until I could figure out how to best talk my way out of this fix.
"Hawkeye." His voice was smooth and completely devoid of warmth. "Nice to see you. Here. Tonight."
"Well, I'd love to say the same," I told him with false cheer, "but you kind of caught me at a bad time." And so much for keeping my big mouth shut.
"Is that so?" he replied mockingly.
"That's so," I fired back primly. "Tonight was just the dressed rehearsal. Sorry to disappoint, but the show doesn't open until tomorrow."
In my peripheral vision I saw Reynolds' head snap to me, eyes wide, brow furrowed. He was probably wondering what the hell I thought I was doing.
Fuck if I knew. My mouth was on autopilot.
"You wouldn't mind too terribly coming back then, would you?" I finished snidely.
I waited a moment for Donner to respond to any of the words that had just tumbled out of my mouth, but he seemed content to stare at me with an inscrutable expression on his face. Reynolds, meanwhile, pursed his lips but held his tongue, seeing as how I was apparently on a roll. For the most part, his gorgeous green eyes remained warily on our uninvited guest after having graced me with a sidelong incredulous scowl, though he did look to be occasionally scanning the room and open door speculatively with the air of an experienced soldier. I could only hope he wasn't scouting for some sort of deadly weapon. The sergeant had come across as a complete sweetheart in the hours since I'd met him, but you could never tell with men who voluntarily signed up to shoot people as a career.
Best to handle this clusterfuck with words before anyone got trigger-happy. "Ah, I see that you're the strong, silent type," I said to Donner when it became clear that no reply would be forthcoming. The gibe garnered no reaction whatsoever from the kid. "Like me." Nope. Still nothing. "I can appreciate that."
The private never so much as blinked, and Reynolds subtly shrugged one shoulder when I chanced a glance in his direction, obviously ceding the floor to my admittedly dubious judgement for the moment.
Because, really, what was the proper course of action when your prospective blackmailer held your future hostage in his overly-large hands and then refused to name a single demand, stipulation, order, or anything else that might possibly be expected in such a situation? If it was supposed to be some continuation of his original gloating, he was doing it wrong. If he was aiming for intimidating – or at least unsettling – then I supposed he was on the right track, at least.
After further nerve-wracking silence I caved with a sigh. "Why don't we cut to the chase," I suggested finally. The private's unwavering, intense gaze was edging toward whatever you'd call the level somewhere beyond 'creepy,' but I couldn't quite make out the emotions buried beneath.
"If that's what you want," Donner said, masterfully pulling off complete apathy.
I tried that neutral expression on for size and didn't need a mirror to tell me that I'd failed miserably. Maybe because I wasn't a sociopath. "You know, I'd like that, yeah."
"Fine." He jerked his chin in Reynolds' direction. "You – get lost. I just want to deal with Hawkeye."
My Adonis shot me an apprehensive look. "How you wanna play this?" he asked, sotto voce, in his adorable Southern drawl that really shouldn't have been so tantalizing given the current situation. "I might could –"
I huffed a quiet breath to prevent my mental eye roll from becoming a physical one, not wanting to insult Reynold's knight-in-shining-armor reflex. Any physical altercation – the kneejerk reaction I knew that my sergeant was about to voice – was going to turn his sprained ankle into a full break, I knew, and while that wasn't exactly the end of the world, I felt confident that I could get us out of the sticky situation with no bodily harm. Not to mention that with the sergeant's handicap and my pitiful lack of combat experience beyond sloppy sucker punches, this overgrown kid might very well have the upper hand. And, most importantly, any sign of a scuffle was likely to bring the attention that Reynolds and I had specifically been avoiding.
"No," I interrupted him softly. "I'll talk to him. Head back to Post-Op." I raised my voice to a normal level. "We're all adults here – I think." I shot the fresh-faced Donner a dubious glance, and Reynolds rapped me smartly on the boot with the tip of one crutch to remind me to behave. "There's no need for violence," I concluded blandly with a somewhat resigned glance back in my would-be-lover's direction. I followed up with a tiny (fake) smile and tilted my head minutely toward the door.
"Can't say I'm overly fond of this talkin' notion," he objected uneasily, shifting his weight in my direction rather than toward the exit. "'Specially the part where I leave you high an' dry to deal with a problem that belongs to the both of us."
"Don't worry. I can handle this," I assured him with what was, in hindsight, an overwhelming amount of arrogance. "My silver tongue can talk a nun out of her habit in three seconds flat." My reassuring fake smile was replaced by a reassuring slightly-less-fake smirk.
"That ain't a nun," he countered, jerking his head toward Donner. In case I'd missed it, I supposed.
The subject of our whispered conversation crossed his arms with an obnoxiously loud sigh but didn't interrupt, apparently willing to wait for my exchange with Reynolds to reach his desired conclusion.
"He wants to blackmail us," I pointed out, trying to keep my irritation with Donner out of my tone. My sergeant didn't deserve being on the receiving end of any sort of misplaced anger when all he wanted was to protect us. "We have to be alive and fairly healthy to be able to pay him off."
Reynolds scowled – the new creases on his face being another thing that really shouldn't have been so adorable at that particular time. "It's the 'fairly healthy' part that's got me worryin'."
"Relax," I told him gently. "I'll work things out. I promise."
"You know this snake?" he asked suspiciously.
"Kind of." Not really, I amended silently. I'd seen Donner around since his arrival several weeks ago, but our interactions were generally limited to him bearing patients to and from my operating table. Not a lot of time for idle chat then. I didn't even know his first name.
Reynolds apparently took my acquaintance with the boy as some sort of endorsement for his character. "Alright," he murmured with a frown and a shake of his head. "Good luck sweet talkin' him. Get up with me when you're done an' let me know if I should start plannin' a career change." Adjusting his crutches, he graced me with one last soft look of concern and hopped out into the night. Well, the early morning.
As soon as the door closed Donner fixed me with his full attention. He began to stalk forward with a grace that belied his rangy build. His body language – that smooth prowl and the tautness reminiscent of a cat about to spring – finally helped me decipher that peculiar expression on his face.
It was predatory lust. Alarm bells began sounding in my head.
"Did you know that the Army likes to give out dishonorable discharges to freaks like you?" he asked me impassively as he slowly sauntered closer.
He was the suave, practiced hunter to my shocked, deer-in-headlights prey, and I was wishing fervently that I hadn't sent my soldier on his way before I'd figured that out. Unfortunately if I shouted for help I was risking unwanted attention.
Also, why was Donner calling me a freak while looking at me like that? My mouth turned into a remarkably accurate imitation of the Sahara Desert.
"Let me guess," I managed after an embarrassingly audible gulp, then predicted with all the coolness I could muster: "You're going to tell me what terms would cause you to come down with a case of selective amnesia." And with the expression he was wearing I began to worry a bit more about what, exactly, said terms would entail. Was the kid that desperate for a blow job or something?
Then he was within arm's reach. "Something like that," he said quietly, gently setting the camera down on a nearby shelf, just far enough away from me to make it clear that I wasn't getting past him to touch it.
I was still eyeing said camera and waiting to hear his terms when his fist slammed into my jaw. In short order the ground rushed up to hit me in the opposite jaw. I've always heard that phrase about seeing stars, but I think that that may have been downplaying it, because I didn't get a few measly spots of light; I got a 4th of July fireworks celebration. Before my vision cleared, Donner's hand had wrapped around my throat and started squeezing. I struck blindly up at the offending arm but it must have been approximately the length of a Sherman tank because I wasn't coming into contact with anything more sensitive, like a face near the end of the arm. It's pretty impressive when someone has arms longer than me. I was feeling less than impressed all the same.
Perhaps that would come later.
Some part of my consciousness that wasn't concerned with things like breathing supplied: This is not how this conversation is supposed to go.
I was hoping against hope that my sergeant had heard the noises of the meaty fist colliding with my jaw and my resulting full-body flop onto the wooden floor and would be busting down the door – well, okay, opening the unlocked door – to rescue me at any moment, but realistically I knew that Reynolds would've been at least halfway back to Post-Op by then, crutches and klutziness aside. Which was likely at least part of the reason behind Donner's slow prowl and very abbreviated version of the evil villain monologue.
Donner was squeezing tighter and my struggles were getting weaker when he suddenly released me.
Go! Run! my mind ordered, but my body just lay there and wheezed. I heard him talking over the rush of blood in my ears.
"Alright, Hawkeye," he said casually, as if he hadn't just been choking me. He crouched in front of me to give me his conditions and I was reminded of a playground bully forcing his vanquished foe to eat sand.
This was the rest of the evil villain monologue, I decided hazily.
"Here's what you're going to do," he began. "You're going to stay put. You're going to be a good pervert and you're not going to fight me. If you do I'll make you regret it, you understand, and I'll still get what I want out of you. And, you're not going to breathe a word of this to anyone or I'll blow the whistle on the depravity I just caught on film."
Part of me was surprised that the kid knew the word 'depravity.' Part of me was indignant that he was applying the word to me after his behavior thus far. But most of me was a little terrified of what 'what I want out of you' entailed if the starter was a bruised trachea. Unfortunately I couldn't disagree or negotiate better terms as breathing seemed to be the most I was capable of at the moment.
Donner efficiently rolled me fully onto my back and started loosening my belt. I immediately felt like I'd just had an ice water transfusion.
This is not happening, my brain insisted.
I put my hands on his and prepared to put up a struggle when the thought of a dishonorable discharge and its ramifications on my future stopped me. It would get me out of Korea, sure, but it would also hound me throughout my civilian life. I wouldn't be able to practice medicine anywhere. And medicine... medicine was my life.
Hell, even beyond that, both Reynolds and I could be thrown in prison if Donner decided to claim that we'd engaged in the Army's definition of sodomy (which, to be fair, had been the goal, though I'd never have chosen such a reprehensible name for something that just boiled down to a perfectly harmless good time had by two willing and eager participants). I'd heard of men getting five years at Leavenworth for sodomy based on a lot less proof than Donner possessed now.
I was stung by the unfairness of the situation: the Army pulled me away from my life back home, dropped me in a hell surpassing my worst nightmares, and would be happy to ruin said life over sex that wasn't hurting anyone and wasn't any of their damned business in the first place.
Never mind that we hadn't even gotten that far. Dammit.
Internally cursing the circumstance I'd gotten myself into, I dropped my hands to the floor.
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Trigger Warning
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Donner roughly jerked my pants and boxers to my feet, then pried my boots off to strip me bare. With a powerful tug he flipped me over onto my stomach. After opening his own trousers just enough to free his dick, he crouched on his knees beside me, stroking himself with one hand while trailing his other over my skin as if I was his, until he was ready. I shuddered but kept myself from trying to resist, gazing at the far wall of the hut with that same sort of thousand-yard stare I'd seen on far too many of the boys in Post-Op. I bit my lower lip until it bled and tried to focus on only the pain that I was inflicting on myself instead of what was being done to my body. It made me feel like I was in control of something and helped me hold it together.
Not happening.
He took me, then, on the wooden floor of the supply hut. His fingers gripped my hips and sides like a vise, holding me in place and occasionally shifting for a better grip as our bodies moved slightly along the floor with the force of his thrusts.
Not happening.
This wasn't exactly my first rodeo, but it had never hurt this much before. Not even the very first time. Then again, I'd never had a man enter me so abruptly, fully, and violently with no real lubrication to speak of. That probably had something to do with it. I let out a low whimper and immediately regretted it; Donner groaned loudly in response. I viciously sank my teeth back into my lip, refusing to release another sound. I'd never been very good at suffering in silence, but I was not going to give the bastard the pleasure of hearing me cry out again.
Not happening.
I screwed my eyes shut in mortification and tried to focus on how cool and soothing the supply hut floor felt against my throbbing jaw. I was predictably unsuccessful in that venture.
Not happening.
The most disturbing part, I thought, was the series of inappropriate bursts of pleasure that shook me when he hit my prostate. I wondered if I'd ever be able to experience that sensation again without thinking of Donner.
Not happening.
After a veritable ice age had passed, he finished, stiffening before collapsing over my back with a groan, chest heaving and dripping sweat.
Relief washed over me. It was over. I'd made it through. It was over.
It was over.
He slid out of me, stood, and wiped himself off on my shirt, the fink, before pulling up and buttoning his fatigues without a glance in my direction, cinching his belt with highly disturbing nonchalance. Feeling incredibly exposed, I shakily snared my boxers and pants and slipped into them but lacked the will to lift myself off the dirty floor. I'd honestly have preferred to sink into the scarred wood had that been possible.
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End Trigger Warning
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As I lay prone and shirtless on the floor, Donner crouched beside me and took my aching jaw in a bruising grip. "There," he said. "You got that fuck you were after from a real man. Not that pansy who walked out on you."
A real man, I scoffed silently at the teenager. That was laughable.
For once in my life I wisely kept my mouth shut.
He slapped my face under the pretense of a friendly pat, grabbed his thrice-damned camera off the shelf, and turned to leave. "That was fun," he said as he strolled to the door. "Maybe we'll do it again sometime." The door closed behind him.
No. Fuck that, I thought vehemently. Fuck Donner, and fuck the ship, plane, and jeep he rode in on.
It was over.
It was done.
It was never. Ever. Happening. Again.
I remained there, on the floor of the supply room, wearing only boxers, pants, and that thousand-yard stare, for... well, a long time. Slowly my impotent anger and shame subsided and an alien numbness took over. My legs curled up toward my chest of their own accord despite the resulting pain, my arms crossed themselves across my torso, and I hugged myself rigidly. I lay on my side, cheek resting on the floor, and watched my exhales carve a path through the dust covering the wood.
My jaw throbbed.
My throat ached.
My rectum burned.
My body trembled.
My brain set sail for more peaceful waters.
I didn't move. I think that in the back of my mind – the only part currently in operation – I was afraid that if I rejoined reality it wouldn't be as easy as whatever this escape was. The fact that anyone could come in at any time and find me like that never registered.
I remained there, shivering in a slack fetal position, for an eternity before the sound of choppers broke through my shock.
"Incoming wounded," the P.A. system announced. "Come get today's greatest hits."
Of all the possible times for there to be wounded....
I tried to lift my head, to uncurl my body and get up, but it seemed that the signal shorted out somewhere in my brain. Part of me was shamefully content to lie there in the relative comfort of this detachment, and that part apparently held the majority vote.
I checked in with my body. I felt the blood pulsing through my jugular and dazedly imagined that it beat in time with the sound of the choppers. My chest felt weighted down and every breath was an effort. My head swam and time drifted away without me again.
"Captain Pierce, please report to the O.R.," the P.A. system demanded some indefinite amount of time later.
Pierce.
That would be me.
They were paging me.
I tried once again to get myself moving and finally made it upright. My muscles, stiff from disuse, protested the action. The sitting position brought the stinging sensation in my rectum back to the front of my mind and I tried unsuccessfully to find an angle that was less tender. Upon failing that I reasoned that I was trying to get off the floor anyways, and I might as well just go ahead and do that. With a grunt, I transitioned from sitting to kneeling in order to pull on my boots, then levered myself into a standing position. The pain in my rectum alternated between stinging and burning but never faded completely no matter what I did.
I ran my fingers through my hair shakily. I remembered to buckle my belt and grab the semen-smeared shirt that I was never wearing again (it didn't do to leave evidence lying around, after all) and was proud of myself for having an even vaguely level head in the face of... whatever the hell this was. Never mind how long that level head had taken to show up.
I took a few deep breaths and opened the door, blinking at the unexpected light of a newborn day. I'd entered with Reynolds in the wee hours of the morning. The choppers must have come just after dawn.
I left the supply hut behind and headed to the hospital, hoping not to see anyone on the way. I was in luck. Everyone must have already been in surgery; the compound and scrub room were empty.
I tossed my soiled shirt into the laundry hamper and donned white scrubs, grateful that I hadn't thought to lace my boots earlier. I hadn't tripped and broken my neck, and it made for a slightly shorter time spent bending over to pull off my pants and pull on the surgical garb, so, accident or no, it was going down as a win. A mask served to hide at least part of whatever expression was on my face. I had a feeling that it was the little victories that just might help me get through the day without becoming a dysfunctional wreck curled up in a ball in a corner of the O.R.
Starting now: Hawkeye: 2. Potential meltdown and general shitshow: 0.
Fuck you, reality. I can totally handle this. Just you watch.
As I scrubbed my hands I still couldn't shake the rather conspicuous tremors. I debated devoting any mental energy at all into entertaining some vain hope that I could somehow conceal it and eventually decided instead to spend said energy metaphorically praying that the shaking wouldn't interfere with my ability to operate.
So.... Hawkeye: 2. Potential meltdown and general shitshow: 0.5. (The tremors hadn't caused a problem yet, at least.)
Finally, with my sterile hands dry and held high, I backed into the O.R.
"Gloves please," I said quietly – and hoarsely – to the nearest nurse. Wow. Speaking felt like rubbing steel wool around in my throat.
Hawkeye: 2. Potential meltdown and general shitshow: 1. A bruised trachea wasn't worth a full point, I decided. And between the sore throat and the tremors, one was a nice, round number. I could always bump it up a step if it caused significant impairment.
I'd been trying to make a subtle entrance (I know: me? Subtle? Shocking!) – or at least one that wouldn't get me reamed in front of half the camp. Unfortunately for me, Colonel Potter spotted me from his table and was, unsurprisingly, slightly irritated that his chief surgeon was significantly late to the operating theater and his show.
"Pierce! Where in tarnation have you been?! (Retraction there, Gage.) See me when we're finished here. And it'd better be good," he said ominously.
Hawkeye: 2. General shitshow: 2.
And suddenly everyone was staring at me as Nurse Shari pulled on my gown and gloves. Fucking fuckity fuck-fuck. 3.
At least I had a while to figure out my excuse, now that my brain had returned from its unscheduled not-quite-R&R. Was that worth a point? What the hell. I could use as many as I could get.
In my head I could envision a radio announcer's voice keeping score of the action: "Hawkeye's pulled up to a three! He and Shitshow are tied for the moment – it's anybody's game now! This could go either way, folks! Stay tuned for further upda—"
Yeah, no. Screw that channel. My current level of stability was tenuous enough already. There was personal amusement via positive thinking, there was using a creative distraction as a coping mechanism, and then there was packing my sanity's bags and waving an enthusiastic goodbye from the dock as I watched it float away.
But. Still. Being granted extra time to put together a plausible excuse for my tardiness? Yeah. Hawkeye: 3. General shitshow: 3.
"Yessir, 'O Captain! My Captain'!" I called facetiously to Potter, figuring that some sort of response was expected. It felt like the words were clawing their way up through my throat.
Aaaand there was that bruised trachea acting up. Hawkeye: 3. General shitshow: 4.
"That's colonel to you, buster, and I advise you to stuff it!" he barked back at me.
I meekly shut my trap. Never let it be said that I don't know when to shut up. I might not do it, but I do know.
Usually.
Sometimes.
Well, maybe once in a blue moon.
"Are you sick?" Margaret asked as she came closer.
"Fit as a fiddle," I rasped.
That didn't stop her from coming up and feeling the temperature of my forehead. Apparently I passed the test because she stepped away to oversee some other poor schmuck.
Hawkeye: 4. General shitshow: 4.
I positioned myself in front of a gurney and was presented with an injured soldier.
"Scalpel," I said quietly. Shari slapped one into my hand. I tried unsuccessfully to place the blade in the right location.
Ohhhh yeah. The tremors were a definite problem.
"Doctor, you're shaking," Shari said. Loudly. Just in case I hadn't noticed.
Let's just notify the entire O.R., I thought bitterly. As if on cue, all of the surgeons and most of the nurses turned their eyes to me.
Hawkeye: 4. General shitshow: 5. (I'd decided to count the tremors and the general announcement as one, if only for morale's sake. The shaking had already gotten half a point earlier, after all.)
"Close for me please, Bigelow," I heard BJ say.
"Yes, doctor."
BJ sidled over to my table. "What's up, Hawk?" he asked in an undertone.
"Nothing's up," I said brightly. "Except the ceiling. The sky. The choppers—" that were bringing in more wounded that I couldn't keep my damn hands still enough to save.
"Then why are you shaking?" His tone made it clear that he didn't believe a word I'd said. BJ was no dupe.
"I don't know," I lied with the best innocent expression I could conjure up at the moment. It probably wasn't anywhere close to convincing. I couldn't in good faith give myself even half a point for that one.
Possible solutions for the problem at hand – okay, that pun was horrible even by my standards – raced through my head and were, for the most part, shot down as soon as they came to me. Excusing myself from operating on the flood of wounded wasn't an option, as far as I was concerned. Was I supposed to let some kid die because I needed to take a mental health day?
So that knocked out coping mechanism #1: the still. Not to mention how it would look if I walked out of surgery to get wasted as wounded soldiers flooded in around me. Not only would I never forgive myself and lose the respect of everyone who mattered to me in the entire damn country, but that would just be begging for that dishonorable discharge I'd just gone through hell to avoid. And, yeah. Dead kids. Not happening.
Taking a break wasn't a feasible option, mostly because 1) I hadn't even started operating yet, which, by definition, made the term 'break' wholly inaccurate; and 2) I'd already spent a good deal of time absolutely not coming to terms with what had happened the last night. That morning. Whatever. Another few minutes or hours weren't going to make a difference. If immersing myself in my life's passion (which had just so happened to land me in Korea in the first place – Thanks a lot, Truman), wasn't enough to help me escape the completely unrelated anxiety I was experiencing, I didn't know what could. I mean, I'd operated on a guy with a live grenade lodged in his body with less physically crippling anxiety than this.
Then it hit me. Anxiety. Nothing could undo the last however-many-hours – for me, for the soldier on my table, or for the men in Post-Op – but the side effects of the various types of trauma that marched through the 4077 day by day could be managed. And I just so happened to be a doctor, trained to treat acute symptoms such as those, stationed at a facility stocked with medications also designed to treat acute symptoms such as those. I was no Sidney Freedman, but I knew how to jab someone with a needle to get them to calm the hell down.
The anxiety that was overwhelming me to the point of being unable to do my job could be easily treated by a sedative. A very mild sedative. Usually I'd have worried that such a medication could work too well and impair my ability to operate, but... I already couldn't operate. It wasn't like the whole thing could get much more FUBAR. Right?
Right. With a decisive nod I handed the scalpel back to Shari. "Beej, can you take over here? I'll be back in a few," I told them, mind already three steps ahead as I contemplated the best medication for my situation. "Don't wait up!"
"Pierce!" Potter bellowed. "Where in Sam Hill do you think you're going?"
To Post-Op's medicine cabinet, I decided. "Fear not!" I called out, ignoring both the pain in my throat and my C.O.'s last question. "I shall return!"
I made my escape before he could order me to stay. Granted, I probably wouldn't have obeyed an order either, but ignoring it might have gotten me into even more hot water than I was already in. I'd bypassed the hot spring and was likely edging toward a boiling pot, but I'd prefer to quit before reaching the hot lava, and I still had a lot of ground to cover before Potter would be anywhere near done with me.
Cutting through the office, I made my way to Post-Op, startling Nurse Able as I mentally calculated the proper dosage required to achieve my goal.
"Hawkeye! What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in surgery?"
"I'm just stopping by," I said absently. "Don't mind me." I headed to the drug cabinet at the other end of the long ward.
Able was clearly taken aback, but apparently trusted me to be doing whatever I was supposed to, the dear girl.
Reynolds sat up when he heard my name and I gave him a smile that was almost heartfelt as I passed. Then I remembered that I had a mask on and sent him a shaky little wave instead. I needed to check in on him later to make sure Donner wasn't fucking with him. Figuratively or literally. Though I expected that he'd be pretty safe in Post-Op.
When I reached the cabinet I started rummaging around and quickly found what I was looking for: Phenobarbital. Grabbing a syringe, I pulled out 5mL, the equivalent of 20mg – a small dose – with what would have been sure, practiced movements had my hands not been shaking so badly I could hardly manage to hold onto both the bottle and the syringe at the same time. I put the bottle away before Able thought to look at what drug I was pilfering, taking an extra second to carefully place it in its previous position and hold it steady on the shelf so that the glass didn't wobble when I released it.
Given the effort that it had taken to simply procure the supplies needed for my plan, I decided to go ahead and give myself a sympathy point. Hawkeye: 5. General shitshow: 5.
And, duh! The plan, successful or not, deserved a point too. Hell, my first points were for unintentionally unlaced boots and a surgical mask. I'd just come up with a fucking plan while practically vibrating out of my scrubs. One which actually had a chance of success. I deserved at least 10 points just for that effort. But. I should probably wait for the results before I started throwing a party.
Hawkeye: 6 (at least). General shitshow: 5.
Syringe in hand, halfheartedly hidden simply by dint of folding my hand around all but the tip of the needle and keeping it close to my chest, I headed, unnoticed, to the Swamp, where I dropped the white scrub pants and shakily injected my thigh with the Phenobarbital, slightly entertaining (and distracting) myself by envisioning a patient's reaction to seeing their doctor brandishing a needle in their direction with such unsteady hands.
Positive thought! Or, at least, a darkly amusing one. Hawkeye: 7. General shitshow: 5.
Afterwards, setting the syringe carefully on my side of the still behind a couple of less-than-sanitary martini glasses, I pulled the scrubs back up and tried not to think about when I'd done the same thing early that morning with my green trousers. My skin crawled as I remembered how his hands felt roaming my body. No distractions came to me for those thoughts, unfortunately.
Hawkeye: 7. General shitshow... 6, I tacked on bleakly. It was hard to be proud of the seven while drowning in the six.
Then: Why are you taking this so hard? I asked myself bitterly, apparently deciding that self-flagellation was the way to go. It's not like you didn't just lay there and let it happen. And it's your own fault you were in that position in the first place. If you could have just kept it in your pants....
I frowned at myself, jaw set and teeth clenched. I frowned at the white pants, as if, by standing in for my fatigues, they were somehow a guilty party in the mess I'd made. And at the empty syringe. At the bubbling still. Around wreck of the tent, and the ridiculous amount of presumably dirty socks, boxers, and other general detritus on the floor. At the camp in general.
Potential meltdown and general shitshow: 7.
I had a seat on my cot to wait for the drug to take effect. The pain in my rectum flared and I quickly decided that it might be prudent to lie on my side instead. It seemed that sitting was not going to be incredibly fun anytime in the near future.
Less than a minute later the sedative kicked in. And there was the magic of Phenobarbital. Not only did the tremors subside, but a more general, blanket anxiety that I hadn't even realized was present dissipated. I felt like the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders. I could breathe. I could think. And I knew I could perform surgery.
Hawkeye: fucking 10. Potential meltdown: zero. And general shitshow: ...well, still at 7, but staying there for a good while, at least, if I had any say in the matter.
I rolled off the cot, reinvigorated if not pain-free, and headed back to the scrub room to wash up again.
Sanitary once more, I slunk back into the O.R. as stealthily as possible, but the old man was a sharp one. Also, courtesy of Margaret, I wound up working at an empty table facing him, which probably didn't help. The head nurse changed my gown and helped me pull on a pair of gloves as Colonel Potter began his rant.
"Pierce! You are so deep in manure the KPA won't even find you the next time we have to bug out!"
"I knew I should have brought my shovel today," I said flippantly.
"You dig yourself any deeper and I'll have you digging latrines for the rest of the war!" he threatened.
There was a difference between trying to cling to any sort of positivity I could find and irritating a C.O. who was already quite angry at me for very legitimate reasons. "Shutting up, sir."
I was still a ten, and the shitshow was still a seven, future consequences be damned. There was no reason to start tacking them on early, after all.
Another wounded soldier was placed in front of me and I got to work. My hands were sure and I was back to operating like nothing had happened. It might as well have just been a regular day; stitching up dying kids as their blood spattered onto my boots on the way to the floor, and going through what could have added up to miles of plastic gloves. But, most importantly, saving lives.
Until a few hours later, that is, when Donner waltzed into the O.R. bearing a wounded soldier.
That threw me for a loop. The first time I saw him I dropped the instrument I was holding into my patient's mess of intestines and just barely stopped myself from bolting. Margaret immediately fished it out and, oddly enough, her stern reprimand helped keep me grounded. Still, the trembling was back (though not quite as noticeable) and I was feeling lightheaded (a common side effect of forgetting to breathe) and generally unnerved (a perfectly valid reaction to my ...violent assailant being within three feet from me at irregular intervals for far, far too long). The butterflies in my stomach underwent mitosis; half stayed in my stomach while the new half migrated to my chest. If I hadn't taken that sedative I'm not sure what kind of state I would have been in. Possibly not a gibbering mess of humanity cowering in a corner, but certainly unfit to operate.
That nightmare operating theater stretched over 18 hours. I only really spoke to ask for instruments. My heart wasn't in it, and it hurt my throat to talk anyway. Every time Donner entered the O.R. my pulse would skyrocket and I was in danger of dropping whatever I might have been holding at the time. I think I beat Frank in number of dropped implements that session. When Donner met my alarmed gaze his eyes crinkled in a way that reminded me of the smirk he'd worn earlier that morning and I could feel my entire body twitch in an abortive move to run, or hide, or maybe run and hide. Thankfully Donner was pulled off after several hours and replaced by a fresh corpsman. I never knew that seeing a man dripping sweat from exertion could be so very disturbing.
I'd stopped keeping score the moment that bastard had walked into the room. Shitshow won the day by a depressing number of points.
Toward the end when Nurse Baker untied my mask to give me some orange juice she paused and said loudly, "Hawkeye! What happened to your face?"
I realized then that my jaw must have been bruised up from that morning's one-two punch, initiated by Donner and completed by the floor of the supply hut. It was the first time I'd had my mask down in hours.
"And your throat!" she added in horror.
Wonderful. I'd apparently smuggled the bruising on my neck safely across the border until one nosy nurse saw my jaw. And suddenly everyone was looking. Why couldn't nurses keep their big mouths shut?
"Thanks for that," I snapped. "But you might want to repeat it a little bit louder. I don't think the North Koreans heard you."
Baker looked hurt. "Sorry, doctor," she said in a subdued tone. I would have felt bad if I hadn't been so angry.
"Forget the juice. Bring me another patient." I wanted her to get that mask back on my face pronto before everyone else had a chance to gawk. If there was anyone left who hadn't seen it.
"Yes, doctor," she said sullenly.
Yep. She was mad at me. Well, she'd have to get in line.
We continued operating for a while longer and I could practically feel the concerned looks BJ was sending to my back. And I could see the incensed looks Potter was sending to my front.
As we were finishing up the last patients the colonel gave me a reminder: "Pierce. My office."
Encouraged by the thought of finally escaping the meatball assembly line – despite having a general idea of my next destination and what I'd find there – I managed to dig up a ghost of my usual badinage. "Your wish is my command!" It was probably for the best that I was still wearing a mask, because there was no way whatever expression I'd slipped on even remotely matched my glib tone. "Margaret, it's closing time. Take care of this last customer for me, will you?"
I joined Potter in the scrub room, any positive energy reserves draining as soon as I caught his expression. We washed up in an uncomfortable silence – well, I was uncomfortable anyway – as he took stock of my face. I knew he was waiting to get me alone in his office for the chat. I, personally, wasn't feeling particularly talkative. In fact, the longer it took, the more I felt how I imagined people lined up to be hanged felt in ye olden days.
BJ entered as I was stripping down to my boxers. I reached for my shirt and pants and only found my pants.
Oh, yeah. I was about to pull the somewhat-bloodied white scrub shirt back over my head when a hand touched my shoulder. Startled, I flinched. Quite noticeably.
"Hawk!" BJ said, pained. "What's— What's all this?" He gestured to my torso.
I looked down and was captivated by all of the little fingerprint-shaped bruises scattered over my sides. It looked like someone had dipped the pads of each finger in paint – reds, blues, and every shade of purple in between – and gone to town on my body.
Except... that was bad. I hadn't come to Korea to serve as the canvas of an impressionist painting.
Apprehensively, I raised my eyes and found both BJ and Potter staring at the contusions along my sides and those apparently on my jaw and throat.
Colonel Potter leaned in, his eyes following the path of the fingerprints on my sides down to below my waistline. "I wanted to wring your neck," he told me flatly, "but it looks like someone beat me to it." He looked up at me inscrutably before taking a finger and lowering my boxers down to my hips – carefully just above the level that would cross the line into indecency – to see that the bruises continued even further down.
At his touch I jerked so violently that I almost fell over, and I couldn't even pin that on a startle reflex. He'd telegraphed his intentions from fucking Missouri.
It was just... for a moment all I could feel was Donner's fingers there, peeling off my pants and boxers on the floor of that damned supply hut, or digging into my sides to hold me still. I tried to focus on breathing once my burning lungs clued me in to the fact that I'd stopped. Potter met my widened eyes with a grim expression, then lowered the other side to find more bruises. I twitched at his touch, but managed to restrain my reaction to just that, suppressing the full-body shudder that really wouldn't help my case.
That apparently he concluded his impromptu examination. "Do you have any more injuries?" he asked me.
Rectal trauma flashed through my mind and I thanked my lucky stars that it didn't pop out of my mouth. I sometimes – occasionally – quite rarely, really – have trouble keeping my mouth shut.
"Isn't this enough?" I joked weakly with a shake of my head.
"Get dressed and come to my office."
I felt like every time he said that the circumstances deteriorated further. "I'll be there with bells on," I replied with a smile so horribly faked it was obvious I was scraping from the bottom of the barrel by that point, and a wriggling-fingered wave that I gauged to be of acceptable quality.
Colonel Potter exited with pinched lips and one final scowl and for a brief moment it was just me and BJ. He opened his mouth to ask one of the thousand questions I'm sure he had when Frank came through the doors from the O.R.
I pulled on a clean white shirt and my green pants hurriedly, but Frank was in his own little world and probably wouldn't have noticed if I'd painted myself neon orange.
"You think you're so special, don't you Pier— oh. Golly! What happened to you?"
I could be wrong. Those bruises must be something.
"Decided I needed a new paint job. Army green just wasn't doing it for me anymore."
Frank huffed, sympathy apparently exhausted quickly by my weak repartee. "It's beyond me how the Army selected such an undisciplined clown for service," he carped as he washed his hands.
"You know, I completely agree. I'm right there with you," I commiserated before making a show of perking up. "Well, as fun as this chat is – and let me tell you, I'm having a blast – I have a prior engagement." I bared my teeth, not even bothering to try for the smile, and exited stage left.
Still in his bloody scrubs, BJ followed me the short distance to Potter's office.
"Are you coming to watch the execution?" I asked him.
"I'll try to prevent the execution, but keep in mind there are very few golden opportunities to make a clean getaway. Everything else is riding out in a blaze of glory, so pick your battles."
I smirked at him in what was possibly that day's first genuine expression of, well, not-unhappiness – no, wait; I couldn't forget the smile that just seeing Reynolds had elicited without even a conscious thought – before we swept into Potter's office.
"You summoned, good sir?" I said when I walked through the door.
"Have a seat, Pierce," Potter ordered.
I sat down painfully and ended up barely perching on the edge of the chair to keep the discomfort in my rectum to a minimum. BJ promptly parked himself in the chair beside me.
The colonel's eyes flicked to him. "Hunnicutt, you have Post-Op duty. Go do it."
"I'm just across the hall," BJ protested. "If they have a problem they can come grab me."
Potter wasn't impressed by his reasoning. Or perhaps he just didn't want any witnesses. "Skedaddle!"
BJ sent me a helpless look, then what was something along the lines of a silent 'good luck.' I heard his sigh of frustration as he left the office at a pace somewhat more sedate than a 'skedaddle.'
"Okay son. Spill," the colonel ordered as soon as the swinging doors to his office came to a standstill.
No excuse I had come up with in the hours of surgery was both believable and safe. The bruises I was sporting? Yeah, there was no selling any sort of realistic, non-violent alibi for that one. 'I slipped on a bar of soap in the scrub room' wasn't going to fly with this C.O., no matter how many corroborating witnesses I could pull out of my ass.
After hours of thought and a lot of mental hand-wringing I'd eventually settled on the trite "I fell down" excuse. Colonel Potter would recognize it for what it was – one of the most traditional lies in history being used to cover for my attacker out of fear of some as-yet unknown (to him) consequence. He'd know that I'd know that he'd recognize it for what it was, but he'd have his required answer, and maybe, just maybe, we could get this interrogation concluded sooner rather than later, with as little tooth-pulling as absolutely necessary.
Yeah. Right.
There was an incredulous pause as my C.O. digested that explanation. "Let me get this straight," he said flatly, following the aforementioned pause. "The ground punched you in both sides of your jaw, choked you, and wrapped a bunch of fingers around you all at the same time? Really, Hawkeye, I expected more creativity than that from you." He did sound quite disappointed and I found myself wishing I'd been a little more ostentatious.
"I could add a set of stairs if you want. The set leading up to the upper chopper pad is pretty brutal, you know."
Crickets.
Potter didn't appear to be amused. "Look son, if you're afraid of him – them? – I can guarantee you they'll be court marshaled in a heartbeat and you'll never have to see them again."
Damn straight, I was afraid of him. And didn't I wish it was that simple? "I fell down," I reiterated obstinately.
Potter threatened grudgingly, "I could order you to tell me."
"You could," I admitted with a challenging quirk of one eyebrow. But we both know that won't make a damn bit of difference, I didn't say.
He seemed to reach the same conclusion and tried a different tactic. "I'd say you got more than beat up."
My heart stopped. "What do you mean?" I asked carefully. He couldn't have guessed anything from just bruises. There was no way.
"Those bruises on your torso make me think you were held in place."
Shit. "Yeah, well, I didn't exactly feel like sticking around at the time." That wasn't a lie.
He didn't look convinced. "And that's all there is to it?"
"Of course. What else could there have been?" I really meant to say it in an innocent and/or ignorant manner but it came out more as a challenge.
"Did one attacker hold you still for the other to hit on you?" he conjectured.
A swing and a miss, I noted with great relief and slight amusement. "I fell down," I said inexorably, carefully keeping my face blank. If he wanted to go off on this 'two attacker' theory I wasn't about to stop him. It was a hell of a lot safer than the alternative.
Colonel Potter frowned at me with narrowed eyes but changed the subject. "And this attack is why you were late to O.R.?"
Essentially. "Yes." It was why I'd spent a pathetic amount of time lying on the floor after being called to O.R., at least.
"Okay. Now, I want to know why you felt you had to leave the O.R. with a wounded man in front of you."
I scowled. "I couldn't hold a scalpel steady to save my life. Or his."
"And where did you go when you left?"
"To the Swamp. To calm down."
"Just to the Swamp."
He sounded like he was testing me. I quickly debated the benefits of lying over the possibility of being caught in the lie.
"Just to the Swamp," I lied promptly.
"I have a very reliable nurse who told me that you went through Post-Op and grabbed something in a syringe out of the medicine cabinet."
Damn that Able. "Oh yeah," I said with extremely faked dawning recollection. "Yeah, I did go through Post-Op."
"What did you get out of that cabinet?"
"Uh." My mind raced with possibilities. Finally the little angel on my shoulder won out over the devil on the other. Well, that and the fact that he'd seemed to be pretty well-informed thus far. (When did Able get a chance to snitch on me, anyway?) I elected to go ahead and get the chewing out over and done with. "Phenobarbital," I admitted quietly.
"Are you're telling me that you operated under the influence?!" Oh, he sounded pissed.
And that's why I lied. "I only gave myself 20 milligrams!" I said defensively.
"What made you think it was alright for you to dope yourself? Never mind operate while drugged!" Okay, he was beyond pissed. 'Outraged' would be a better description. I was deep in that manure he'd mentioned that morning, with no shovel in sight.
"I couldn't—" My throat closed and I swallowed convulsively before trying again. "I couldn't operate before I took it. And it helped! I... it helped."
"And you don't think being drugged affected your skill at all?"
"No, it just made me stop shaking. Mostly stop shaking."
"What about your sloppiness tonight? About all of the instruments you dropped?" he demanded. "You're supposed to be above Burns' level!"
"That wasn't the drug," I denied. How come I was getting bitched at for not operating above another surgeon's level? Never mind that it was Frank.
"And just how do you know that?"
Because I knew what caused my sloppiness. But if I said that he'd be so very interested in hearing what it really was, and there was no way I could tell him that it was because my attacker was in the O.R. with me. If Donner got caught he would most certainly take me and Reynolds down with him, likely in a rather spectacular fashion.
"I just know," I told him defiantly.
"Well I don't 'just know.' I am appalled that you would take a drug to perform surgery! You're lucky you didn't kill someone!"
"So I was supposed to wait a few more hours to operate in the hopes that it would go away soon?! While you were all stuck in the O.R. with no relief?!"
"Yes!" he shouted. "That is exactly what you should have done! What kind of numskull thinks he can take a sedative to operate?!"
"How many of those kids that we operated on could have sat in the waiting room for a few more hours?! Or longer!"
"I know I don't hear some young hot-shot surgeon telling me how to run my MASH when all I'm asking is for him to be sober in my operating room!"
I took a calming breath and swallowed my pride. There was no way to come out on top in a shouting match with this C.O., no matter how reasonable I felt my actions were. Sherman Potter was not Henry Blake. "It— it won't happen again," I assured him quietly. "I screwed up. I'm sorry."
"It'd better not happen again!"
"It won't," I mumbled resentfully, ducking my head in a sort of subconscious surrender.
"Good! Now, go ice your jaw and get some rest."
"Right." I tried not to let my frustration, bitterness, and defeat show in my voice, but I harbored some doubt about my level of success. Donner's gift just kept on giving. I rose quickly and hit the door at speed, escaping into the Korean night.
It was about 1 a.m. Or 0100. Whichever. After a miserable half hour spent tossing and turning in my cot, tormented by vivid memories that refused to let me rest, I gave up on sleep and decided to get so drunk that I could forget what had happened a little less than 22 hours prior.
So that's what I did. Or tried to do. Despite the fact that the liquor hitting my throat felt like swallowing fire (or what I imagined swallowing fire would feel like, as that was one life experience I'd had yet to enjoy) I made an admirable attempt at draining the still dry. But no matter what I did, no matter how much gin I poured into my body, that memory would not fade.