I rewatched 8x11 "Life Time" for Reasons and I leave you with Hawkeye being adorable hanging out with Charles in post-op.
I genuinely Do Not Get people who think they don't like each other because we've seen what it looks like when Hawkeye doesn't like people (see: Frank Burns) and it isn't this!!
Although tbh I will say that one thing that I was completely wrong about was that I thought they were more antagonistic to each other in the first half of the episode than they actually are. Welcome to my TED talk.
So I remembered being really annoyed with Charles early on in this episode (in my last watch of it, all of a month ago) because I thought he was being an insensitive jerk while Hawkeye was really suffering (he's holding the guy's aorta together with his hand! while they're pouring ice on him! he's in Pain!), although Charles gets it together later on with the blood transfusion.
But what I hadn't realized yet - not having seen enough episodes to figure this out - is that Hawkeye absolutely will tell Charles to shut up when Charles is genuinely annoying him, and Charles (usually) does.
But, in this episode, Hawkeye doesn't!! Because what Charles is doing here is distracting Hawkeye from the fact that he is cold, and miserable, and hurting and stressed. If Hawkeye wanted him to stop, he would just say so.
I like how you can see Charles, who is busy with another surgery, immediately tune in on Hawkeye as soon as they come in with Hawkeye's hand in the guy's chest, figure out what's happening, and then switch to Joking In The OR mode.
Again: if Hawkeye wanted him to shut up, he'd say so. We've seen him annoyed with Charles in past episodes, and this ain't it.
In fact, there's only one point in this episode when Hawkeye is genuinely angry with him. It's when Charles is looking at the patient with him, and Charles Charlessplains that Hawkeye is doing the surgery Wrong.
Charles tells him to just fix the aorta. Hawkeye, who is standing there holding it together with his hands, is visibly furious.
Charles: Patch it with one of the arterial grafts.
Hawkeye *screaming internally*: Can't be done! Here's why!! (subtext: you Asshole)
And Charles looks down at the patient - and realizes he's right, and immediately backs down, at least for Charles versions of backing down.
Charles: I suggest you prepare for a graft.
Hawkeye, who was planning this all along and just suggested it a minute ago: There's an idea.
And a minute later, they're back to joking and being warm with each other again.
Hawkeye: *snarks at him about how this is Charles's idea now, actually, so it better work*
Charles: *rolls his eyes*
But the point is, Hawkeye doesn't just roll over and put up with Charles being a jerk in ways Hawkeye doesn't like. Hawkeye is in charge of the OR, and Hawkeye enforces that - he does it gently, but he definitely does it, and if Charles is joking around with him when Hawkeye is working or distracted, and Hawkeye doesn't completely cold-shoulder him or shut him down, it is because Hawkeye wants him to. Even at Hawkeye's expense, because being mutual assholes to each other is one of Hawkeye's love languages and he and Charles both get that about each other.
Charles isn't the only person who banters with Hawkeye throughout this entire sequence - Hawkeye absolutely welcomes distractions from BJ, the nurses, arguing with Margaret, Klinger barging in to talk about baklava and do a Colonel Potter impression: Hawkeye wants to be distracted, he doesn't want to stand around thinking about where his hands are or what's actually happening.
Even later, when he's doing the graft and Charles (completely flattened at this point due to giving blood) is attempting to unnecessarily talk him through it, Hawkeye tells him when he's being overly pedantic ("Charles, it won't be necessary to tell us the incredibly obvious. The merely obvious will do fine.") but he's not shutting him down; he's answering back, having Charles to bounce off of keeps him focused during the surgery, and not inconsiderably, gives Charles something to bounce off of in return, because Charles is doing something fairly uncomfortable and dangerous, too.
I looked up blood transfusion stats .... so apparently in normal circumstances, people are recommended to donate blood no more often than every 2 months. In the show, Charles says it's been five days since the last time. The human body has about 10.5 pints of blood ... So if he gave a pint a few days ago and another pint now, that's (almost) 20% of his total blood volume.
No wonder he passed out; even if they were trying to keep his blood volume up with fluids, he'd still be way down on red blood cells. Apparently losing 20% of your blood volume at once can send you into potentially life-threatening shock. It's actually dangerous!
It's more gradual than that with Charles (plus they're giving him fluids to compensate) but he's definitely going to need a little while to recover. Hawkeye may be sitting with him at the end there partly just to make sure he's okay!
Anyway, though, the point is, Charles is not inflicting his unwanted jerkiness on Hawkeye while Hawkeye is doing something else throughout the first half of this episode. Hawkeye likes distractions like that, he's having a shit day and literally holding this person's life in his hands and if he can just insult someone about grammar, it will give him something to focus on other than the fact that his hand really hurts
Just a reminder that what's going on during this scene is that people are literally pouring ice cubes on Hawkeye's hand, which he has been holding in the same position, clamping a guy's aorta shut, for the last 15 minutes.
If Hawkeye didn't want this to be happening, he would not be participating in it! This kind of thing literally keeps him sane. And considering that Charles spends the first half of the episode working on a patient, it's the only way he can help when Hawkeye is in distress in front of him.
