Hair of the Dog

Either word hadn’t gotten around about Hawkeye’s escapades and disappearance or Potter had told everybody not to make a scene when they returned because there were surprisingly few people greeting them when they drove into the camp.

First, there was BJ, who seemed happy and relieved to see Hawkeye, and then worried about him all over again when he took in Hawkeye’s appearance. Hawkeye simply told him they’d talk about it later; he wasn’t up for more talk about last night or any of this mess, not until he’d had a chance to get cleaned up and clear his head a bit (if that were even possible anymore.)

Then, there was Klinger, who commended him on an excellent ruse and expressed his regrets that he had never thought of anything like it himself. Hawkeye started to explain that it wasn’t a scam, but he gave up before he even began.

Still, Klinger reached the conclusion himself as he took in Hawkeye’s demeanor and appearance. “Why, it’s almost as if you’re actually crazy,” Klinger said finally, his voice losing its previous enthusiasm.

Unable to argue against the claim and lacking the drive to even pretend to try, Hawkeye simply responded, “Seems that way, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah…” Klinger eyed him warily as he walked away.

And then, there was Charles, who was apparently angry with him, and even though Hawkeye wanted to know the full story, assuming it had to do with the blurry and incomplete memories (or lack of memories) of the night before, Hawkeye didn’t feel like dealing with Charles just yet. Although, he couldn’t help but notice before he left Charles behind him that the other man had a bandaged arm.

Radar’s words came back to him. “You bit Major Winchester,” he had said. Surely all that bandaging wasn’t from something Hawkeye had done, was it? That would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it? If Hawkeye were completely honest, he wasn’t so sure. He couldn’t really be sure of anything at the moment except that he needed a shower and a change of clothes.

--

Washing the blood off took several minutes, but once he had done it, Hawkeye instantly felt more human, comparatively speaking at least. Or at least he felt less like the monster Radar had apparently believed him to be. He’d take that for now.

He didn’t even know what to make of what Potter had said about him. It was just so crazy, especially coming from the Colonel of all people.

And yet… the Colonel didn’t seem crazy or senile or anything like that in any other way. He just apparently believed that werewolves were real and that Hawkeye had become one. That whole thing aside, he seemed totally in his right mind and totally his normal self.

It was almost enough to make Hawkeye wonder if maybe there really was something to the old man’s theory. This was especially true in light of all the weird things Hawkeye had experienced lately. If werewolves were real, and that was a big “if”, Hawkeye probably was one. It was as Radar and Potter had both said, he’d come back from Tokyo different. He couldn’t deny that.

Once clean and as clear-headed as he could hope to be for the time being, he was eager (if a little nervous) to hear his bunkmates’ accounts of the previous night, so he headed to The Swamp in hopes that he’d find them there.

--

BJ was in their tent, but Charles was not, which was good because Hawkeye really wanted to talk with BJ alone before talking with Charles (who he knew would almost certainly give him an earful.) He hoped that BJ would have some kind of rational explanation for everything, but at the very least Hawkeye would settle for him not talking about werewolves.

“So, you wanna tell me what happened last night?” BJ asked him not long after he’d entered their quarters.

“Funny, I was gonna ask you the same thing,” Hawkeye replied, “I don’t really remember much, so why don’t you go first.”

“What do you want me to say?” BJ asked. He seemed a little cagey for some reason.

“Anything,” Hawkeye said, “Just tell me your side of things because I might as well know somebody’s. As far as I’m concerned, everything from sunset and on yesterday is either blurry or nonexistent.”

BJ seemed to be considering something for a moment. Finally, he said, “Well, to be perfectly honest, I can’t make heads nor tails of what I saw or what happened.”

What the heck was that supposed to mean? Hawkeye had a sinking feeling he already knew where this was heading. “Okay, so? So, what? You gotta give me something more than that, Beej, and I promise you that whatever you say probably won’t be the craziest thing I’ve heard today.”

“I doubt that very much, but okay,” BJ said, “What’s the last thing you remember? I’ll go from there.”

“It was around sunset. We were all in here, and I don’t know what was wrong but something didn’t feel right. I couldn’t sit still, and I felt like I just needed to get the hell out of here. You told me to start drinking, which was odd because usually no one has to tell me to do that. I don’t think I ever got around to the actual drinking before things got weird… And that’s basically all I remember.”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing, you were driving Charles and me nuts; you were all over the place, even for you. We should’ve known then that something was seriously wrong.” BJ paused. “We still don’t know what happened to you, but you started shaking so much you spilled your gin, and then you hit the floor. You looked like you were having some sort of seizure, but we have no idea what would’ve caused it. Then, um…” He trailed off.

“Yeah?” Hawkeye prodded. “Then what?”

“This… This is all gonna sound insane, and I wouldn’t believe it myself if I didn’t see it, and even still I don’t know what to make of it. I can’t even begin to explain it,” BJ said.

“Damn it, Beej! Tell me!” Hawkeye exclaimed, growing impatient.

“Alright! Alright! Charles and I were looking you over and restraining you—” Yes, he remembered that now, in a way. They had held him down, and he hadn’t liked it. “And… it looked liked—there was—well, you looked different a-all of a sudden. There was something wrong with your face and-and the rest of you, a-and you were… screaming, but it wasn’t a scream; it was a sound like-like an animal. A-and then, I don’t know. You were gone, and there was an animal in your place.”

“What kind of animal?” Hawkeye asked, a feeling of dread told him he didn’t even need to ask.

“What do you mean what kind of animal? What does that matter?” BJ asked incredulously.

“It just does, okay? What kind of animal?” Hawkeye responded.

“Well, it was hard to get a good look at it, but from what I could tell, it looked like a wolf,” BJ answered.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Hawkeye said.

“No, I’m not. Believe me, I wish I were,” BJ said.

This had to be some stupid elaborate prank. It had to be. Well, it wasn’t funny anymore. “I could very well be going out of my head, and I’ve got you and Radar and Potter and who knows who else trying to convince me that I’m a werewolf. Who’s big idea was this?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Hawk,” BJ responded, “What?” He seemed genuinely confused. Come to think of it, he had seemed genuine when he had told the whole story as well. On the other hand, if this wasn’t a crazy joke, then it was just crazy. “Look,” he continued, “whatever else is going on, I promise you, I’m not fooling around here. I know it sounds crazy, but I’m telling you the truth, or at least the truth as much as I understand it.”

“Alright,” Hawkeye said, “I believe you. I don’t know what any of it means, but I believe you.” After a pause, he added, “Say, just out of curiosity, have you talked to Radar or Potter?”

“About this? Not as much as I should have, I’m guessing,” BJ replied, “but they both found out that something had happened when Charles got bitten. I don’t think either me or Charles did a very good job at explaining what had happened.”

“So, I did bite Charles,” Hawkeye said, more to himself than to his friend.

“Well, you didn’t,” BJ said.

“Right, right,” Hawkeye said, a bit dismissively, “Of course, I didn’t do it; that’d just be crazy, wouldn’t it? It was just the wolf that magically took my place.”

Before BJ could respond, Charles entered the tent, and as soon as he set eyes on the two of them, he started practically frothing at the mouth. “You!” He shouted, pointing at Hawkeye.

“Who me?” Hawkeye returned playfully.

“I don’t know how you and Hunnicutt pulled off that stunt last night, but I’ll have you know—”

“Charles, for the hundredth time, there was no ‘stunt’! C’mon, you were there! You saw that I saw!” BJ interjected.

“I saw what you two degenerates wanted me to see, and how on Earth you managed to smuggle a wild animal into this tent, I’m sure I’ll never know nor do I probably want to know,” Charles replied, seething.

“How’s your arm?” Hawkeye asked, sincerely.

“As if you care,” Charles responded.

“Maybe I do! Look, I don’t even know what happened last night,” Hawkeye began.

“Oh, you don’t, eh?” Charles cut him off, “My, how convenient for you.”

“Look, Charles, if this whole thing was somehow a prank on you, don’t you think I’d remember something about it, like planning it? Don’t you think I’d wanna remember actually pulling it on you? Do you think I’d actually deny it?” Hawkeye responded.

“Well, you’re denying it now, aren’t you?” Unless you’re suggesting Hunnicutt somehow thought all that up and pulled it all off on his own,” Charles continued.

“I can’t deny or confirm anything, and I’m serious about that! I don’t know what happened in here last night. I can only be reasonably sure that none of it was fun for any of us,” Hawkeye retorted.

“Well, I do remember what happened, and even though I can’t easily explain it, I know it wasn’t any kind of trick on mine or Hawkeye’s part,” BJ said. When Charles simply turned away and made no reply, BJ continued, “C’mon, Charles! You saw everything that I did! Do you honestly think Hawk and I could fake something like that?”

“Come to think of it, maybe we should be flattered,” Hawkeye interjected mildly.

“And how do you explain Hawkeye’s disappearance? How the hell do you explain any of it?” BJ continued.

Hawkeye placed a hand on his shoulder. “Easy, Beej. C’mon, let’s get out of here before you and Charles kill each other.”

--

“The nerve of that guy!” BJ continued as soon as they’d exited the Swamp, “I mean, where does he even get the idea?”

Before he could continue his rant, Hawkeye cut him off. “You said it yourself, you can’t explain what you saw, right? Well, neither can Charles.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we somehow orchestrated the whole thing, now does it?” BJ responded.

“No, but that’s probably the best explanation he could come up with to make some sense of the whole thing,” Hawkeye continued, “I’m not saying he’s right, but I’m just saying I get why he’s trying to convince himself and anyone who’ll listen that that’s what happened.” He understood the impulse all too well actually, even if that wasn’t the way he was choosing to deal with whatever this whole situation was.

“How can you be so calm about all this all of a sudden?” BJ asked.

“I don’t know,” Hawkeye replied, “Resignation, maybe? Or maybe I’ve just had all the crazy I can stand for today.”

“I didn’t think that was a possibility for you,” BJ said, smirking slightly.

“Yeah, well, consider the circumstances,” Hawkeye responded. After a brief pause, he added, “If you had to listen to Colonel Potter talk about werewolves and how you were one, you’d probably have had enough, too.”

Suddenly, he stopped. There were choppers approaching.

“Hawk?” BJ questioned.

Before Hawkeye could respond, the announcement came over the loudspeakers, “Incoming wounded.”

The worst part of any day in this hellhole was the most normal part of this day. It no longer mattered what happened the previous night. It no longer matter that Potter thought Hawkeye was a werewolf, nor did it matter that Hawkeye was maybe starting to believe him just a little bit. It didn’t matter what Hawkeye was, crazy or werewolf or whatever. He was a doctor, and he had work to do and lives to save. The war, unfortunately, stopped for no man… or werewolf.