I'd Like to Be My Old Self Again, but I'm Still Trying to Find it

Nighttime insects harmonize in the trees while Hawkeye watches the kettle from the dining table. He doesn't expect it to start whistling anytime soon, but there's something hypnotic about watching the kitchen light reflect off the surface. For the first time in ages, his mind is quiet compared to the daily yelling and screaming from the newest thought forming. Silence is one of the sounds he has a love-hate relationship with and right now he loves it. Maybe. On quiet and foggy nights, he loved to listen to the foghorn ring out across the bay. It has a rhythm so soothing; he typically falls asleep in an instant. Tonight wasn't one of those nights because as soon as he laid down, the smallest idea would come blaring through the highways of his mind, honking its horn as loud as possible until it was a blur of sounds and his head began to ache.

On the days Hawkeye couldn't get the traffic in his mind to slow or quiet down, Daniel made him stay home from the practice. Being thrown into the miniscule public eye was too much pressure for Hawkeye to perform his duties in a typical manner. Although staying home alone wasn't exactly ideal either. He couldn't win. His skin would grow hot and itchy as his heartbeat increased, his throat feeling as though it had swollen up completely. Had Sidney seen him, Hawkeye surely would've found himself in the psychiatric ward once more. Some days, he would find a way to calm down and go about the day with a gaze that looked past the walls of his childhood home and the autumn trees. It was as if he was looking through Crabapple Cove and at any moment it would fade away beneath his feet, leaving him to fall into a pit of numbing, never-ending darkness. Other days, he would calm down for a few minutes before being thrust into the same screaming crowd he tried to escape. Fingernails scraping at his scalp in an attempt to have a moment of silence, until his fingers couldn't grasp any more graying hair and he had to catch his breath before escaping to a different room of the house.

Hawkeye shook his head to throw away any impending thoughts and glanced away from the tea kettle. In the kitchen doorway stood B.J. with a look of understanding that tempted Hawkeye to jump up from his seat and hug his best friend. As if no one else in the world shared the same experience, here was B.J. and all he ever wanted, someone who got it. Who knew exactly what frenzy was trying to swallow him alive. The universe, or God, or whoever pulled the strings played sick tricks on him for long enough. It had to be tricks because who would torture your average, temporarily misassigned civilians? Subjected to routines of losing oxygen while watching the leaves fall; nightmares, not dreams, nightmares of a warped reality specially designed by their own subconscious fears; and watching the world they thought they once lived in, move on without them. It was cruel and terrifying to experience because they couldn't be left behind again, stranded by the same people who wrote letters begging them to come home.

B.J. didn't say anything as he sat down next to Hawkeye. He simply leaned against the other's shoulder and watched the kettle on the stovetop. If they were left behind by the fast pacing of the world, at the very least, they had each other.