@marley-manson tagged me to post a snippet of a WIP, and since I have but one MASH WIP (though it should be finished soon, G-d willing and the creek don’t rise), here’s an excerpt from Vietnamfic, in which Hawkeye goes of the deep end and reenlists. I’m posting it here rather than main since it’s MASH-related.
Here, we have one Hawkeye Pierce showing up at Indoc 2.0 after a series of poorly-considered life choices:
The first real inkling of regret, surprisingly, doesn't come when Hawkeye goes for his physical or signs his paperwork or even when he shows up at Fort Sam Houston for the second time of his life, only to discover that his uniform issue contained not the Captain's bars he'd expected, but a Major’s oak leaf clusters (though that was a bizarre moment, and he'd actually dragged the supply sergeant in to try and demand, to no avail, that his rank be changed). It comes while Hawkeye is sitting in a dingy classroom, surrounded by other doctors, most of them a solid ten years younger than himself, listening to some colonel lecturing everyone about cold weather medicine. In preparation, allegedly, for deployment to Vietnam.
Hawkeye looks around the room, fully expecting to see someone- anyone- that appears as perplexed by this as he feels, but everyone else is gazing impassively at the instructor, stone-faced and seemingly fully invested in learning how to practice cold weather medicine before deploying to a tropical environment where the temperature, last Hawkeye checked, was currently 75 degrees. In January. By now, the colonel has been droning for a solid twenty minutes, starting with the dangers of hypothermia and has just launched into a treatise on the ravages of frostbite. Hawkeye wonders if maybe he's actually dreaming or having a stroke or something. How are all of these people sitting here and listening to this like it makes any kind of sense?
For one, brief moment, Hawkeye considers just continuing to sit there, maybe leaning back and taking a nap until it's all over, because he's not really the same guy that he was twelve years ago, he doesn't think, and even if he was, getting into an argument with some colonel about his stupid cold weather medicine briefing requires energy that Hawkeye can't remember having in years. But almost unconsciously, Hawkeye is getting up from his seat, grabbing his notebook and pen, and turning to leave, congratulating himself and his claustrophobia for getting a seat on the aisle.
Hawkeye's already taken several steps towards the classroom door when he hears the colonel barking at him. "Major! Where do you think you're going?"
Jesus, he thinks, this Major thing is going to take some getting used to.
"Wherever they're teaching warm weather medicine, given that we're going to a tropical country," Hawkeye replies, not pausing in his walk towards the door. There are low murmurs starting, and he can feel the other doctors' eyes on him, but he doesn't care. What are they going to do, he thinks, draft me?
"But- listen, you can't just leave, this is the military! You haven't been dismissed! These are valuable lessons learned in Korea!"
Hawkeye doesn't pause or turn around, giving an audible snort as he opens the door, raising a hand in farewell, and exiting the classroom. He half expects the colonel to come after him- Potter probably would have, he thinks- but he doesn't. No one does.
