#I have read fanfiction that has perfectly captured the human condition

[dawn-the-rithmatist]

Obsessed with authors like Naomi Novik whose books always seem to say “no, fuck that, there is another way than cruelty, and we do have a choice to be decent, and not choosing it isn’t a burden but a cop out.”

Authors like Neil Gaiman whose books seem to say “we are all simply human, and that is so valuable. This world is worth more because we are in it, when we choose to notice and care”

Authors like Brandon Sanderson whose books say “We are all a little broken, and there is strength in not turning away from us, and there is pain in healing but there is also strength and hope.”

Seriously, these folks do more for my faith and hope in this life than any religion ever has. I don’t have the words to describe it yet but just. Warm cup of apple cider held close to the chest on cold autumn night?? That’s the best I got

[sorry-i-spaced]

The Lost Hawk - Re-Imagined

I read a fanfiction a while back talking about how Hawkeye was a Hawk (the bird) but they never explained how he turned into a bird. I was talking about the fanfic with my friend last week and they challenged me to write my own version of how Hawkeye turned into a bird... so I present to you: The Lost Hawk - Re-imagined

“Battalion Aide needs a surgeon and I know none of you want to go, so we’ll be drawing tongue depressors,” said Colonel Potter as he motioned for Klinger to begin walking around to each surgeon so they could pull their fate. BJ picked first and a huge wave of relief washed over his face when he revealed a normal size stick in his hand. The next surgeon to go was Hawkeye. Lifting the stick from Klinger’s stash revealing the snapped in half stick, his face fell grim. 

“Har har har,” quipped Frank, thankful he could stay behind. 

Everyone knew how bad it was down at the front and everyone always feared the worst when it came their time to make a visit. 

“Alright Pierce!” Potter began. “I expect you to come back in one piece! Klinger will have your jeep ready in an hour.”

“Eye Eye Captain!”

“That’s colonel to you and just yes sir will suffice” 

“Yes sir,” mocked Hawkeye as he saluted and marched out of the office.

Frank looked at Potter and BJ and rolled his eyes, “what a do do.” 

****

Hawkeye has been on the road for a short amount of time. As he rounds a bend he sees a Korean soldier standing in the middle of the road flailing his arms about. Hawkeye comes to a stop and looks at the man.

“Uh, can I help you?” asks Hawkeye unsure of which side of the war this man was fighting for.

“Out” yells the man curtly. 

“I’m not an infantry man, I’m just a doctor, you don’t want me I promise I’m no fun” scrambles Hawkeye.

“Out” yells the man again. 

“Okay, I’m going” replies Hawkeye as he stumbles out of the jeep and raises his hands. The Korean leads Hawkeye off the main road. Once out of sight he spins Hawkeye around so that his back is facing him. He takes the butt of his gun and rams it across Hawkeye’s head. The blow knocks the man unconscious. 

****

MASH 4077 

“I hate that we must work under such primitive conditions,” whined Frank over his patient.

“Suction! Frank quit your yapping. I’ve only been here for a couple of months now and I already know that our unit is more advanced in equipment than other MASHs” retorted BJ.

Just then the O.R door burst open and in rushed Klinger.

“Colonel Potter! The aid station called Hawkeye never showed up. I put a call into some of the checkpoint MPs and they found Hawkeye's jeep. Untouched.But no Hawkeye to be found”

“Hawk? Potter you have to let me go find him” shouted BJ 

“Hunnicutt! It is no use to be down two surgeons! You need to stay here. Klinger get on the horn to ICorpse and tell them to put a look out for Pierce.” said Potter, surprisingly calm for the brevity of the situation. 

****

Unknown Location

Slowly opening his eyes Hawkeye notices he’s in a small room- looking to be no more than 5 x 10. He notices he’s lying on a small cot near the door and that he can feel the inner workings of a headache forming. That’s when he begins to feel the walls caving in. Jumping to his feet he begins taking heavy labored breaths. Stepping towards the door he shakes the handle. Locked. He soon begins banging on the door and screaming “Let me out!” “I can’t breathe!” “The walls are caving in” “get me out” 

Soon the door yanks open and standing before him is the Korean from before and two new guys who Hawkeye is sure are the head Korean’s goons. The two new guys are carrying a litter and restraints. Abandoning his current fear of death by small space he begins to fear the new one being presented ~ being operated on. The two Korean henchmen grab his arms and Hawkeye begins to kick and scream. Thrashing about. Somehow the men are unfazed and get him onto the litter and strap him down. 

Lifting the litter they follow the head Korean.

“You know, I’m perfectly healthy. No need to waste precious time and medical equipment on me.” Began Hawk. The men just keep on walking. 

“If this is about earlier, I’m fine. Just a little claustrophobic. It developed when my mom died.” 

Nothing. They had now plopped his stretcher down on an operating table. 

“Come on guys, I’m fine. I’m a doctor. You can trust me.” Tried Hawk one last time. 

A different Korean walked over to Hawkeye’s side, with a syringe full of a yellow-reddish substance. As a mash was being placed over his face he saw out of his peripheral vision the syringe being injected into his forearm.  That was the last thing he saw before darkness consumed him.

****

MASH 4077

“I won’t say it again Hunnicutt! If you try to go AWOL again I will put you under house arrest!” beckoned Potter. 

“Honestly sir, why don’t you because I will do it again. Why hasn’t anyone done anything!” cried BJ. 

“We are doing all that we can as fast as we can. But these things take time.” eased Potter.

“Ugh” grunted BJ as he began to walk away. 

“Klinger! Get Goldberg to stand watch outside the Swamp. He is to not let Hunnicutt out of his sight!” called Potter.

“Yes sir” saluted Klinger.

****

Unknown Location

Slowly opening his eyes, Hawkeye raises his head only to realize he was left lying on his stomach. Sitting up he hears the faintest bird flap. Looking over his shoulder to see if there was a window in the room that he somehow missed during his previous inventory. He is met with a mouthful of huge angelic white satin feathered wings. Touching the edges of them ever so gently he begins to cry. His sobs are anything but quiet. Alerting his captures of his awakeness, the door opens and the three Koreans from before are back. The two who restrained him before drag him to his feet and they drag him outside. 

Once outside they hoist him into a jeep and get in themselves. Once two miles from the 4077 the head Korean yanks Hawkeye to the ground and spits “Now your name fits you! Bye Bird Boy! Have fun learning to fly! If you give up, walk back the two miles back to your camp” and with that the three Koreans drive off laughing. 

Getting up off the ground Hawkeye begins attempting to teach himself how to fly. Each time falling flat on his face. Each time injuring a different part of his body. Finally giving up he remembers what the Korean had said.

Bye Bird Boy….walk back to camp

“Shit! No one will want me. Beej. My dad. Who wants a half bird half man as a son. Let alone a friend. With that he starts sobbing again. After a moment he composes himself and wipes the tears and snot off his face. He realizes what he must do. Trying to fly again, he begins flapping his wings harder and harder. He begins to lift off the ground and starts floating in the direction of camp. But he doesn’t want to go back to camp per say. What he is really looking for is trees and buildings. He doesn’t even care that he taught himself to fly anymore. He rams his body into as many trees and buildings until he feels like the injuries sustained are adequate enough that they might just kill him. He slowly lands back on the ground. Beginning to feel a concussion forming he lies down so he can seal his fate. In a hushed tone he whimpers out the words, “bye Beej. Sorry dad.” and shuts his eyes. 

****

MASH 4077

Due to the strange loud noises no one was accustomed to hearing Klinger was assigned to not only patrol the compound but the area surrounding Rosie’s Bar. On his second loop, the noises stop and Klinger notices a body lying next to Rosie’s Bar. Running over, he sees wings. And human legs! Not knowing what Chinese  medicine voodoo experimental shit he’s just stumbled upon he runs back into camp to wake Potter. 

“It’s half man half bird sir. Sorry to wake you.” stammered Klinger as the two rushed over to the unconscious body with a litter. 

“That’s quite alright son. Once we get him into pre-op, get Burns.”

“Not BJ?” asked Klinger confused on why Potter would choose Burns for a case so unamerican esc. 

“Hunnicutt is still on house arrest” replied Potter. 

In pre-op the doctors began assessing the man's wounds.

“This man has wings! That’s not natural” quipped Frank. 

“V-very good Frank” weakly shot back the unconscious man who was starting to wake up.

Frank turned his head uneasily, “Pierce?” he managed to get out.

“Live and in stereo”

Potter ran to his side. “Pierce! It’s good to see you. We need to fix your injuries” stated Potter calmly, taking on a rather fatherly tone. 

That triggered something in Hawkeye. 

“No! Leave me alone. Don’t touch me” he screamed as he thrashed around. Potter and Frank tried to hold the flailing man. 

“Pierce, come on buddy you know it’s routine to fix injuries.” reasoned Frank.

“No! You just want to hurt me like they did.” thrashed Pierce some more. 

“Klinger, get me a sedative!” called Potter

“You're just like them. You're not really getting a sedative. You're going to inject me with something else. I know it! Leave me alone -”

“-Owe! He’s biting me” yelled Frank whose arm was now in a Pierce teeth sandwich. 

Klinger ran back in and handed the syringe full of the sedative to Potter, who quickly slid it into Pierce’s forearm. 

Slowly the thrashing stopped and his jaw loosened just enough for Frank to yank his arm out of Pierce’s mouth. 

Opening his eyes to the sharp light of the post - op, Hawkeye quickly screwed them shut again. Opening them a 2nd time, more slowly this time, he notices BJ asleep in the chair beside his bed. Reaching out to touch his arm ever so slightly BJ jolts awake. Retracting his arm quickly Hawkeye stares. 

“Hawk!” 

“The one and only” 

“How are you?”

“Fine. Dandy. Mind telling me what’s the damage doc”

“Concussion, lacerations to the torso, broken ribs mostly in digits 5 and 6, lots of cuts and bruises, dislocated shoulder, oh and you have wings.” deadpanned BJ.

“Joyus” 

In walks Potter, noticing the boys chatting he walks over. 

“Pierce! You’re awake. I’m going to cut to the chase. You said some rather weird things before we sedated you. The weirdest one being that the people who took you injected you with stuff. What did you mean by that? 

“Colonel, I’m scared that they may have poisoned me. I watched them inject this yellow-reddish substance in my arm before they put me under. But I don’t know how many times before and after that, that they did it.” cried Hawkeye. 

Potter’s facial expression grew warm and sad. 

“I think we should get a blood sample and send it to Seoul. To see what we can do. I also think we should do another surgery to remove the wings they surgically implanted.”

BJ had at some point gotten up during the conversation and retrieved the necessary tools for extracting a blood sample.  He motioned for Hawkeye to give him his arm. Which he complied. 

“Colonel, I really don’t want another life altering surgery.” protested Hawkeye. 

“Pierce, it will help make things go back to normal”

“No! I don’t want it.” cried Hawkeye. 

BJ was just finishing up putting Hawk’s name on the sample tube and put it down before inserting himself into the conversation to try and remedy it. “ Hawk, I know it’s scary to go through not one but two life changing surgeries in the span of a few days. No one is saying it will be easy. But you know as well as I do that this will help make things go back to somewhat normal. I know we don’t know what exactly happened to you out there, but I want you to know that you're the bravest person I know.” tried Beej. 

“Fine. I’ll do the surgery” sighed Hawk

“Really! My speech worked?” asked Beej

“As long as it gets you to shut up then yes.” retorted Hawk.

****

Several Weeks Later

Hawkeye was sat up in the swamp on his cot hooked up to a makeshift blood transfusion machine. BJ was sat on his own cot reading Hawkeye’s hometown newspaper aloud to keep to his friend company during his weekly transfusion.  It had been hell the past several weeks. The surgery to remove the wings went swimmingly. Hawkeye was so happy he almost forgot they had to wait for his results from the blood sample to come back from Seoul that he got piss drunk and made out with a nurse. That was until news regarding his blood sample came back. The North Koreans did in fact try to poison Hawkeye.  Potter figured that transfusions would solve the problem. 

Beej stopped reading the article he was reading and lowered the newspaper to face Hawkeye. 

“What” asked Hawkeye

“God Hawk, I’m glad you're safe and sound.”

“Me and you both”

“I’ve missed you in O.R, Frank isn’t fun to torment alone”

“Potter figures I can get off biweekly transfusions by sometime next week, which means I can start helping out more in O.R and I can get back to chasing nurses and tormenting Frank”

“I heard that you ninnies”

The two laughed 

The End