Title: The Last Night of the World
Author: Alltheshrinks
Pairing: Dean/Sam, past past Lisa Braeden/Dean, Past Jessica Moore/Sam
Fandom: Supernatural/Apocalypse Now
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Supernatural and all of its characters belong to Warner Brothers and the CW. Apocalypse now belongs to to its creator.
Warnings: incest, AU, rape/non-con, there is a flashback from Dean's captivity that depicts torture and abuse, but it isn't graphic, there is war related injuries and character death, but not Sam or Dean.
Note: I hope you enjoy. Also -kudos are life and comments make me insanely happy. If you have questions or want to see something message me. My Twitter is All_the_Shrinks.
Note2:

*V.C. I short for Viet Cong and NVA is short for North Vietnamese Army. Charlie is slang for either or the combined forces of the V.C. And NVA. There are differences between these forces, but its lengthy and doesn't affect this story.

*Arc Light was the use of B52 Bombers to fly over cloud cover and bomb targets. They could not be heard or seen from the ground.

*PBR is short for a Naval Patrol Boat Riverine. They were common along the rivers of Vietnam during the war.

*Nung is short for the Nung River.

*Air Cav, Air Mobile, and 1st of the 9th are all three in references to the First Squadron, Ninth regiment of the Calvary. They were traditionally the "Buffalo Soldiers". It was the experimental during the Vietnam War and ushered in anew era of War. They used helicopters instead of horses and charged into battle much like the Calvary of old. The saying, "here comes the Calvary" means help has arrived. They still wear the old 19th century hats and spurs as an homage to their predecessors.

*Huey and Loaches were the most common types of helicopters or choppers (for short) used in Vietnam

*LZ is short for Landing Zone. It's where helicopters flew in and out during engagements. Hot LZs mean that the landing zone is under enemy weapons' fire.

*DMZ is short for Demilitarized Zone. The Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone was the line between the North and South sides. This is where the US and it's allies held its base of operations.

*Hanoi Hilton was the nickname American troops gave the Hóa Lò Prison where Prisoners Of War from the allied forces were taken.

*Napalm is a highly flammable, sticky jelly used in incendiary bombs and flamethrowers. It's essentially gasoline and soap. It's impossible to put out until the gas burns out and sticks to everything and is nearly impossible to get off a surface.

*twenty Mike-Mike-Vulcan is 20mmv in the phonetic alphabet of the military. This refers to the stand machine guns that were on the bottom of aircraft during the war.

*M7- is a standard issued Bowie knife for US soldiers.

*M9- is a standard issued 9mm Beretta pistol that was issued as a sidearm.

*M.P.s is short for Military Police.

*CO is short for Commanding Officers

*NCO is a Non Commissioned Officer

*ARVN is short for Army of the Republic of Vietnam, also known as the South Vietnamese Army.

*G.I. Is slang for an American Soldier

*APC is an armored personnel carrier.

LRRP stands for A long-range reconnaissance patrol, (pronounced "lurp") a small, heavily armed reconnaissance team that patrols deep in enemy-held territory.
DZ stands for Drop Zone, coordinates where airborne troops and paratroopers land, usually behind enemy lines.
This is a work of fiction and I did take some literary license with some urban legends about the military that everyone I know was told at one time or another. To my knowledge, one tag is given to the family, while the other is kept with the body for identification purposes. In the event a soldier is buried behind enemy lines, One tag can be used as a grave marker by being nailed to a cross or something similar. The lodging of a dog tag in a deceased soldier’s mouth is a story that I’ve heard from older soldiers as long as I can remember and I can not substantiate the validity of the practice.
Also, there’s a good bet that since Colonel Campbell was in special forces during Vietnam, he would not be wearing dog tags or his West Point ring as those would have been used as identification, if captured. But it was a good way to give Dean closure.
Summary: Firemen AU. Sam and Dean are firefighters. John died a hero, saving lives; Dean has already made a name for himself among the firemen ranks. What happens when Sam, who’s made a habit out of running, comes home to join the family business? He finds that things aren’t easy with a legend for a father and when you’re in love with your brother.

***

1. Saigon, 1973

The hotel was surprisingly modern and clean for the current state of the country, but 26-year-old Captain Dean Winchester is not comfortable. There’s a buzzing in his head and an itch under his skin that is not caused by the rice whiskey or the amphetamines.

The heat is oppressive and he’s clad in just his boxers and dog tags, staring at the rotating ceiling fan that is just barely generating a breeze above his bed, that’s just this side of too soft for a soldier.

He just hit the city last week after his extraction from the Hanoi Hilton and the rotating fan only serves to remind him of helicopter blades that should have been viewed as his salvation, but bring back his worst nightmare in all it’s technicolor glory.

*******

An hour or a week passes, he doesn’t know, but a sharp rap at the door jerks him out of hell and back into the world of too soft beds and too clean fingernails. He’s sleeping on the floor, side arm resting in his right hand and a comforting weight on his bare stomach.

“Captain Winchester?” The sound is foreign and Dean hasn’t answered to it since taking his M7 to cut his identification off his fatigues before being taken by the Viet Cong.

“Captain Winchester, sir? M.P.s, open the door,” the words roll around in his brain and bounce around like a bullet. “Sir, the general has sent your orders. Open up. Are you alright, sir?”

Dean closes his eyes and shuts out the sound from the street, before awaking again to the door being forced open.

The two scrubbed faces of teenagers enter the dark room. The bedspread tacked haphazardly over the window renders the room nearly black. Light spills in from the door and it takes the newcomers’ eyes a second to adjust.

The cocking sound of a standard issue M9 breaks the silence before one of the two corporals finds the light switch.

“Jesus Christ,” a red-haired, cherub faced kid says as he takes in Dean’s appearance. Though he was nearly scalped by the Army’s barber, the three weeks of his beard covers his face and his green eyes are cold and hard. The weapon in his hand steady and unwavering.

“Who are you?” His voice rough and raspy from too much alcohol and not enough use.

“What?” The taller, lankier boy says.

“Who are you and why are you here?” His voice is surer this time and he adjusts his aim to indicate that he’s not fucking around.

“Sir?” The ginger says, fanning his hands out in the universal sign for non-threatening. “Sir, we don’t speak Haut.”

Lowering the pistol, Dean searches his brain for the words. “I asked who you were, corporal and more importantly, why you are here. I’m inactive and this is R&R.”

The young men survey the room as if he’s crazy, which, yeah, he gets that.

“Sir, I’m Corporal Le Mat and that’s Corporal King and you’ve been here over two weeks. The general sent us to retrieve you when you missed your report date.”

Dean blinks and sits up, resting his Bowie and his 9mm on his knees. “What day is it?”

“Sir, it’s February 27th, you missed your rendezvous by 5 days.”

“Well fuck,” is all he says.

“Sir, General Winchester sent us to retrieve and courier you to him. He’s worried about you.”

Dean can only glare at the man. “And the colonel? Is he worried about me?”

“Sir, the colonel has a mission for you.” Comes the answer and Dean throws his head back in a humorless laugh.

“Figures,” is the only answer.

“Sir? I suggest you shower and get dressed,” Corporal King says and holds out his hand.

Dean ignores the help and rises on legs that are too skinny and nearly too weak to hold his weight.

*******

When the door opens to the bathroom, the man that emerges is nearly unrecognizable. His strong jawline now visible and sharp. His green eyes have somewhat cleared and behind the shield of his uniform, he looks every bit the confident commander he was before hell.

The trio spill out onto the sidewalk, with the sunlight blinding the officer. Le Mat offers Dean his aviators. He turns the sunglasses over in his hand before placing them on his face.

“Dean, you look ridiculous in those,” The memory comes unbidden. Cat-like hazel eyes are glittering in his mind and his brother is laughing.

He shakes away the memory of his brother’s heart shaped sunglasses and gets into the Army Jeep. Does Sam even miss him?

*******

The ride to the LZ is not quiet, the wind from the exposed roof and windows whistles by and Dean wishes for a radio. He wouldn’t even know any of the songs back stateside. The noise of the Huey is even louder as it delivers him to the DMZ. By the time the second Jeep deposits him at his destination, he’s somewhat sober.

The canvas of the mobile command unit nearly blends in with the country’s overgrowth and it feels familiar and foreign at the same time.

There are nervous glances and whispers just out of his earshot when he exits the vehicle and makes his way to the biggest tent. He squares his shoulders and holds his head up high. Fuck Charlie and fuck Uncle Sam and most importantly, fuck his father. He doesn’t care what anyone in this God forsaken, mosquito infested, shithole place thinks of him. The man that did died in the jungle.

*******

General Henry Winchester leans over the room sized map at the rear of the operations tent. His salt and pepper hair, cut in a regulation style, dates him more than the commendation bars that rival the size of Rhode Island over his heart.

A captain that Dean is unfamiliar with, rakes his gaze over him before leaning to whisper to the aging officer. The general’s back stiffens and he stands up straight before about facing to look at his grandson.

Henry takes in the thinner form, but still strong and muscled soldier before him. The two years Dean was a POW have taken their toll, but for the most part, he’s still boyish and unassuming. The softness that many enemies have mistaken for weakness is still present. He’s classically handsome like old Hollywood, but the light in those green eyes has dimmed considerably. Henry wonders if the young man who was quick to smile and quicker to cry is in there at all.

“Dean...” Henry whispers before shaking loose the thousands of images of his oldest grandson from before the War. “Captain,” he settles on, offers a stiff salute.

“General Winchester,” Dean’s voice is thick, deeper than he remembers. The salute is returned. “Captain Winchester reporting for duty, sir.”

“At ease, soldier.” He instructs before watching muscle memory morph Dean’s almost painfully rigid attention stance to parade rest. “Captain Cleary,” Henry turns to the O3 who is still scrutinizing the newcomer, “Retrieve Colonel Winchester from the communications tent.”

“Yes, sir.” Cleary says, tearing his gaze away from the enigma that is Captain Winchester.

“Let’s sit down, son.” Henry only says after Cleary is out of earshot. He gestures to a couple of camp stools at the tent’s back opening.

“How are you, Dean?” Henry’s eyes softens as he takes in the familiar features in front of him.

“Sir?” Dean looks momentarily confused before it shifts into red hot anger. “How am I? What kind of question is that?”

The general shakes his head and sighs. His grandson has been in captivity for 24 months. It stands to reason that he’s forgotten some of West Point’s codes of conduct. “Yes, Dean. How are you?”

Dean closes his eyes before letting the anger bleed out of his body. He’s angry at the fucking world and it’s only partially the man in front of him’s fault. “Permission to speak freely, sir.”

Henry rotates his class ring on his right ring finger and regards the young man carefully. “Granted.”

“General, do you know what Bo'ng la.i ca'i is in Haut?” Dean asks, his eyes glossing over.

The general turns it over in his mind. “I’m not familiar with that term.”

“Hai Phai? Or cô gái xinh ??p?” The words are hard and are forced past Dean’s lips like his lungs are made of broken glass.

Henry shakes his head again, his knowledge of the Vietnamese language is not as proficient as his German is.

“Pretty girl,” is answered over Dean’s shoulder and the captain scrambles to his feet. The general forgotten as the younger Winchester snaps to attention.

Henry doesn’t rise and glares at the form of Colonel John Winchester. “Excuse me, colonel?”

“Sir, what the captain was saying,” Dean hears ‘captain’ loud and clear. Not ‘my son,’ “Is a slang variation of ‘pretty girl’!”

Henry’s eyes flicker over to John’s. The imperceptible nod he gives his father, confirms his fears that it means what he thinks it means. The anger that is present in the young man’s eyes is valid and the tactics that the Viet Cong use to break its prisoners are just as nauseating as it was when this war started.

The young captain that used to ride on his shoulders and run through his sprinklers has been subjected to the horrors of war that neither his father, nor his grandfather can empathize with. He’s been stripped down and tortured in ways that violate not only the Genova Conventions, but decent morality.

Henry scrubs a hand over his face and says, “Colonel? Sit. I was speaking to my grandson.”

The gun shy captain is finally coaxed back onto a stool and the general sets a set of black and white photos in front of his face. “These images are of a rogue Viet Cong general that has taken a group of reporters hostage after shooting down their escorts and the helicopter they were traveling in, deep behind Cambodia’s lines. Twenty two days ago, there were four American civilians as well as a two decorated American soldiers that were taken from the wreckage.”

Dean looks up at the older soldiers, “These civilians? Twenty two days? You better hope they are dead.”

John stiffens and the general produces another set of photographs. Sam’s smiling face is on top, his Browning Camera around his neck. Dean hasn’t seen Sam in nearly three years, last he talked to him, he was at Stanford instead of West Point.

“That stupid hair...” Dean gasps and then it dawns on him the gravity of the situation.

“What the hell was Sam doing in Cambodia?” His voice attracting the other members of the tent.

“Sam took a job with the U.S. Liaison office right after you went MIA,” John says quietly. The weight of losing both of his boys to the enemy seeping out.

“Dean, If you take this mission, it’s not sanctioned. If you are captured, it’s off the books and you will be treated as a war criminal and a deserter. Do you understand?” The general asks.

Dean nods, words like traitor and court martial mean little to him if his brother dies. “Am I to understand that if I’m captured, the United States Army will claim a Section 8 discharge, due to duress caused by my own captivity?” His voice has lost all infliction as he repeats a section of the Code of Conduct.

Henry looks between his son and grandson. “Dean, you know more about the way the opposition operates then almost anyone here. I trust you more than anyone of them. You can say no, but you are the most qualified.”

“I’m also expendable, right? If I fail, it was just a hot headed, batshit crazy, POW. The U.S. Army doesn’t lose its brass and I’m not an embarrassment.” He stares his father down for a split second then nods at the general. “When do I leave?”

 

 

 

***

It’s oh-six-hundred the next morning when a Huey Chopper deposits Dean on a dock along the Mekong River. He’s to rendezvous with the crew of a Naval Patrol Boat, Riverine and make his way up the coast.

The humidity from the swampy banks of the river is making his newly issued tigerstripes itch and cling to his body.

The old saw bones who examined and declared him fit for duty, must have started his military career during the American Civil War. It really didn’t matter, even if the young captain hadn’t attended one of the most prestigious military academies, getting out of a tour of duty was nearly impossible. Often times it required a body bag.

The PBR’s chief, a man named Banks, is standing on the port side when Dean approaches.

“Captain Winchester, requesting permission to come aboard,” this is Dean’s mission and he is the ranking officer, but things generally go smoother if he gives older, more seasoned enlisted men a modicum of respect.

“Granted, sir.” Comes the reply after a few minutes of scrutiny. “Winchester? Any relation to General Winchester?”

“No, just a coincidence.” It was a well known fact that he is the grandson of one of the Army’s most decorated Officers in the higher echelons of command.

“You look a little young, for a captain. No offense, sir.” He tacks on the title quickly.

“None taken,” Dean sighs, “Battle Field promotions are funny like that.”

“So you’ve seen combat,” it’s not a question. “Where was your last engagement?”

“Well,” Dean removes his brand new Kevlar and runs his fingers over the two vertical stripes stitched into the camo. “I was at Hanoi for a tour.”

The Chief looks him over again and nods. “Basic never prepares you for something like that.”

“To be perfectly honest, nothing could prepare you for something like that. Not even the Point.” He reaches into his breast pocket and hands the older man the sealed letter from Captain Cleary. It’s signed by the general and gives him complete authority over the vessel and it’s four person crew.

The chief takes it and looks it over before nodding. “There are only two points of ingress onto the Nung and they both are hairy. Charlie controls both.”

“It’s taken care of,” Dean says.

*******

Thirteen hundred hours finds the five men moving further down the water. Dean has pulled out the dossier that the colonel gave him with the members of the crew he’s with and the civilians he sent to rescue. There’s not much information on the insurgents that he’s been sent to eliminate. Only that one is a South Vietnamese defector and several of unknowns who are persona non grata.

Colonel Winchester was very adamant about treating any threats to the US and it’s allies with extreme prejudice. In military speak that means feeding them a bullet.

The PBR has three other enlisted men and they are as different as night and day. Mostly kids younger than Sam, all ill-suited for war and with one foot in their graves.

The mechanic, the one called Lafitte, was from New Orleans. He was wrapped too tight for Vietnam. Probably too tight for New Orleans. He was the oldest of the three, his fair-colored facial hair not closely cropped, shoulders broad and standing a couple of inches shorter than Dean.

Milligan from the forward 50's, was a famous surfer from the beaches south of L.A. To look at him, you wouldn't believe he'd ever fired a weapon in his life. He was tan, blond and built like a stereotypical swimmer.

The youngest of the trio was a tall, African American. His name was Adams and came from a South Bronx shit-hole, and Dean thinks the light and the space of Vietnam really put the zap on his head.

Dean takes out a pack of cigarettes and offers one to the chief. “Don't smoke. You know, I've pulled a few special ops in here. About six months ago, I took a man who was going past the bridge at Do Lung. He was regular army, too. I heard he shot himself in the head,” Banks says, studying the map of the river.

The crew all stop whatever they are doing, look out beyond the shore and the green jungled hills. There is a distant rolling noise, like interrupted thunder. The buffeting and noise continue.

“What is that?” Lafitte says, his accent heavy.

Dean never looks up from his reading, “Hmm... that’s Arc Light.”

“What is that?” Lafitte sounds pissed.

“Arc Light,” Dean says again and flips a page over.

“What’s up?” Milligan says as he walks closer to the captain.

“B52 Strike,” Dean closes the folder and scrubs a hand over his face.

“What’s that?” The Cajun says for the third time.

“That’s ARC LIGHT!” Dean shakes his head at how green this crew is.

“I hate that. Every time I hear that, something terrible happens,” Lafitte frowns.

Adams joins the rest of the crew and says, “Charlie don't never see them or hear them, man.”

“There they are,” Milligan says. He points to the sky overhead.

Way past any of the clouds and barely visible, is the black silhouettes of four B-52 bombers, their vapor trails streaming white against the dark blue sky.

“Concussion'll suck the air out of your damn lungs,” Adams offers.

“Something terrible is going to happen.” The mechanic groans.

“There’s smoke. It’s secondary burning.” Adams points to the fire rolling out of the jungle.

“Hueys, captain. Over there. A lot of them.” The chief says.

“Let’s have a look, chief.” Dean holds his hand for the field glasses. The burning coastline revels the Air Calvary, First of the Ninth. “That’s them.” He shakes his head.

It’s their escorts to the mouth of Nung River, but they were supposed to be waiting another thirty kilometers ahead. Air mobile. Those boys just couldn't stay put.

The PBR moves to the beach through a chaos of other boats, low-flying helicopters, and soldiers rushing by onshore.

A vast field of devastation, smashed and burning huts, shattered sampans and bodies washing around in the surf. Dean replaces his Kevlar and jumps off the boat. Adams and Milligan exit behind him and head ashore.

First of the Ninth was an old cavalry division that had cashed in its horses for choppers, and gone tear-assing around Vietnam looking for shit. They'd given Charlie a few surprises in their time here. What they were mopping up now hadn't even happened an hour ago.

They make their way across the beach, weapons in hand. Explosions go off around them; there is smoke everywhere.

They work towards the village under siege. Dean stops to talk with a sergeant as a medevac helicopter takes off in the background. The Hueys and Loaches in the sky drown out most of their conversation.

“Where can I find the CO?” Dean yells against the wind and noise of the choppers.

“That's the colonel coming down!” The NCO shouts back and points to a particular Huey in the sky, and moves to a clear spot by a large bomb crater. He takes out a smoke bomb and pulls the pin and lays it down in the clearing, as it spews out orange smoke.

“CO's on that chopper.” Dean moves back to Adams and Milligan and they all kneel, trying to avoid the propeller wash as they look up.

The helicopter is heavily laden with machine guns, etc., as it lands in the middle of the clearing. A broad, strong-looking man jumps out of the helicopter.

Colonel Robert S. Singer replaces his Air Calvary Stetson that is traditional, but Dean thinks is ridiculous in the jungle. His spurs catching light as he lifts his head, his hands on his hips, surveying the field of battle. The yellow bandana around his neck bright as a billboard against the Army green and camouflage.

“Lieutenant, bomb that tree line back about a hundred yards. Give me some room to breathe.” Singer shouts at a younger officer.

“Yes, sir!” Singers starts walking, then turns and shouts to the lieutenant.

“Bring me my body cards!”

“Yes, sir!” The lieutenant moves back to the helicopter and Singer continues forward toward a besieged village.

A captain from tank division comes running down the street, stops in front of the colonel. “I'm the Fourth Tank commander. I've got five tanks broken down.”

“All right with the tanks. It's all right, captain.” The colonel is still shouting against the noise. The captain turns and exits, as the sergeant walks up leading Dean, Milligan and Adams.

“Captain Winchester,” They exchange salutes. Dean takes out a set of orders and hands them to him. “I carry priority papers from Com- Sec Intelligence, II Corps! I understand Nah Trang has briefed you on the requirements of my mission.”

“What mission? I haven't heard from Nah Trang.” Singer hands the orders to a major, who has joined him. He looks at them and shakes his head "no."

“Sir, you're supposed to escort us into the Nung!” The major hands the orders back to Dean. By this time the lieutenant has run back in from the helicopter with the deck of playing cards. He hands them to Singer.

“We'll see what we can do about that! Just stay out of my way till this is done, captain!” The CO cracks the plastic wrapping sharply, takes the deck of new cards and fans them. Then he strides past Dean and his two young crewmen with no further acknowledgement, the others follow. He moves through the shell-pocked field of devastation, soldiers gathering around him. As he comes to each V.C. corpse, he drops a card on it, carefully picking out which card he uses.

“All right, let's see what we have. Two of spades, three of spades, four of diamonds, six of clubs...there isn't one worth a jack in the whole bunch.“ The colonel is talking to himself as he crosses on down the street, distributing his cards on top of the dead V.C. corpses.

Dean and his men follow behind Singer, he bends down and picks up one of the cards from a dead V.C. The back of the cards are black with the red shield and horse insignia from the Air Cav. “Death From Above” is printed on the card. The face of the card has a skull and crossbones with angel wings. “Dealers in death, 1st Air Cav.” Is printed in between the value of the card.

“Hey captain, what that?” Milligan gestures to the card in Dean’s hand.

“Death cards. Lets Charlie know who did this.” Dean replies darkly.

The colonel moves through the remaining corpses, selecting a card and flipping it on a body, or putting it behind an ear.

There’s a shell shocked soldier rocking back and forth, clearly horrified at the carnage. The colonel pats his chest as he passes, “Cheer up, son.”

American soldiers are jumping out of holes and grenades are exploding all around the colonel and company. Dean and his two men brace themselves as the colonel and major don’t even blink.

The entourage finally stops in back of a large gathering of villagers. They are standing around a G.I. and ARVN Interpreter, listening to them.

A soldier over a PA system rings out over the throngs of explosions and gunfire. “This is an area that's controlled by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese! We are here to help you! We are here to extend a welcome hand to those of you who would like to return to the arms of the South Vietnamese government.” The message repeats itself.

A line of villagers are throwing all their belongings on top of a large APC parked by the road, and filing into the carrier. Singer stops and watches the G.I.s help them, then he moves over and looks at the inside, where the villagers are crowded together, waiting and scared.

A village woman grabs at the colonel.
“Get in! Hurry up!” He nudges her back and shuts the door. “Move it out!” He yells to the driver.

Singer turns and continues down the burning street with the group. He comes upon a wounded V.C., groaning. The man has tied a wash bowl over his belly and is groaning for water. Soldiers are poking him and laughing. “What’s this?”

“This man's hurt pretty bad, sir. About the only thing holding his guts in, sir, is that pot lid.” A sergeant explains.

The senior officer turns to the ARVN soldier and says, “What does he have to say?”

The ARVN soldier spits on the wounded man, “This soldier is dirty V.C. He wants water. He can drink paddy water!”

Singer shoves the ARVN soldier away and reaches for his canteen. “Get out of here! Give me that canteen!” He turns back to the ARVN as says “Get outta here! I'll kick your fucking ass! Any man brave enough to fight with his guts strapped on him can drink from my canteen any day.”

Singer stoops down and starts to quench the prisoner's thirst from his canteen. A soldier rushes up to him. “Sir, I think one of those sailors is Adam Milligan, the surfer.”

Singer says, “Where? Where? Here? You sure?”

The soldier points at Milligan. “Down there.”

The Colonel rises, hands the canteen back, and moves over to Dean and his crew. Looks at at Milligan. “What's your name, sailor?”

Milligan salutes. “Gunner's Mate Third Class Adam Milligan, sir.”

“Adam Milligan? The surfer?”

“Yes sir,” Milligan says.

The colonel smiles and holds out his hand. “Well, it's an honor to meet you, Adam. I've admired your nose riding for years. Your cutback, too. I think you have the best cutback there is. These guys with you?” He jerks a hand toward Dean and Adams.

Milligan nods, “Thank you, sir.”

“You can cut out the "sir" crap, Adam I'm Bobby Singer. I'm a goofy foot.”

Singer leads Adam off to meet some other soldiers. Dean's entire top-priority mission has been shoved to the background. He’s furious that they are wasting time.

Singer continues to make introductions, “I want you to meet some guys. This is Mike from San Diego. Johnny from Malibu. We're pretty solid surfers. None of us are anywhere near your class, though.”

Milligan shakes their hands, The Colonel moves on, the group follow him. Dean quietly seething and forcing his impatience down.

“We do a lot of surfing around here, Adam. I like to finish operations early, fly down to Yung Tau for the evening glass. Been riding since you got here?”

“No way. I haven't surfed since I been here.” The sailor replies.

They stop to see Catholic Mass going on in the middle of a graveyard. Many helicopters continue to hover overhead.

Dean looks around him, looks at the Mass being held, as the priest continues his alter on a gravestone in the midst of the bombing and evacuations. It’s chaos and death. That’s what war is.

His brother has been missing twenty-three days, nineteen of which Dean spent drunk and high off of his ass in Saigon. He’s as much at fault as anyone if he is too late.

*******

Nightfall finds the area illuminated by large cans filled with sand and jet fuel, bonfires, and the burning village in the background. There are maybe fifteen to twenty helicopters secured against the wind, in orderly patterns. Men are grouped around the fires, eating steaks, hot dogs, hamburgers, drinking beer. It has the bizarre resemblance of some sort of barbarian beach party.

Singer had a pretty good day for himself. They choppered in the T- bones and the beer and turned the L.Z. into a beach party. The more they tried to make it like home, the more they made everybody miss it.

The CO is seated at the fire with some of his men, strumming a guitar and singing. Dean sits away from he group and watches. Singer is not a bad officer. He loves his men and they all feel safe with him. Singer was one of those guys that had a weird light around him. Dean knew Singer wasn't going to get so much as a scratch here.

Singer finally looks over at Dean, who is sitting alone on the other side of the fire. “What happened to your mission, Captain? Nah Trang forget all about you?” He punctuates the question with a laugh.

Dean gets up, carrying the map he's patiently been holding. He lays it down in front of Singer, squats and points. “Sir, two places we can get into the river are here and here. It's a pretty wide delta, but these are the only two spots I'm really sure of.”

Singer studies the map and scratches his head, “That village you're pointing at is kind of hairy, Winchester.”

“What do you mean ‘hairy’, sir?” Dean is familiar with the term, but failure isn’t really an option.

The senior officer studies Dean’s face. “It's hairy. Got some pretty heavy ordinance. I've lost a few recon ships in there now and again.”

The soldier that was introduced as Mike comes over and looks at the map “What's the name of that goddamn village, Vin Drin Dop or Lop? Damn gook names all sound the same. Mike, you know anything about this point at Vin Drin Dop?”

“That’s a fantastic peak!” Mike says enthusiastically.

“Peak?”

“About six foot. It's an outstanding peak. It's got both the long right and left side, with a bowl section that's unbelievable. It's just tube city.” Mike smiles.

Singer looks at Mike with a scowl, “Well, why didn't you tell me that before? A good peak. There aren't any good peaks in this whole shitty country. It's all goddamn beach break.”

Mike gets defensive, “It's really hairy in there, sir. That's where we lost McDonald. They shot the hell out of us there. That's Charlie's point.”

Dean sees his chance and jumps in, “Sir, we may not be able to get the boat in. The draft at the mouth of that river may be too shallow.”

Colonel Singer rises to his feet and points a finger in Dean’s face, “We'll pick your boat up and put it down like a baby, right where you want it. This is the First of the Ninth, Air-Cav, son. Air mobile! I can take that point and hold it just as long as I like, and you can get any place up that river that suits you, young captain.” Dean bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.

“Hell, a six-foot peak! All right.” The CO does a fist pump and whoops. “Take a gunship back to division. Adam, go with Mike and let him pick out a board for you. And bring me my Yater Spoon, the eight-six.”

Mike reacts doubtfully. “Sir, I don’t think...”

“What is it, Soldier!” Singer yells out and it silences the men around the fire. “Spit it out!”

“It's pretty hairy in there. It's Charlie's Point.” Mike tries again.

Singer throws his hands up in the air, exasperated. “Charlie don’t surf!”

*******

Outside the destroyed village the next morning, the helicopters, pilots, and men are ready for battle. The helicopters slowly start up, as the soldiers scurry to their various positions.

Singer and his men are followed by Dean and his, including the chief, across the field and into a waiting chopper. Singer removes his hat and puts on his Kevlar.

*******

The five person crew is seated in an airborne chopper, looking out. “Jesus Christ, Adams. You ain’t gonna believe this...” Lafitte says to the youngest member of the crew as the PBR watches it being lifted into the air.

Singer picks up some gloves and starts to put them on as he crosses to the gunner by the helicopter. “How you feeling, Jimmy?” He asks the young G.I.

“Like a mean motherfucker, sir!” The kid beams.

Dean looks out at the formation of helicopters from the side door. The various troop ships moving by. The men waiting, sitting on the floor, sitting on their helmets, looking back at him.
The iron mounts that are just as strange as this was are magnificent in the sky as they split into two columns.

Singer cranes his neck and leans out to watch the waves, then turns back to Adam. “I never have got used to a light board. I can't get used to one. I'm used to a heavy board.”

“It’s a real drag,” Milligan says.

“You prefer a heavy or light board?” Singer says as if they aren’t getting ready to massacre a whole village.

“Heavier?”

“Yeah? I thought young guys like lighter boards.” Singer acts like he’s back in California just shooting the shit.

“Can't ride the nose on those things,” Milligan admits.

The pilot alerts the colonel, “Duke Six, this is Eagle Thrust Seven. We've got it spotted.”

Singer morphs back into a warrior and says into his headset, “Eagle Thrust, put on heading two- seven-zero, assume attack formation.”

“That's a Roger, Big Duke. We're going in hot. Here we go.” The pilot flips switches and presses buttons.

Singer leans closer to Milligan and says, “We'll come in low out of the rising sun, and about a mile out, we'll put on the music.”

“Music?” The younger sailor’s eyes get wide.

“Yeah, I use Wagner. Scares the hell ot of the slopes. My boys love it.” The colonel nods.

“Hey, they're gonna play music!” Milligan says to Dean, face contorted in an shocked expression.

As they near the destination, several of the soldiers take off their Kevlar helmets and sit on them. The PBR crew reacts with surprise. “How come all you guys sit on your helmet?” Lafitte asks.

“So we don't get our balls blown off.” The mechanic laughs, looks around. Then he takes off his own helmet and sits on it.

“Eagle Thrust, put on psy war op. Make it loud. This is a Romeo Foxtrot. Shall we dance?” The colonel says and the sound system inside the lead Huey, starts to blare Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” out to the squad.

With enormous twelve-driver loudspeakers blasting out the music, the choppers descend into enemy territory. The PBR crew is nervous, looking one part amused and three parts anxious at bombs and surf boards attached to the under carriages.

*******

Typical quiet Vietnamese coastal village, rather large, built along the beach and trees with rice paddies behind. Sampans are pulled into a cove where the are being unloaded. It’s different aspects of the life of the village, the people working there.

A teacher and little girl come out into the courtyard, quickly followed by other students pouring from the schoolhouse in the background. A North Vietnamese soldier runs in to the teacher, who then turns back to the children. The soldier waves to the children to get out of the area.

N.V.A. AND V.C. rushing along the trenches and taking the camouflage covering off a large automatic antiaircraft weapon.

*******

 

Just as the song reaches it’s climax, the Hueys let go of their ordinance, pelting the village under attack. The invincible cavalry charges in, hurling all its fearful weaponry, blasting out the Wagner.

“We've spotted a large weapon down below. We're gonna go down and check it out.” The pilot tells Singer. The helicopter shakes and the smoke of the rocket shoots ahead of the Hueys, when a Vietnamese house goes up in flames. V.C. Troops scatter.

“Outstanding, Red Team. Get you a case of beer for that one!” Singer says to his pilot.

“We're over the village right now. I think I see a vehicle down in the courtyard. I'm gonna check it out. “ The pilot says to Singer.

“Well done, Hawks. Well done. Want some twenty-Mike-Mike-Vulcan right along those tree-lines. Ripple the shit out of them.” Singer directs.

The co-pilot leans back and says, “Got a vehicle on the bridge, fifty caliber on-board. He's moving across to resupply weapon.”

Singer sighs, “Big Duke Six. Clear the area. I'm coming down myself. Don't these people ever give up?”

The command chopper circles the area. Gunships hit the Citroën that's trying to cross the bridge. The car bursts into flame and the ammunition is explodes.

The pilots ease the chopper down on the beach and Singer hops out. The village is completely leveled, but weapons fire is still coming from the trees. Attack helicopters swirl overhead and open their guns up on the tree line.

“So what do you think?” Singer asks Milligan.

Milligan takes in the bombs and destruction happening all around him and says, “It’s really exciting, man!”

“No, no. The waves!” Singer

“Oh, right.”

“Look at that, breaks both ways. Watch. Look! Good six-foot swells!”

*******

Back closer to the beach a short while later, Singer’s helicopter kicks up a cloud of dust as it sets down. The colonel pop's out, followed by Milligan and other officers and strides across the beach looking out toward the sea.

“Incoming!” A soldier yells and everyone hits the dirt except Singer.

Shells impact in the water about a hundred yards away, sending up a geyser of spray, but Singer is unmoved.

The major, Singer’s XO, screams over the blasts happening around him. “This L.Z. is still pretty hot, sir. Maybe you ought to surf somewhere else.”

The colonel has had enough, “What do you know about surfing, major? You're from goddamn New Jersey!” He whistles Mike and Johnny over, who look like they're ready to hit the dirt again as explosions go off around them. “I wanna see how rideable that stuff is. Go change!”

Mike glances around, “It's still pretty hairy out there, sir.”

“You wanna surf, soldier?” He nods reluctantly, “That's good son, because you either surf or fight. That clear?”

Singer grabs an M16 from one of the guards, they all think he's going to shoot the surfers or someone, and flinch back.

“I'll cover for them and bring a board Adam. He cocks the weapon and Milligan looks around uneasily, before looking to Dean.

“We can't do shit till the boat gets here.“ Dean tells the sailor.

“Adam, I bet you can't wait to get out there.”

“What?” Milligan looks back the colonel, the man is clearly nuts.

Singer gestures out at the ocean, “See how they break both ways? One guy can break right, one left, simultaneous. What do you think of that?”

“Bobby, I think we ought to wait for the tide to come up.” He starts away.

The colonel runs after Milligan, “Adam wait. Come here. Look.”

Another soldier shouts out, “Incoming!” A shell screams over and they all hit the dirt except Singer. The shell explodes, throwing sand through the air.

Singer leans down yelling over the noise, “The tide doesn't come in for six hours! You wanna wait here for six hours?”

Milligan shoots Dean an incredulous look and Dean would laugh, if circumstances were different.

By the time Mike and Johnny are out on their boards, trying to surf, the PBR is getting dropped into the water.

“Okay, fellas, quit hiding. Let's go, dickheads, take off.” Singer has a megaphone and shouting out across the LZ.

There are jets screaming overhead, cannons firing and helicopters evacuating the wounded.

Dean has stayed silent through all of the colonel’s insanity. He’s hardly the first officer that Dean has served under that was crazy and had a very unorthodox command style. But right now, he can’t hold his tongue. “Goddamnit! Don't you think it's a little risky for R and R?”

Singer wheels around on Dean with a murderous glare, “If I say it's safe to surf this beach captain, it's safe to surf this beach! I mean, I'm not afraid to surf this place! I'll surf this fucking place!” He rips off his shirt and scarf. “Hand me that R-T!” He grabs the radio, “Dove Four, this is Big Duke Six. Goddamnit, I want that tree line bombed!”

“Big Duke Six, Roger. Dove One-Three, stand by.” Comes the reply over the radio.

“Bomb them into the stone age, son.” He throws the radio back to the soldier.

Radio chatter is coming across the channel, “Hawk One-Two, Dove One-Three. They need some napalm down there. Can you put it there?”

There’s static from a fighter pilot’s mask and then, “Right, One-Three. We're fixed to fuck with them.”

“Trying to suppress some mortar fire off the tree line down there.” Comes the reply from command.

“Roger. Here we come.” The pilot says.

“Good. Give it all you got and bring in all your ships. Wing abreast.”

“Big Duke Six, this is Dove One- Three. The jets are inbound now. They got about thirty seconds to bomb station. Get your people back. This is gonna be a big one.”

Singer smiles and turns towards Milligan, “Don't worry. We'll have this place cleaned up in a jiffy, son. Give me those shorts.” He turns to his aide, who hands him a pair of Air-Cav trunks. “These are from the Air-Cav, a present from me and the boys. I wanna see you do your stuff out there.”

Jets break the trees, explosions of 20mm canons echo across the beach, and then the entire tree line erupts into fire with an immense amount of napalm. Singer stands there, hands on hips, looking at the burning jungle in the distance.

Dean and Milligan have taken cover in a foxhole and Singer strides over and kneels down. “Do you smell that?”

“What?” Milligan asks.

“Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed for twelve hours...and when it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of them, not one stinking dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell? The whole hill smelled like...victory.”

He looks wistful and shells are flying around one impacts not too far away. The soldiers react by hitting the deck, but Singer just ignores it. “Someday this war's gonna end.”A tremendous sadness enveloping him. The he stands up and walks off.

Dean watches him leave, he understands exactly what the colonel is talking about.

As Singer walks further away, he suddenly senses something. He stops, lifts his hand, then licks his fingers and puts them in the air. “Adam! The wind! The Wind! It's blowing onshore! It's gonna blow this place out. It's gonna ruin it!” Sure enough, there is a rushing breeze that increases.

“Not cool, man!” Milligan yells back.

Dean sees their out, “I'm really sorry, colonel, but I'm afraid that does it. The kid's got a reputation. You can't expect him to surf those sloppy waves.”

Singer shakes his head, “I understand what you're saying.”

Milligan plays it up, “I’m an artist, Bobby! I couldn't surf that crap.”

Dean calmly goes about picking up Milligan’s clothes as Singer apologizes to the sailor for the conditions.

“Look, I apologize. It's not my fault. The waves are getting blown out by the napalm. It's the bombs causing a vortex with the wind.” Singer says, genuinely.

Milligan considers this for a second before he reluctantly says, “I accept your apology.”

“Hang around just twenty more minutes,” The colonel pleads.

Dean can’t stop the smile on his face so he turns away from Singer and says over his shoulder, “Some other time, Bobby.”

“Just twenty minutes...” Singer is following them.

“I’m an artist!” Milligan says and inches closer to the captain.

Dean slings arm arm around Milligan and guides him away from the CO. “Just keep walking,” Dean says quietly in the younger man’s ear.

Singer has picked up the megaphone and is addressing the surfers, “Let's give it a try, guys. One goes left and one goes right.”

He turns back towards the two retreating forms, “Look Adam...” Dean picks up the pace to almost a jog, the sailor still tucked into his side.

“You through surfing? Wanna say good-bye to the Colonel?” Dean asks when they get almost to the boat.

“No!” Milligan says like Dean is nuts.

“You sure?” Dean teases.

“Yeah!”

“Then let's get the fuck out of here!” Dean says, nudging Milligan.

Singer is still on the beach with the megaphone, “Adam, it's the fucking napalm! Just wait twenty minutes! Fuck!”

They run like hell towards the boat and Adams and Lafitte help them on board. Singer has thrown his megaphone down into the sand and is kicking at it.

Something catches Dean’s eye as he’s boarding and he yells at the men, “Don’t leave without me!”

“Where the fuck are you going?” Adams yells after him.

He books it to the colonel’s helicopter and yells “Incoming!” The soldiers dive in the chopper and he grabs Singer’s surf board that is secured to thhe bottom. It’s painted like the Air Cav’s insignia. A soldier sees him and says, “that’s the Colonel’s board!”

Dean decks him and says, “Get the fuck off me! It's mine!” He runs as fast as he’s ever run, back to the boat. He hands the board to Adams and scampers onboard. Adams stuffs the board in the stern. The boat turns, engines running hard and roars off into the deeper waters of the river.

Dean collapses backwards onto the bow, exhausted, but laughing like he hasn’t in two years. Truthfully, he hasn’t laughed like this since before he left for West Point and Sam. He’s extremely satisfied with himself.

***

Nightfall finds the crew of the PBR farther up the Nung. They’ve docked under a thicket to hide from the helicopters patrolling the river.

Dean is cleaning his weapons in the sparse light of dusk and drinking rice whiskey. Adams and Lafitte are smoking and swapping stories of home, while Milligan is standing on the riverbank, washing out his new trunks in a bucket.

The sound of a Huey breaks the quiet of the jungle and Adams yells for the chief, who is below deck. “Hey, chief?Here comes that colonel guy again.”

The sound of the helicopter gets closer and an indistinguishable language can be heard on a loudspeaker. Milligan gathers his bucket and soap and jumps up on the PBR.

Colonel Singer’s voice rings out across the water. “I will not harm or hurt you. Just give me back the board, Adam. It was a good board and I like it. You know how hard it is to find a board that you like." The helicopter drones on into the distance, the same speech starts again farther off, and finally the noise ceases.

Lafitte blows smoke out his nose, “Determined motherfucker, ain't he? Cock-sucker!“ Dean snaps off a salute at the passing chopper. It disappears into the distance.

Adams watches it get farther away and adds, “Jesus Christ. That guy's too fucking much, man.”

“Do you think he would've shot us?” Milligan says to Dean.

Dean nods his head, “He wouldn’t have shot us on the beach, but probably if saw us taking his board.”

Adams starts singing, “Let's go surfing now, everybody's learning how.. “

Milligan climbs into the gun turret, “Let's get this board out of my turret.”

“Sucker,” Adams says and keeps humming the Beach Boys.

“Come on, how am I gonna shoot him the next time he comes around?” Milligan reasons.

Dean sighs, “Hey Lafitte, make some room back there for the board.” They stow the board in the back of the boat, hiding it.

“I wonder if that’s the same chopper as before?” The chief asks Dean.

“Hell, he's probably got them all over the river with that recording. We'll have to hole up here till dark, chief.” Milligan stiffens. “Don’t worry, Milligan. He won’t follow us far,” Dean reassures.

“How do you know that?” The young sailor asks.

“You think that Cav colonel wants everyone up river to know we stole his board?”

Milligan flails his arms, “I didn’t steal it!”

Dean chuckles and lights a cigarette. “Captain? Just how far up this river are we going?” The chief asks, dropping down on the bow next to Dean.

“That's classified, chief. I can't tell you. We're going up pretty far.” Dean takes another drink and offers Banks one.

“Is it gonna be hairy, sir?” Adams asks quietly.

The captain feels sorry for the teenager, “I don't know, kid. Yeah, probably.”

“You like it like that, Captain? When it's hot, hairy? It does run in your family.” The chief says.

Dean stares at the man but can’t deny it.

“What do you mean, runs in his family?” Lafitte says, moving closer.

“The captain here is General Winchester’s grandson. Right, captain?” The chief nods at him.

“General Westmoreland’s second? That General Winchester?” Adams asks.

Dean takes another drink. “Been a West Point graduate every generation since the Civil War in my family.”

“What if you wanted to be something else?” Adams sounds melancholy.

“No one ever asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up,” Dean lights another cigarette.

“If you could be anything, what would it be?” Milligan asks.

Dean thinks of Sam’s smile. Of the days spent on the coast together, both tan and glowing. The winters spent in Germany, snow clinging to Sam’s eyelashes and his cheeks ruddy. He thinks of that last fight they had before he left for ‘Nam. “It wouldn’t be doing this,” he replies.

*******

The crew has fallen asleep somewhere after midnight. Dean is dreaming, he’s sure of it.

The sun is glintering off of Sam’s hair as they race around the beach at their grandfather’s home on Martha’s Vineyard.

Sam was five and he’s nine and they’ve just stormed the beaches of Normandy. Both clad in child-sized fatigues and small Kevlar helmets. Mary Winchester, still youthful and radiant is calling them in for dinner. Dean turns towards the ocean, places his hands on his hips and belts out, “I shall return!”

John is laughing at her side. The sunlight making the golden bars on his collar gleam. “This is your fault!” Mary says playfully shoving her husband.

The dream shifts and Sam is underneath Dean on that same beach. It’s well past sundown and they are alone. Sam is nineteen, with long arms and legs tangled up with Dean’s. Both are covered in sand and salt water. This was the night before Dean shipped out. The last night of the world for him.

They are kissing frantically and tearing at each other’s clothes. Sam’s fingernails are leaving scratches in their wake.

Just before he pushes inside his brother, Adams’ voice pulls him out of the dream.

Just around a bend, the boat is illuminated by a strange artificial light. Milligan and the chief are awakened. Dean reacts as he looks out toward the light. It becomes brighter and brighter as they move closer.

The PBR goes by the base. There are tents, oil drums, sandbagged bunkers, etc., but the biggest surprise of all is a huge oval stage built in the water, lit by rows of lights. Preparations for some sort of show are in progress. They all react, incredulous, as the PBR pulls into the bay and up to the dock.

“This sure enough is a bizarre sight in the middle of all this shit.” Says Adams, wide-eyed and mouth gaping.

The chief yawns, turns to Dean. “Expecting us this time?”

Dean rubs the back of his neck. “Damned if I know. It looks like an amusement park.”

The boat makes their way up to the supply docks of this base. Fuel, supplies, helicopters, tanks, guns, and men are scattered about. As they walk, Lafitte and Adams stop a moment and look at a group of motorcycles. The dock is crowded with all kinds of goods, freezers, and refrigerators, all the nonessentials for fighting a war.

Dean keeps walking past all of the smorgasbord of supplies and towards a small office. The other two sailors catch up, “That must be the guy,” Adams says.

The men approach a harried sergeant
at a requisition desk, filling out papers, answering questions, shouting out orders to the frenetic activity around him. There are soldiers scurrying back and forth, loading and unloading supplies. They constantly interrupt the sergeant with their questions.

Lafitte and Adams stop at the desk in front of the sergeant. “Three drums of diesel fuel, PBR- Five...”

“Move! We have one hour, that's all. What do you want?” The sergeant interrupts Adams.

“Can I get some Panama Red?” Adams meekly inquires.

“Panama Red? Yeah, I'll get you Panama Red,” the sergeant nods.
“Destination?”

“I don't have a destination.” Adam tells the sergeant.

“You can't get a goddamn thing without a destination!” The sergeant raises his voice loud enough to draw Dean’s attention.

“Sergeant, What seems to be the problem?” Dean strides over to stand next to his men.

“I need a destination. I can't do a goddamn thing about it.” The supply sergeant tells Dean.

“Hey, sarge, these guys are with me. Destination classified. I carry priority papers from Com-Sec Intelligence, II Corps.” Dean keeps his voice even, but they’ve already wasted enough time.

“Listen, sir, it's a real big night...Eight dollars for that camera.” The man yells at another soldier rifling around on a table with camera equipment.

The sight of a Browning Camera fills Dean with an unexpected rage, and he suddenly reaches up and grabs the sergeant by the collar, pulling him down across a table, scaring the shit out of him. Everybody is shocked.
“Just give them some fuel.” Dean growls.

“You got it.” The sergeant says and Dean lets go of him, almost embarrassed for the show of temper. The sergeant goes back behind his desk and starts signing papers.

“Listen, captain,” The sergeant starts wringing his hands, “I'm really sorry about tonight. It's really bad around here. Just take this over to the man at the supply desk and you got it.” He tears off a requisition and hands it to one of the trio.

“Listen, would you guys like some press box seats for the show?” The sergeant says as an after thought. The crew is confused, “You want those? The show, man, out here. The bunnies?”

“Playboy Bunnies?” Milligan asks, eyes as big as saucers.

The sergeant grabs a bottle of cognac, and moves to Dean, he hands him the bottle. “Hey, listen, captain...on the house. No hard feelings.” Dean looks down at the bottle in his hand and then up at the stage.

The entire area around the stage and right up to the barbed wire is mobbed with hundreds of seething American men. Some of these boys have just gotten here, others have been in the jungle for months. It's the Vietnam military version of a happening. Guys from all walks of life, from the cities, guys with flowers in their hair and peace signs around their necks, other guys with their short-time sticks and war medallions around their necks.

Black G.I.s congregate together with their clenched-fist black power medallions. There are signs and posters and graffiti everywhere. Some guys have guitars, everyone seems to have a camera. Rummaging, sitting, waiting expectantly, before the enormous stage, which is protected by rings of concertina wire, a moat, and M.P.s every three feet at riot control positions. Many joints and pipes are being passed around. Snapshots are being taken. It has a strong resemblance to a love-in or even Woodstock. Except that they're all in various degrees of combat fatigues, and they're all men.

“We can’t stay,” Dean tells the men. Adams and Lafitte look at him like he’s lost his mind.

“What’s so important that we can’t stay for a little while?” Milligan asks.

Dean rubs his eyes, “You know I can’t tell you the nature of the mission, Adam. But trust me, it’s important.”

“I’m going to need more than that if I’m going to miss the playmate of the year!” Milligan crosses his arms and refuses to move.

“Milligan, you heard the captain. Back to the boat.” The chief supplies. The three men groan, but grudgingly start walking.

The unmistakable sound of a Huey echoes overhead and a helicopter with a Playboy Bunny decal lands on the stage. Milligan and Lafitte both watch slack jawed as two green berets exit the aircraft with M16s.

The next person out of the chopper is a young and extremely well-dressed man. He is the epitome of the Hollywood agent. He's informal, high-strung, and good at what he does. His presence causes some stirring and occasional shouts of "ripoff" from the men. He gets a microphone from the stage, then walks to the front and addresses the men. “How you doing out there?” The crowd screams. “I said ‘how you doing out there?’” the crowd screams louder. “Wanna say hello to you from all of us up here, to all of you out there, who work so goddamn hard on Operation Brute Force. Hello, all you Paratroopers out there! And the Marines! And the Sailors! We wanna let you know that we're proud of you, 'cause we know how tough and how hard it's been! Yeah! And to prove it, we're gonna give you some entertainment we know you're gonna like!” The band starts its rock and roll amp, playing the Creedence Clearwater Revival rendition of ‘Suzy Q’.

Dean pushes Milligan in the direction of the boat as the the announcer yells out “Miss August!” The noise from the crowd is deafening.

*******

The next morning, the crew is on deck with a radio station playing. Dean is seated looking through the dossier, it contains documents from the C.I.A.

The radio host’s voice cuts through the music, “Good morning, Vietnam. I'm Army Specialist Zack Johnson on A.M.N.V. It's about eighty-two degrees in downtown Saigon right now, also very humid.”

Adams is standing on the front of the boat, he has a small transistor radio in his hand. The host continues on “...and we have an important message for all G.I.s who are living offbase from the mayor of Saigon. He'd like you to hang the laundry up indoors, instead of the windowsills. The mayor wants you to keep Saigon beautiful. And now, here's another blast from the past going out to Big Sam, who's all alone out there with the First Battalion, 35th Infantry, and dedicated by the Fire Team and their groovy C.O. The Rolling Stones, ‘Satisfaction.’”

Milligan is water skiing behind the boat, with Lafitte and Adams dancing on the deck. Dean retreats to a a quiet corner of the boat and drowns out the noise. The recon photos and reports are painfully sparse on his intended target and he reads it over again. It’s overkill, because he’s memorized every word.

He takes out the last page of the folder. “Samuel Winchester, age 22” is typed on the top of of the document.

”I don’t want you to go,” Sam’s eyes were full of tears and his bottom lip quivering. At seventeen, he was taller already than Dean and his shoulders were broader.

“I have to, Sam.” Dean leaned back against the hood of his Impala, which was a present for his 20th birthday.

“We shouldn’t even be involved. Why can’t the U. S. Mind it’s own business for once?”

“Sammy, I have to go. At least if I graduate from West Point, I’ll avoid the draft. Those guys that get drafted? They are canon fodder.” Dean pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You aren’t a killer. If you survive, you’ll become one. You won’t even be the same person when you get back,” Sam buried his face in Dean’s neck.

“I’ll always come back to you. I promise you that.” Dean wrapped his arms around his brother. He placed a kiss on his forehead, “now I have to go.”’

Sam refused to let go. “Come on, Sam, man up. I graduate in two months, the war won’t even last five years. You’ll see.”

Dean pried his brother’s long arms away from his neck. “I have to go.” He held up the keys to the Impala, “be careful driving her home.”

Sam’s face a wet and ruddy mess. He openly bawled and Dean shouldered his duffle and straightened his uniform.

“Come on, Sam. People can see.” Dean blinked back his own tears.

“I don’t care,” Sam was as stubborn as ever.

“Sammy, come on, now. Don’t spoil my memories of the weekend.” .

Dean turned his back on Sam and joined the sea of gray uniforms filtering in from their 3 day leaves. His fellow classmates and soldiers greeted him with back slaps and stories of the their weekend conquests. Dean omitted certain details of his weekend, but namely the gender of his companion and certainly the fact that it is his little brother. It was enough to get them off his back.

“Winchester!” A cadet smacked him in his back on the way into the dorms. “Did you have a good weekend?”

“Can’t complain, can’t complain at all!” Dean continued to unpack his duffle before lights out.

“Who was the kid at the gate?”

“Oh, that was Sammy. He’s still upset about the war.” Dean went for nonchalance.

“Man, he got big!” Dean nodded his head in agreement.

Dean notices the slight differences in his brother’s face. The way his baby fat has disappeared and deep dimples sharpen his cheeks, before closing the photograph up in the folder.

*******

The boat travels farther up the river and the crew grows antsy. It’s that itch under their skin that can’t be scratched or soothed away.

Adams paces the boat in a frantic daze. He’s nervous and just plain jittery. Milligan has painted his face in black and green tiger stripes and has been oddly withdrawn onto himself. Lafitte busies himself with making perpetrations for dinner. He’s the unofficial chef of the group and is good at what he does.

Dean continues to read the dossier and prepares for every scenario that he’s going to encounter up the river.

The boat edges in toward a wrecked bridge in the distance. Along the banks are sandbagged fortifications with the U.S. soldiers. There is a bright fire burning uncontrolled in the distance, in fact there are several, flame and sparks from welding on the bridge momentarily light up the night. There is sporadic gunfire at O.S. snipers, and flares arc through the sky above the bridge. Do Lung bridge was the last army outpost on the Nung River.

“Hey, Milligan, what do you think?” Says the chief.

Milligan says, “It's beautiful.”

“What's the matter with you? You're acting kind of weird?” The other sailor questions.

Miliigan replies, “You know that last tab of acid I was saving?”

“Yeah.”

“I dropped it.”

Lafitte smiles, “You dropped acid? Far out.”

The chief powers the boat forward, as Dean and Adams watch in awe. Everywhere are wrecked boats, parts of jeeps sticking out of the water, a smashed helicopter on the banks. The bridge is in a state of siege. Mortars and rockets arc through the night indiscriminately and rip through the nearby jungle. Light automatic weapon fire is heard occasionally. The entire scene is lit by parachute flares. As the PBR edges forward, soldiers run up through the water, trying to get aboard. One soldier is carrying some luggage and an M16. He splashes into the water, in a mad dash for freedom.

The soldier says, “Take me home! Goddamn you!”

“Get away from this boat.” The chief bellows out.

The second soldier says, “You'll get what you deserve!” He and the others are left behind as the PBR continues forward. Dean sees a young lieutenant kneeling on a platform that juts out into the water. He is holding a small strobe light, trying to signal the PBR down. He is holding a large mail bag and a pouch in the other hand. Dean motions toward the shore. The Chief turns the boat towards the lieutenant.

“Carlson,” the soldier salutes. “Is there a Captain Winchester on board? Captain Winchester?”

Dean approaches the officer,“Yeah! Who's that?” As the boat crosses to a stop, Milligan swings the spotlight onto the lieutenant.

“Lieutenant Carlson, sir. Get that light off me!” He says to Milligan, who swings the light off him, as Dean squats down on the bow of the boat.

Carlson says, “I was sent here from Nah Trang with these three days ago, sir. Expected you here a little sooner.” He hands Dean a plastic bag with maximum security markings. The captain takes it, as well as the mail pouch. “This is mail for the boat. You don't know how happy this makes me, sir.”

Dean eyes the lieutenant, “Why?”

Carlson, “Now I can get out of here, if I can find a way.” He turns and splashes off into the darkness. Then stops and looks back.

Carlson speaks quietly, “You're in the asshole of the world, captain!” He salutes, then turns and moves away. Dean hops off the side of the boat into the mud, moving up toward the shore.

“Captain, where you going?” The chief inquires.

“To see if I can find some fuel and get some information. Pick me up on the other side of the bridge.” Dean shouts back over his shoulder.

“Somebody go with him.” His eyes land on Lafitte’s, but the man doesn't move, not wanting to go.

No one budges, then Milligan volunteers. “I'll go. I want to go.” He picks up an M16, then jumps over the side onto the shore.

*******

As Dean and Milligan walk across an open area, they are lit by the battle in the background. Milligan looks up and around the embankment and along a barbed wire on the edge of the road. There are shells screaming overhead. Milligan just stands looking down on the phantasmagoric strings of lights, the smoke, the fires.

Dean jumps down into a trench. There’s a soldier crouched, holding his buddy, who is crying uncontrollably.

“Where can I find the C.O.?” Dean questions.

“ You came right to it, son of a bitch!”

“Milligan! Get down here!” The officer hisses. Milligan is still reacting to the pyrotechnics around him. He turns and jumps down into the trench. “You still got a commanding officer here?”

“He’s in Beverly Hills,” the non emotional soldier replies

“What?”

“Right up the road there's a concrete bunker called Beverly Hills. Where the fuck else do you think it would be?” The G.I. is pithy and disrespectful, but Dean can’t force a reprimand past his lips.

Dean and Milligan turn and move away from the two soldiers. They begin the journey down the long trench. They pass a group of G.I.s. Suddenly, Dean trips over a body, and falls right into a mud puddle. The body stirs.

“You stepped on my face!” The soldier whines.

“We thought you were dead.” The younger of the pair supplies.

The soldier in question growls out, “Well, you thought wrong, damnit!”

They come to another gun emplacement, where two Soldiers are at a fifty-caliber machine gun. The gunners blast away into the night, walking and swearing at Viet Cong. The spotter is feeding the bullets into the gun. Psychedelic guitar music plays on a portable radio.

“I told you to stop fucking with me! You think you're so bad, huh, gook?” The corporal who is firing says.

Dean watches for a while, then shouts over to him. “What are you shooting at, soldier?”

“Gooks! What the fuck do you think I'm shooting at?” He turns and sees it’s an officer. “I'm sorry, sir. There are gooks out there by the wire. But I think I killed them all.”

“You ain't shot shit! Listen!” The soldier feeding the bullets says. The enemy's yelling continues.

“Oh, shit, he's trying to call his friends. Sendup a flare.” The gunner says to his spotter, who reaches over and picks up a flare pistol, and fires a flare into the air. The gunner starts blasting away again, “You think you so bad, Charlie? You think you so bad? He stops firing. The yelling continues.

“They're all dead, stupid. There's one still alive underneath them bodies.”
The spotter chastises.

Dean asks the gunner, “Who's the commanding officer here?”

“Ain't you?” The gunner turns back towards the enemy. “You think you so bad? I got something for your ass! I got something for you now! Milligan climbs up on top of the sandbags and looks at the pyrotechnics. Explosions go off all around him.

“There's nothing but bodies, man!” The spotter repeats.

“Go get the Roach, man. Go get the Roach, now!” The gunner yells towards the spotter.

The spotter moves down the trench, to where a tall lanky black soldier wearing all sorts of beads and trinkets leans against the ditch, sleeping. “Roach! Roach!” The man gets up somewhat annoyed, but very cool, and saunters up toward the machine gun.

Dean looks over and sees Milligan up on top of the sandbags. “Milligan!”
The younger sailor climbs down back into the trench. The man called Roach and the spotter move back to the machine gun, where the gunner waits. The Roach turns off the radio, sits down, and listens.

“Do you hear them? We”ll bust them.” Roach says.

The staticky voice of a Viet Cong comes over the radio. “ Hey, G.I., fuck you!”

“You hear him out there on the wire, man?” The gunner asks.

Roach, “Yeah.”

“Fuck you, you G.I.” The radio blares again.

“You need a flare?”

“No.” Roach listens really close. “He's close, man. He's real close.

“G.I., fuck you!” The voice repeats.

The Roach opens the breech of his shotgun-like weapon, plunks a big slug into it. He snaps it closed, then turns and wraps the strap around his arm. He points the weapon up into the air listens to the yelling, calculating, then fires. The grenade whistles off into the night. There is a sharp explosion that cuts off the scream. Then the thud of bodies. “There, you motherfucker!”

“Hey, soldier. Do you know who's in command here?” Dean finally asks Roach.

“Yeah.” He says, but turns and walks away.

*******

The PBR stands in the shadows. Lafitte, the chief, and Adams are waiting for Dean and Milligan. Shells whistle by and crash in the distance as the welding continues on the bridge

Adams looks up and sees a direct hit on the bridge. Two soldiers are blown off some of the towers and into the water. “Holy shit! Yo, chief, two guys just got blown off that bridge,” the young sailor says.

“You hang on, man. You're gonna be okay.” The chief says.

Adams turns and moves to the bow, where Lafitte is kneeling by the mail bag.

“ What's that?” Adam’s gestures at the sack.

“Mail, man!” The cajun’s accent is thick as molasses.

The chief interrupts, “Later on the mail! Watch them trees.”

A few minutes pass and Dean and Milligan climb back onto the boat, loaded down with supplies.

“ There's no diesel fuel, but I picked up some ammo. Let's move out.” The captain says

“Did you find the C.O., captain?” Banks inquires.

Dean shakes his head, “There's no fucking C.O. here. Let's just get going.”

“Which way, captain?” The chief asks.

“You know which way, chief.” Dean takes off his shirt, then his T-shirt, he lights a cigarette.

“You're on your own, Captain. Still want to go on? Like this bridge. We build it every night, Charlie blows it right back up again, just so the generals can say the road's open. Think about it...who cares?” Lafitte offers, somberly.

Whit hot anger wells up in Dean’s gut, “Just get us up river!”

The chief chimes in, “Lafitte, on the bow. Stand by, Adams.”

The men on the bridge continue to weld with their torches as the PBR backs up, then the Chief pulls away from the bridge. They all look back in the distance, the hills flash with charges, there is a fiery glow, the concussion of heavy explosions, as the bridge blows apart.

*******

It is the next morning. The PBR continues on its journey up river. Dean is sitting alone looking at the dossier from Trang. The top photograph is one that he knows almost as well as his brother’s. Once he reads the contents of the file, he takes his Zippo out and lights it on fire. What Uncle Sam is asking him to do is too much and he doesn’t think he will be able to do it.

Lafitte distributes mail from the mail bag. “Shit, you got another one, Adams.”

“No shit. Wait a minute. Is that it?” The young man looks sadly at the two small letters in his hands.

“That's it for you, Milligan?” Milligan takes the letter from the older man.

“Far out, man! All right, I been waiting for this one.” The surfer is excited as he tears into the letter.

The crew begins reading aloud various stories of home.

Milligan has taken some smoke bombs and is popping them open. Colored smoke begins to pour out. “Purple Haze! Look!”

“Milligan, put that smoke away.” The chief swipes at it with his hand.

“I got a tape from my mom.” Adams holds up a small tape.

Milligan is still playing with the smoking flares. “Chief, rainbow reality, man. Get a good whiff.”

“Eva can't picture me in Vietnam. She pictures me at home, having a beer, watching TV...” Lafitte reads aloud. “Eva's not sure she can have a relationship with me. Here I am, thirteen thousand fucking miles away, trying to keep a relationship with my ass.”

The colored smoke is getting into everyone’s eyes. The boat is nearly engulfed.

Adams' tape from his mom is playing. "...and that's much more that I can say for some of your friends. If this tape is any good, I will have Dad and the family send you a tape of their own.” Her voice is soothing and motherly.

Suddenly, streams of tracer rounds whip out of the jungle at them, other bullets smash and ricochet off the deck; glass shatters, everybody jumps to their battle stations. Milligan jumps into the turret of the twin fifties and starts blasting away at the jungle. The chief tries to power the PBR out of the ambush. Adams jumps up behind the M60 machine gun and starts firing. Dean uses his M16. Everything is confusion, yelling, gunfire, the thud of bullets ripping into the PBR fiberglass hull.

Milligan's guns return fire. He screams obscenities as he vents an almost superhuman violence. He’s turning in the turret; bullets smash and explode around him. Nobody quite knows where the fire is coming from.

The chief steers and accelerates erratically, trying to dodge the fire fight.

Adam’s is still firing the M60, when suddenly it jams. As he rises up behind the shield he is riddled by machine gun fire. The bullets blast into his throat, chest, stomach and he falls to the deck. Nobody has seen that he is down yet. They keep firing their guns into the jungle.

The chief throttles forward, the boat surges ahead and slams across the river. It is all over quickly. The chief turns and sees that Adams has been hit and is down on the deck. “Lafitte! Take care of Adams! Captain, Adams is hit! He’s hit!”

Lafitte crawls to Adams and turns him over, sees that he is dead. “Adams, Hey! Bubber, you can't die! You fucker! Hey, bubber! Jake!”

The tape from Adams’ mother is still playing. "I'll have a lot of grandchildren to love and spoil, and then when your wife gets them back, she's be mad with me. Even Aunt Jessie and Mama will come to celebrate your coming home. Granny and Dad are trying to get enough money to get you a car. But don't tell them, because that's our secret. Anyhow..." the chief jumps down and tries to take his pulse. No one turns the tape off. "...do the right thing, stay out of the way of the bullets, and bring your hiney home all in one piece...'cause we love you very much. Love, Mom." chief is holding Adams’ hand and crying.

***

The boat is under power, moving through fog. They pass downed jets, wreckage, and fires. Dean is sitting on the bow, looking out into the distance as though he sees something. “Hold on. Throw me the glasses.” The captain motions to the chief. He looks through the binoculars.

In the distance, stands a plantation, the dock has been devastated by years of fighting. There is a heavy fog everywhere. Up on the hill above the dock sits a large house, it doesn’t look heavily damaged.

Dean picks up his M16 and moves to the front of the boat. The chief has also seen the wrecked plantation. “Milligan, Get the 16 on the bow. Lafitte, on the 60.” The chief pulls the PBR slowly up to the wrecked dock. Dean jumps off with his M16 in hand and cautiously looks around. He walks into a wrecked barn. He comes out of the side and makes his way back to Lafitte and Milligan, who are standing on the dock.

“Milligan, cover the captain.” The chief instructs.

Suddenly from out of the fog, French voices shout out. “You are surrounded. Return. Drop your weapons.”

Lafitte yells out in French, “Don't shoot! Don't shoot!” He switches to English to tell his boat mates, “They're French.” He changes once more to yell out at their would be captures. “I am dropping my weapon!”

Lafitte drops his M16 and Milligan follows suit.

The chief shouts out furiously from the boat. “Pick up that weapon! Pick it up! Stand fast!” The men obey.

Lafitte continues to shout to the French. “We are Americans! We are friends.”

The French soldier repeats, “Drop your weapons!”

As Dean walks down the dock, French soldiers appear out of the fog, totally surrounding them. Dean stops in front of them, realizing there is no way out, and raises his rifle in surrender.

“All right, you men. Put down your weapons.” The chief finally relents. They all drop their weapons. More soldiers step out.

“We are Americans. We are friends. We are friends.” Lafitte is still babbling in French. Soon more French and Cambodian soldiers step out of the fog onto the dock.

They move forward cautiously. It is strange, like meeting up with a group of soldiers from the French Indo-Chinese War. It's as though they've stepped into 1954. The soldiers are still wearing parts of the red berets of their particular unit that fought against the Viet Minh. There are also Vietnamese who serve the French and who fought with the French. They all bear older automatic weapons and suspicion in their eyes.

Another Frenchman joins the group. This is obviously the patriarch of the family. Hubert Demarais is about fifty, with a dignity and strength about him. He and Dean look at each other.

“We lost one of our men.” Dean says, sadly.

The older man nods at the American. “We French always pay respect to the dead of our allies. You're all welcome. My name is Hubert DeMarais. This is my family's plantation. It has been such for seventy years, and it will be such until we are all dead.”

*******

The group is assembled. There is a platoon of Cambodian soldiers standing by an open grave, a sergeant name LaFavre stands at the foreground. “To my command! Attention! Weapons on the shoulder! Present weapons!” The platoon present their weapons, as Adams’ body is carried toward the grave. The bugler brings the bugle up to his lips and plays ‘Taps’.

Dean is immediately transported to another cemetery and another flag. The snow falling all around him and his long gray coat and gloves of his uniform do little against the chill he feels in his bones.

Sam has tear tracks marring his face and his black suit looks painfully big on him. Dean’s hands itch to comfort, to pull him into his side and stop the sobs that wreck his sibling’s body.

Mary Winchester is painfully thin as her illness wages a silent war on her from the inside. She’s still beautiful and looks even smaller tucked into her husband’s side. John Winchester stands stoically, head held high and expression demure, even though Dean knows that his father is used to death. Is unmoved by it.

Moisture pricks at his own eyes, but he blames it on the cold air. He wasn’t even close to the man that they are laying to rest. He was as cold and as empty in person as the empty casket that is being lowered into the ground.

Dean looks up and sees something on the balcony of the house. It’s a young woman dressed in white. She has been watching the ceremony. She turns back into the house.

The chief bends down and picks up the tattered American flag, which is on Adams’ body. Milligan places Adams’ tape recorder on the body. The body is lowered into the grave. “Captain, accept the flag of Jacob Adams, on behalf of a grateful nation.” He hands the folded flag to Dean. Dean accepts it and salutes, he tries not cry. He fails as one lone tear rolls down his face.

*******

Mist swells up around the river as the boat moves into an obscure fog. Dean is up front on the bow, trying to see what's ahead. The chief is at the helm, he finally shuts down the engine and they coast. “Can't see nothing. We're stopping.”

Dean jumps up and moves to the chief. “You're not authorized to stop this boat, chief.”

“I said I can't see a thing, captain! I'm stopping this boat! I ain't risking no more lives!”

The captain is furious, “I'm in command here, goddamnit. You'll do what I say!”

“You see anything, Lafitte?” The cajun is at the back of the boat behind the M50. He searches the banks.

“Why don't they fucking attack, man?”

Suddenly, the air is filled with arrows, an avalanche of sticks in the sky. They come down clattering on the deck. Lafitte opens fire.

“Arrows!” Dean yells.

The chief yells out to the men, “Fire! Lafitte, open fire! Fire! Milligan! Fire!”

There are arrows everywhere, primitive spears flung expertly. Milligan is in the front turret, arrows whiz around him. He turns, smiles, picks one up, looks at it, breaks it in half.

Lafitte Is frightened, but almost heroic, firing his weapon and shouting obscenities at the weird, dancing heathens attacking him. Arrows fall harmlessly around him.

Thousands of twigs in the sky come clattering down on the deck by the chief.

Dean immediately knows they're harmless, done more to frighten than to injure. But still, he's never seen anything like this in all his time in Vietnam. He moves to Lefitte, tries to make him stop firing. “Lafitte, it's okay! Quit firing! They're just little arrows. Cut it out! Quiet! Chief, tell them to hold their fire! They're just little sticks! They're trying to scare us!”

The chief picks up his M16 and turns to Dean wildly. “You got us in this mess, and now you can't get us out, because you don't know where the hell you're going, do you?” Dean remains silent, “Do you? You son of a bitch! You bastard!”

The chief leaves the wheel of the PBR and steps up on the deck with his M16.

“Milligan, get the wheel!” Dean yells as chief starts firing his M16 madly.

“You savages! Come and get it, you son of a bitches!” The chief drops the M16, moves to the M60 machine gun and starts firing madly again. Suddenly the chief stops short, puzzled, a small droplet of blood lines his mouth. He coughs up a mouthful of blood, then looks down. The head of a SPEAR has gone through his chest. He looks up at Dean. “A spear?”

He remains looking directly into Dean's eyes, then starts to fall. Dean catches him, and is pulled down to the deck by the weight of the chief's body. The chief looks up at him and suddenly reaches his hands for Dean's throat, trying to pull Dean down on top of the spearhead, trying to skewer him, and pull him along with him to death. A beat as they struggle, then suddenly the chief’s breath rasps, he dies.

*******

Milligan is putting camouflage paint on the chief. Dean has jumped off the boat with all of his gear. Lafitte looks down at him.

“My mission is to make it up to Cambodia. There's a Green Beret colonel up there who's gone insane, and I'm supposed to kill him.” Dean nearly whispers. The maximum security documents he burned still haunt him.

“That's fucking typical! Shit! Fucking Vietnam mission! This boat is short and we gotta go up there so you can kill one of our own guys? That's fucking great! That's just fucking great, man! Shit! That's fucking crazy! I thought you were going to blow up a bridge, or some fucking railroad tracks, or something!” Lafitte is near hysterics.

Milligan has pulled the chief's body into the river, and jumped in himself. Dean and Lafitte watch him, as he tries to bury chief's body in the water.

Dean turns to leave. “That's all right.”

Lafitte is quick to chase him, “No, wait. We'll go together. On the boat. We'll go with you. We'll go out there. But on the boat, okay?”

Milligan gently floats chief off downstream.

*******

The PBR moves up-river. The shore is lit up with burning torches and a large wooden structure in flames. The boat passes rows of skulls, flaming torches, men impaled on poles.

Part of Dean was afraid of what he would find, and what he would do when he got there. He knew the risks. Or imagined he knew. But the thing he felt the most, much stronger than fear, was the desire to confront him.

Dean and Milligan are standing on the bow of the boat. Lafitte is at the helm. The men stare forward in amazement. The captain has the binoculars around his neck. He brings them up to his eyes and looks.

“Just keep moving.” Dean tells the cajun. “Milligan, keep your hands away from the guns.”

Hundreds of Montagnard natives, body and faces painted white, of the most savage nature, but there is a purity about them are standing on the shore. Men and boys stand passively on canoes side by side, blocking the river. There are also hundreds of other natives lining the shore on both sides, dressed in most ornate and primitive manner, in feathers, parts of birds and animals.

They are reacting as they pass through the natives on canoes, then look up toward the bask. A temple stands on the banks. It is a magnificent, fortified encampment built around the ruins of a former Cambodian civilization.

The scale of this structure is enormous. Great enigmatic Cambodian faces carved out of stone from thousands of years ago. The fortress reaches out across the river where part of its ruins still stand on the opposite side nod on a small island. It's as though the river flowed into the great rams of the sphinx-like temple. Aligning the fortifications are concertina wire, automatic weapons emplacements. There is even wreckage of Hueys as armed machine gun nests. It is a strange combination of the very modern and the very primitive.

There are families, fires, nomadic dwellings, several hundred of the most primitive Montagnards that ever existed. Some carry spears, occasionally others emerge from the jungle, scurrying around with the activity that the arrival of a stranger brings.

The air is heavy with the weight of hundreds of automatic weapons. A thick, greasy smoke hangs from fires that burn all around the fort. Fresh shell craters indicate a recent battle. Near the dock, and everywhere else, there are tangled piles of corpses, half- submerged in the water, piles of bodies of the dead.

As the PBR moves up, a man suddenly comes into view. The man is long haired and has crazy stubble on his face. He has three or four cameras around his neck; a large bag stuffed with lenses and film. He is dressed in rags and tatters. He shouts out. “It's all right! It's all right! It's been approved!” The PBR moves slowly toward the steps, as the man continues to shout out.

Lafitte looks skeptical, “I ain't coming in there! Them bastards attacked us!”

“Zap 'em with your siren, man. Zap 'em with your siren.” The photographer shouts out. The sailor lays on the horn on the PBR. The natives react, never having heard one before; they scatter in all directions, running away scared. The photographer moves down onto the landing, directing the boat.

“There's mines over there!” The photographer points out at the river banks. “Mines over there, too! And watch out, those goddamn monkeys bite you, I tell you.”

The PBR crew are exhausted, staring at him through their mud-and-blood T faces. “Move it in right toward me.” The photographer says and he jumps onboard the boat and immediately advances towards Milligan. He shakes his hand, moves to the others, and shakes their hands as well. “I'm an American. An American civilian. Hi, Yanks. Hi. American. American civilian. It's all right.”

“And you got the cigarettes, and that's what I've been dreaming of.” The newcomer says to Lafitte, who flips him a packet of cigarettes.

Dean stares down the other American, “Who are you?”

“I'm a photojournalist. I've covered the war since '64. I've been in Loas, Cambodia, 'Man,” he surveys the boat, “I'll tell you one thing. This boat is a mess, man.”

Dean nods toward the people gathered, watching. “Who are all these people?”

“They think you've come to take him away. I hope that isn't true.” Comes the reply.

“Take who away?”

“Him! Colonel Campbell! These are all his children, man, as far as you can see. Hell, man, out here, we are all his children.” The photographer narrows his gaze at the captain.

Dean snorts. “Could we talk to Colonel Campbell?”

“Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. Well, you listen to him.” The other man says in a knowing voice.

Dean steps off the boat onto the steps. He turns and looks back at the Photographer. “The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet-warrior in a classic sense. I mean, sometimes he'll...well, you say hello to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you and he won't even notice you. And then suddenly he'll grab you and he'll throw you in a corner and he'll say ‘Do you know that the 'if' is the middle word in 'life'? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you.’ I'm a little man, I'm a little man. He's a great man. I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas."

Dean, incredulous, turns away to Milligan. “Stay with the boat.”

“Don't go without me, okay. I want to get a picture.” The photographer bounds out behind him.

The trio starts up the steps. The photographer walks with them, taking photographs. They reach the top of the steps. Gradually the natives and savages show themselves. They are fierce and frightening, jungle fighters, mostly Montagnard. They wear only loincloths and bandoleers of ammunition. Their bodies are painted in strange patterns. Death and parts of bodies are everywhere.

The photographer is still narrating their trek up stairs, “He can be terrible, and he can be mean, and he can be right. He's fighting the war. He's a great man. I mean, I wish I had words you know? I wish I had words. I could tell you something like, the other day he wanted to kill me.”

“Why did he want to kill you?” Dean asks as they come to a stop.

“Because I took his picture. He said, ‘If you take my picture again, I'm going to kill you.’ And he meant it. See, just lay cool, lay cool. Lay back, dig it.”

They start walking forward again, as the photographer continues. “He gets friendly again, he really does. But you don't judge the colonel. You don't judge the colonel like ordinary men.”

There are more natives and savages. Interspersed among them are a few taller men with paler skins, with the remnants of army insignia on them. Lafitte is frightened, as he follows Dean.

They move closer and closer to the temple. The photographer runs up ahead of Dean and stops in front of the man with paler skins...these are remnants of the Green Beret "A" Team.

“Okay, watch it now! These are Americans! Americans!” He gestures at Dean and Lafitte. “You can feel the vibe of this place. Let me take a picture. Hey, could you hold it? Hello? Could you hold it for a minute?” Dean stops and stares at the crazy photographer, who starts clicking away with a Nikon.

Dean’s insides are battling each other when he see him at the top of the steps. Taller and broader than he could ever remember. He wears only a shotgun cartridge and striker pants. His face is darkened from dirt, battle smoke, matted mud and grease.

Before Dean can stop himself, he’s reached out to wipe at the grease paint on Sam Winchester’s cheek. “Sammy. It’s ok Sammy, I’m here to take you home.”

Sam is silent. He cocks his head and looks at Dean. Slowly blinking his eyes, but his brother can’t seem to focus. Sam steps back and allows Dean to enter the temple.

The elder Winchester brother is reluctant to let go, his hand still outstretched but only holding empty space. He tries again to grab at Sam’s exposed shoulder, but the younger brother ducks out of his grasp.

Every fiber of the captain’s being wants to hold fast to his brother. He wants to cover him with his own body and shield him from this nightmare. To protect him from the world. He forces his hands to his sides to keep from taking Sam and running. He wouldn’t get very far in this jungle, but for Sam? He would try. He’d flip Uncle Sam the bird and spend one last moment with the only piece of normal in his war ravaged world.

Sam makes the decision for him and fades back into the crowd of natives. From the looks of the mob all around, Dean knows that any attempt to get at Sam won’t end well.

Dean forces the bile back that’s creeping up his esophagus. He swallows hard, dry mouth and throat making it feel like trying to eat red hot razor blades. The humidity makes his breaths come harshly, there isn’t enough oxygen on the entire planet to slow his breathing.

After counting to ten and forcing his heart rate back down to a less than hammering pace, the older Winchester brother slowly moves through the group and looks at the stone steps of the temple. Resting on the steps are freshly screed heads, blood washing down from them. They sit decorating the entrance to the temple like so many gruesome pumpkins.

“The heads. You're looking at the heads. Sometimes he goes too far, and he's the first one to admit it.” The civilian photographer says.

Lafitte is still processing Dean’s reaction to the kid on the steps, when he looks at the heads. “He's gone crazy.”

The photographer gets defensive, “Wrong! Wrong! If you could have heard the man just two days ago, if you could've heard him then. God. You were gonna call him crazy?”

Lafitte’s reply is thick as molasses as he narrows his eyes on the heads. “Fucking A!”

“I just want to talk to him,” Dean placates.

“Well, man, he's gone away. He disappeared out in the jungle with his people.” The photographer answers.

“I'll wait for him.” Dean shrugs.

“He feels comfortable with his people. He forgets himself with his people. He forgets himself.” Dean snorts again. He sure as hell isn’t leaving without his brother and he’s not even a little afraid of Colonel Samuel Campbell.

“Captain, maybe we should wait back at the boat.” Lafitte whispers, still shocked at the displayed heads.

“Okay, Lafitte, we'll go back to the boat for a while.” Dean nods at the man.

“Yeah. Stay with Milligan.” The cajun agrees.

Dean looks around for his brother’s form, but doesn’t see it. He reluctantly heads back down the steps.

*******

Sam watches his brother from behind the ragtag assembly of soldiers and natives. At first he thought he was hallucinating, his brother was dead. But even Sam’s grief stricken mind could not have conjured up the images that were present before him.

Dean was thinner than he could ever remember him being, his strong jaw even more defined and his eyes cold and calculating. The laugh lines around his eyes were no more pronounced then they were the last time Sam laid eyes on him; Sam guessed that his sibling had very little to laugh about.

Sam still remembers every detail of Dean’s capture. He had been spending the weekend at Fort Hunter Liggett Army Base in Monterey, CA, when the Chaplain, Notification Officer and the Medic made their way to the large Brown stone home that belonged to his father. Sam prayed to God that it was his father that had died. When the words, “MIA and POW” left the chaplains lips, Sam had screamed at the top of his lungs; his knees had buckled and he wailed...

“Colonel Winchester has sent a car for you, Sam,” the Officer informed him.

Sam looked at the three men who were puppets in the war. Those who thought Colonel John Winchester was a great man. Sam knew better.

 

*******

Sam dropped out of Stanford and used his family’s influence to get a job with the liaisons office as a journalist. His first assignment was a damn near suicide mission and he knew it. The fact that he escaped unscathed was a miracle or a curse. A world with out Dean wasn’t worth living.

He had gotten involved in photographing the atrocities of war committed by all sides and had been extremely vocal in his endeavors against the US Military’s involvement. Having ranking members of his family, obviously served some purpose.

Sam is brought back to the present by watching his brother’s lean, strong body descend the steps from the temple. He was wants to rush down the stone stairs and grab ahold of Dean. To take him below the deck of that rickety PBR and worship ever inch of him.

 

*******

 

Dusk finds Milligan squatting at the bow of the boat holding a spear, sticking it into the water, trying to spear a fish. A group of natives are gathered by the steps of the dock. One of the natives climbs the tree next to the dock and cuts loose a dead body. It falls into the river with a splash.

Lafitte is sitting next to Dean in the cabin. “This colonel guy, he's wacko, man. He's worse than crazy, he's evil! That's what the man's got set up here, man! It's fucking pagan idolatry! Look around you! Shit, he's loco. And what’s with the kid at the steps? Friend of yours?”

Dean is putting on his tiger shirt. “Then you'll help me?”

“Fucking A, I'll help you. But first you are going to tell me everything. No more surprises or classified bullshit. And you are going to start with that kid.” Lafitte leans back in his seat and crosses his arms.

Dean studies the sailor’s face before he starts to speak, “That kid? That kid is Samuel Winchester, 22. Photo Journalist. Also, my kid brother.”

“No offense, captain, but kids seems to have checked out,” Lafitte shakes his head.

“No, he’s in there. He’s either been brainwashed or he’s still pissed at me. Either way, I’m not leaving without him.” Dean supplies before continuing.

“How did your brother get in Cambodia? He’s not a soldier. He’s also fairly healthy looking to have been here long.” The Cajun asks.

“He was traveling with the U.S. liaison’s office, when the Huey he was in was shot down. There’s something else I have to tell you.” Dean cracks his knuckles of his left hand. “Colonel Campbell? He’s my grandfather. “

Lafitte is silent for a moment before throwing his hands up in the air. “You mean to tell me, that your other grandfather, a three star general, sent you to kill your own grandfather? That is a fucked up family you’ve got. I bet holidays are a blast!”

“Oh, you have no idea!” Dean chuckles darkly. “If it makes you feel better, I had no idea that my grandfather was still alive. He went MIA in ‘67, presumed KIA. Had the whole military funeral and all. This was a rescue mission. Get Sam and get out. My orders came with that lieutenant.”

“Why would they have waited to tell you?” The sailor inquires.

“To make sure I’d do it. The colonel shot that helicopter down on purpose. He’s keeping Sam and I’m going to have to kill him to get Sam back.” Dean says wearily.

Lafitte just nods.

*******

There are savages onshore, who have gathered around them, watching them. Lafitte has moved onto the bow with Dean. “They're so fucking spaced out, they wouldn't even know it. I ain't afraid of all them fucking skulls and altars and shit! I used to think that if I died in an evil place, then my soul wouldn't make it to heaven. But now? Fuck! I don't care where it goes, as long as it ain't here. So what do you want to do? I'll kill the fuck.”

Dean heaps the map, “No, no. I'm gonna need you to wait here, Benny. I'll go up with Milligan and scrounge around, check the place out, see if I can find the colonel, okay?”

“But what do you want me to do? Damnit.” The sailor is antsy and growing impatient.

Dean picks up a field radio and hands it to the man. “Here, you take the radio, and if I don't get back by 22:00 hours, you call in the air strike.”

Lafitte gapes at him. “Air strike?”

Dean nods. “The code is ‘Almighty,’ coordinates zero-nine-two-six-four-seven-one- two. It's all in there.” He hands the map to him.

*******

Dean and Milligan walk through the temple grounds in the rain. The duo is gradually surrounded by more and more native soldiers.

There’s every indication that the colonel has gone stark raving mad. The place was full of bodies. North Vietnamese, Vietcong, and Cambodians. Dean knows that he’s only alive because his grandfather wants it that way.

The soldiers close in on Dean, pick him up, and turn him upside down, rolling him in the mud.

Milligan is still slowly walking among passing natives. He is oblivious to what is happening to the captain.

The next thing Dean knows, his hands are tied behind his back, as he’s guided down a long corridor, followed by two Montagnards, both armed.

It smells like slow death in there. Malaria and nightmares. This was the end of the river, all right. They turn into the main room. The natives indicate for Dean to kneel down on the floor.

The colonel is completely in darkness, lying on a bed with mosquito netting. It’s a long moment before he speaks. “Have you ever considered, any real freedoms? Freedoms from the opinions of others. Even the opinions of yourself. Did they say why, Dean? Why they wanted to terminate my command?”

“I was sent on a classified mission, sir.” Dean raises his chin, defiantly. If this is how the man wants to play it, Dean is more than game.

“Its no longer classified, is it? What did they tell you?” The colonel asks.

“They told me, that you had gone totally insane. And that your methods were unsound.” Dean repeats the information from the dossier. “You’ve been declared KIA, and no longer have a command. Any and all attempts to bring you back to your superiors had been met with hostility. “

“Are my methods unsound?” The colonel asks.

“I don't see any method at all, sir.” Dean replies.

“I didn’t expect them to send you.”

“What did you expect?” Dean asks.

“Certainly not my own flesh and blood. Maybe an assassin. Are you an assassin, Dean?”

“I’m a soldier, sir.” Dean offers.

“You're neither. You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.”

*******

The next morning, the photographer hurries down the trail past villagers and soldiers toward the compound, and up the hill that leads toward the tiger cages in front of the Monkey Temple. He spots a jug full of water, with a ladle in it.

The photographer moves to Dean who is in a tiger cage. The captain is in pretty bad shape, weak and thirsty. The photographer stops in front of him. He holds the ladle for Dean to drink from.

“Why? Why would a nice guy like you want to kill a genius? Feeling pretty good, huh? Why? Do you know that the man really likes you?” He puts a cigarette in Dean’s mouth. “He likes you. He really likes you. But he's got something in mind for you. Aren't you curious about that? I'm curious. I'm very curious. Are you curious?”

The photographer walks around Dean’s cage. “There's something happening out here, man. You know something, man? I know something that you don't know. That's right, Jack . The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad. Oh, yeah. He's dying, I think. He hates all this. He hates it! But the man's a...He reads poetry out loud, all right? And a voice...he likes you 'cause you're still alive. He's got plans for you.

“No, I'm not gonna help you. You're gonna help him, man. You're gonna help him. 'Cause he dies when it dies, when it dies, he dies! What are they gonna say about him? He was a kind man? He was a wise man? He has plans? He has wisdom? Bullshit, man! Am I gonna be the one that's gonna set them straight? Look at me! Wrong!” Then points to the captain, “You?”

*******

Dean is nearly delirious when he comes to and realizes he’s not alone. The figure is tall and quiet. There is sparse light coming from the moon and Sam steps into it.

“Oh my God, Dean!” Sam’s face is scrubbed clean and he’s wearing cleaner clothes. His hair tangle free and hanging softly in his face.

“Heya, Sammy.” Dean raises his head and looks at his brother. “I know, I look fantastic!”

“I thought you were dead, you know?” Sam says sadly. “Two years and we didn’t exactly leave it on the best terms.”

“It’s okay. But you know what I have to do.” Dean says in a voice barely above a whisper.

“You don’t have to anything. Dad has asked you do a lot of screwed up stuff, but this? Too much, man!” Sam responds.

“Sammy, I don’t know what he’s done to you, but the colonel insane. He’s legitimately off his rocker. He didn’t pass go and didn’t collect $200.” Dean’s voice is raspy, thick with emotion.

“Don’t you see? He’s not the one who is crazy. He hates the war. Hates what it has done to his family. This isn’t our damn business. The U.S. won’t admit defeat and go home. How many more people need to die to admit failure?” Sam’s voice is getting louder with every word. “You above all should know what this war is doing people. What happened at the Hilton?”

Dean exhales slowly and licks his lips, “I can’t talk about it, Sammy. I won’t.”

“Why not? I haven’t seen your face in over two years. Haven’t heard your voice or touched you. Let me help you.” The younger sibling is nearly pleading with Dean.

“How? You really think that a little heart-to-heart, some sharing and caring, is going to change anything? Huh? Somehow heal me? I'm not talking about a bad day here.” Dean turns on his side towards the bars that separate him from his brother.

“The things that I saw, there aren't words, there is no forgetting, there's no making it better. Because it is right here,” the captain taps his temple, “forever. You wouldn't understand and I could never make you understand. So I am sorry.”

***

It’s sticky and hot as the sun rises in the jungle. The hazy mist floats in and around the tiger cage and Dean blearily opens his eyes. He’s laying on his side towards the front bars of his make shift prison, but Sam is gone.

Sitting up and stretching out knotted muscles, he surveys the enclosure. It’s steel bars and a dirt floor, there’s nothing to use to dig with or even to use for a weapon. The cage itself weighs at least a ton and moving it is out. He inspects the lock, but even if he could find something to pick it with, he can barely reach the key hole with his hands.

He busies himself with a hundred sit-ups, followed by hundred push-ups. The bent leg lifts were always his least favorite exercise that the US Army forced on its members, but he learned at Hanoi to enjoy the concentration and focus they required.

 

“Winchester, what are you doing?” Hissed Sergeant Jonathan Rose, upon noticing that Dean still did a daily exercise routine.

“It keeps my mind sharp and keeps me in shape,” came the answer between clenched teeth as Dean held his legs for three seconds before lowering them for his seventieth repetition.

“In shape?” Scoffed Rose, “They barely feed us enough to stave off scurvy. I think Masters has the rickets.” He nods his head towards a painfully thin soldier leaning against the dirt wall of their jail.

Masters, upon hearing his name, turns to look at the pair. His eyes zero in on Dean’s bowed legs and chuckles, “If anyone has rickets, its Winchester there. Man, how did you make it through basic?”

Dean shrugs. His rank and training is unimportant here. There’s no chain of command and no special treatment at the Hilton. Making his pay grade known would be disastrous for him. So he focuses on keeping his stomach muscles pulled in and on Sam’s smile.

*******

Nightfall finds the jungle in the midst of a thunderstorm. Torrential rains soak Dean to the bone, even with the metal roof overhead. Lightening illuminates the sky and thunder crashes in the distance. He’s lightly dozing from the oppressive heat. He vaguely wonders if Sam is ok, his little brother was always terrified of storms and never failed to find himself in Dean’s bed as a child.

Branches and underbrush snap outside his prison and Dean turns towards the noise. He sees a tall, dark figure backlit by the storm standing over him.

The colonel is dressed in the all black dress of the Viet Cong, his face painted in green and black tiger stripes and he’s holding something in his hands. Thunder rumbles a little too close after an impressive streak across the sky and something solid drops into Dean’s lap.

It’s heavy, like a hairy bowling ball and the captain turns it over in his hands. Another flash of light and he sees its Lafitte’s severed head.

“Jesus Christ!” He exclaims and drops the head. It rolls away from him in the mud and Dean crab walks away from it as fast as he can.

“Oh God,” Dean chokes out and forces down his stomach contents that are threatening to rebel. He can’t look away from the decapitation and retches again in spite of himself.

The colonel grabs his grandson by the collar of his tiger shirt and begins to drag him towards the door. Dean stumbles and is shoved through the opening and into rain. He’s surrounded by a hodgepodge of soldiers and natives. He frantically searches for his sibling’s face.

“Walk!” Is the only thing that Campbell says and though Dean scrambles to his feet, he’s refuses to budge.

“If you are leading me to my death, grandpa, I’m not walking.” He’s not going to make it any easier.

“I’m not going to kill you, son. You were never in any danger here,” the colonel sighs, “Now walk.”

Dean glances around in the darkness and the shadows, where he can barely make out the shapes of his captors. There is still blood on his hands from the slain sailor and he can only hope that Milligan is okay.

He wipes sweat and unmentionables away from his palms down the front of his fatigues. His pants have become unbloused and the canvas of his jungle boots is soaked. Every step causes a sickening squelch through mud and muck.

The rain is finding its way through the trees to still soak everything under the leafy canopy. Dean is marched for a little over a klick, along a slippery, sodden path. He can’t see the faces of his jailers, but he knows that he’s completely surrounded.

They stop in front of a row of metal Conex containers. The corrugated steel is rusted and the bottoms have sank deep into the swampy land.

A faceless guard opens the door and Dean is commanded in a tongue that he doesn’t speak inside. He’s not stupid and the tone of the voice is clear. He’s still defiant as ever and insists, “I don’t understand.”

The barely clothed man with an M16, shouts the same order and shoves him harder. Dean falls down on his hands and knees, before being pulled up to his feet by two more guards.

“Alright! Alright!” He hisses out, as they dig the bayonet of the rifle into his back. “I speak five languages, I can’t help it if bullshit isn’t one of them.”

The barb earns him another poke from behind and he stumbles over the threshold of the container and down onto the unforgiving straw floor. Metal grinds together as the opening is slid into place and Dean is left in the dark.

He lays on his back and stares up into the pitch blackness of the makeshift dungeon. There must be holes in the ceiling because he can breathe, but it’s still stifling. It’s dryer here than the tiger cage, but he’s quickly sweating through his BDUs.

The rain is pummeling down on the top of the steel in a rhythm that nearly lulls his exhausted body to sleep. It sounds like the old tin roof of the base housing when he was a small child. The small apartment where Sam learned to crawl and walk and where Dean learned to ride his bicycle. Where Dean’s memories of his father were unpolluted and he really was a hero.

Dean strips off his shirts and boots, laying them out in a corner to dry. He scrapes up a mound of straw and beds down on it. He needs sleep if he’s going to find a way out of here.

*******

Dean thinks he’s dreaming when the metal on metal sound yanks him out of a light doze. His breath quickens and he plasters himself against one of the walls of the box. He’s dropped down into a crouch when a figure comes inside and slams the door shut. The clicking of a lock engaging sounds as the visitor locks the world out and Dean inside with him.

Dean slows his breathing and is ready to attack when a G.I. flashlight comes to life and shines around the enclosure, before pinning him into place in his corner. It’s owner drops it before tearing the tiger striped poncho over his head and saying, “Dean?”

“Sammy?” Dean voice is heavy with emotion and the word comes out in a sob. In the next instant, Dean’s back is up against the corrugated metal as all six feet and four inches of his baby brother is in his arms, attacking his mouth.

Sam is sobbing into Dean’s mouth, salty tears coming down in a deluge that would rival the storm outside. “I hate you,” Sam sobs out. His erection is shoving into Dean’s hip at a painful angle while his fingernails tear the skin of the older brother’s biceps. “God, I hate you!”

Dean palms his brother’s impressive length through the cotton of his pants and gasps, “Yeah, it certainly feels like you detest me.”

Sam smacks Dean’s wrist away and says, “You know what I mean. You were gone and I thought I’d never see or touch you again.” Both hands cup Dean’s face and Sam kisses him again. It’s messy and desperate, Dean winding his legs around his brother’s waist as he’s forced back against the hard metal wall.

The captain sighs, kissing his brother’s nose, “I told you, Sammy, I’ll always come for you. I told you.”

Sam grabs his brother under his thighs and lifts him, a little too easily, off the wall. With the care that he’d give to a lover of the fairer sex, he lays the smaller man down on the straw flooring and crawls over him. “God, I’ve missed you,” Sam’s voice is sex rough and low into Dean’s ear.

Dean feels like he’s outside his own body when Sam removes his own shirt and they are finally skin to skin. The hard floor and the uncomfortable straw forgotten as Sam tears at his pants and presses their rock hard cocks together. It’s silky skin against a velvet heat, Sam’s large hand grasping at both of them.

Dean groans and arches into his brother’s hand, toes curling and eyes rolling back in his head. Sam spits on his other hand uses the saliva and precome to ease the way. They rut against each other at a violent pace until Dean feels his balls tightening up and then he erupts all over Sam’s own length, his hand and both their stomachs. The extra lube just makes Sam pumps faster until he too is riding out his own climax, while working his brother through his. His strokes only slowing when over sensitized skin makes Dean shove him away.

“Well, that was embarrassing,” Dean pants out, his heart and breathing still increased.

“I didn’t last much longer,” Sam says with a chuckle before kissing Dean’s temple an pulling him into his arms.

“Sammy?” Dean says, sex drunk and saited.

“Hmm?” Sam sounds just as fucked out.

“Next time, no caveman theatrics. I’m not a girl,” Dean says with a smile and settles closer in his arms.

“I don’t know. You sure are pretty like one,” Sam laughs.

Dean stiffens and shoves his brother away. He starts picking through the pile of clothing in the sparse light of the lantern, finding his own pants and undershirt and putting them on. He retreats to another corner and sits facing away from Sam.

“Dean? What is it?” Sam asks at a loss. “I’m sorry, please. What’s wrong.”

Dean is resting his forearms over his knees, his head between his legs. When he turn and looks at his brother, tear tracks run down his face and glitter in the low light. “I can’t...” Sobs wrack his body and Sam rushes to his side.

The younger brother gathers Dean up, much the same way that Dean did him as a child. He pulls his head to his chest and tucks it under his chin. “Shhhh...” he tries to sooth the wailing soldiers and begins rocking him. “Let it out. Let it all out. You never have to be strong for me. Ever!”

Dean falls asleep in Sam’s arm, feeling loved and safe for the first time in years.

*******

It’s daylight when Dean’s eyes fly open. Both doors to the container are open and Sam’s gone. There are village children staring at him through the doors and his grandfather sits on a dirt step, surrounded by children, with an impressive stack of magazines.

He looks down at a magazine article and begins to read it to Dean. “Time magazine. The weekly news magazine. September 22, 1967, volume ninety, number twelve. The War on the Horizon. The American people may find it hard to believe that the U.S. is winning the war in Vietnam. Nevertheless, one of the most exhaustive inquiries into the status of the conflict yet compiled, offers considerable evidence that the weight of U.S. power, two and a half years after the bug buildup began, is beginning to make itself felt. White House officials maintain the impact of that strength may bring the enemy to the point where he could simply be unable to continue fighting." Campbell looks up at the captain, “Is this familiar?”

Dean scoffs and looks away.

The colonel continues to read, “Because Lyndon Johnson fears that the U.S. public is in no mood to accept its optimistic conclusions, he may never permit the report to be released in full. Even so, he is sufficiently impressed with the findings, and sufficiently anxious to make their conclusions known, to permit experts who have been working on it to talk about it in general terms. Sir Robert Thompson, who led the victory over the Communists guerrillas in Malay, and who is now a RAND Corporation consultant, recently returned to Vietnam to sound out the situation for President Nixon. He told the president last week that things felt much better, and smelled much better over there.” He closes the magazine and looks at Dean, “How do they smell to you, soldier?”

Dean refuses to answer and Colonel Campbell rises. He drops the magazines in the young captain’s lap. The children are laughing and giggling. “You'll be free. You'll be under guard. Read these at your leisure. Don't lose them. Don't try to escape, you'll be shot. We can talk of these things later.”

Campbell turns and exits, closing one of the doors, leaving the other open. Dean watches him go. The children stay, looking at him, still happily chattering in their own language. Dean slowly and painfully pulls himself to his feet. He stands there a moment looking at the children, then collapses to the floor.

*******

An unconscious Dean is carried to the temple by natives and soldiers. They gently lay him on the stone floor, give him clean water and try to feed him rice. He turns his head and see the colonel eating his own rice. Sam sits at his feet, trying not to make eye contact with his brother.

Campbell drops his spoon and starts to speak, “We are the hollow men and the stuffed men together filled with straw. Alas dried voices, when whisper together quiet and meaningless wind in dried rats' feet over broken glass our dry cellar.”

*******

Dean and Sam are laying on a bed of sandbags in the colonel’s chamber. Shoulders touching, but otherwise ignoring each other. Their grandfather is reading from Hollow Men by T.S. Elliot. Dean feels nostalgia for a memory that he doesn’t have. He never recalls being read to by the man before him.

“Shape without form, shade without color, force, gesture without motion,” Campbell’s soothing voice is lulling both of the Winchester Brothers into a false sense of peace. Dean shakes it away.

“Do you know what the man’s saying? Do you?” Comes a whisper from the older photographer who is leaning against the adjoining wall. Sam ignores him, but Dean cuts his eyes over in a disbelieving glare.

“This is dialectics,” the older civilian says. “It's very simple dialectics. It's one through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't travel in space. You can't go out into space, without like, you know, with fractions. What are you gonna land on? One quarter? Three- eighths? What are you gonna do when you go from here to Venus? That's dialectic physics, okay? Dialectic logic is, there's only love and hate. You either love somebody, or you hate them.”

The colonel let’s out a pained noise and throws a bowl of banana at the man.

The photographer shakes his stringy head and continues, “This is the way the fucking world lives. Look at this fucking shit we're in, man! Not with a bang, Whimper. And with a whimper I'm fucking splitting, Jack.” He strides out of the room and Sam makes eye contact with his brother. Dean raises his eyebrows in a silent smirk and Sam gives an imperceptible shake of his head.

*******

Dean is at a table containing Campbell’s belongings. He looks at his uniform, military decorations, photographs of Campbell’s family- Dean’s own family. There’s a picture of Sam and Dean, dressed in their Sunday best, a bible, and other books lying on the table.

On the river, Dean thought that the minute he looked at him, he’d know what to do. But it didn't happen. The captain was in there with him for days. Not under guard, he was free. But Campbell knew wasn't going anywhere. He knew more about what his oldest grandson was going to do than Dean did.

Dean buries his head in his hands. If the generals back in Nah Trang could see what he saw, would they still want him to kill the colonel? More than ever, probably. If Henry Winchester could see how far his own flesh and blood had fallen, would he just order the air strike? Dean thinks it’s a good possibility.

What would his people back home want, if they ever learned just how far from them he'd really gone. He broke from them, and then he broke from himself. Dean had never seen a man so broken up and ripped apart.

*******

Dean washes his face in the river and shaves the week’s worth of stubble from his face. The man that stares back used to be black and white, good or evil. That all changed when Dean laid eyes on dimples and hazel eyes. He has no idea what wrong or right means anymore.

Water splashing and childish giggles pull his focus to Sam. Shirtless and throwing native children into the water, he’s smiling and laughing like he belongs here. Dean catches his eyes and Sam gives a megawatt smile, one that splits his face and lights up the jungle.

*******

Later that night, with sweaty limbs and breathless sighs mingled together, Sam curls around Dean in the darkness.

“What are you thinking?” Sam sounds young and innocent.

“That we need to get out of here,” Dean answers honestly.

“And go where, Dean? Where in the world will we be left alone? Please tell me that,” Sam sounds like he’s in pain and Dean kisses his temple.

“We can’t stay here, Sammy. If I fail, they will blow this place off the map and everyone with it.” Dean says quietly. He’s almost given up trying to reason with his brother.

“He doesn’t care, you know? He doesn’t care what we are to each other. He told me that,” Sam replies.

“Sammy, it’s not that simple. There is nowhere in this world that we will be safe together. At least at home, we have a chance.” Dean’s voice cracks, he know how empty of a promise it is.

“You haven’t been back in three years. You have no idea what it’s like back there. We won’t be safe, home is just an illusion. Home is wherever you are,” Sam rolls off the sandbags and puts his pants on. He glances at the captain and says, “I haven’t had a home in a long time.”

Dean watches his brother walk out of the room. He wants to chase him down, but doesn’t know how to even begin to fix their world.

*******

Dean wanders the rooms of the temple and sits on the steps. He’s absorbed in his own thoughts when the colonel comes in and sits down a couple of steps above him.

It’s several silent moments before the colonel begins to speak, he sounds almost wistful, “I've seen horrors. Horrors that you've seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that. But you have no right to judge me.”

Dean is silent. He learned as a child and even more so in the military that no one wants to listen to the young.

The colonel continues to speak, his voice soft, yet commanding, “It's impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror. Horror has a face. And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.”

Campbell gets up a leaves Dean with his thoughts.

*******

The days pass in a blur, Dean spends them trying to forget about the air strike that he expects everyday. He spends his nights wrapped around the only thing that makes sense.

No one questions that they share the same room or that they sit a little too close together. No one pays the brothers any mind at all.

Dean forgets about protocol and codes of conduct. He forgets about politics and policy. Dean forgets, until he remembers.

***

Sam wakes up alone to a sticky, misty day. The primitive bed is cool to the touch and he sets out towards the river banks.

Children from their camp are already splashing in the water and Dean is nowhere to be found. Sam washes up in the river water and sets off down stream.

******

Dean had woken up extremely early and decided to go for a run before the heat became too much. Running was always his favorite form of PT, even before West Point.

The PBR sits abandoned in the river and seems to be over run by monkeys. The memory of Colonel Campbell killing Lafitte in cold blood sends chills down the captain’s spine. Dean has killed, but never someone who wasn’t an enemy and certainly never someone on the same side. He wants to vomit at the thought.

Upon returning to the temple, the colonel is having breakfast. He gestures for Dean to join him.

The captain pulls out a stool and helps himself to several pieces of fruit on the table. He’s halfway through a mango before his grandfather starts to speak.

“I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago.” The older man’s voice sounds remorseful. “We went into a camp to inoculate some children for polio. We'd left the camp after we had finished and this old man came running after us, and he was crying. He couldn't speak coherently enough for even our interpreter . We went back there, and they...” The colonel’s voice cracks, “had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. They, they were, in a pile. A pile of little arms; I remember, I cried. I wept like some grandmother.” The older officer seems almost ashamed at this admission. “I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget it.”

The colonel finished his own mango and studied the knife in his hand, “And then I realized, like I was shot, like I was shot with a diamond bullet through my forehead, I thought, ‘my God, the genius of that!’ The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.” He stares straight into Dean’s eyes, “and then I realized, they were stronger than we. Because they could stand it. These were not monsters. These were men, strained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who have families, who have children, who are filled with love...that they had the strength, the strength to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, then our troubles here would be over very quickly.”

Dean is starting at his hands. He didn’t realize that the colonel was this far gone. He doesn’t dare look up or speak. He just listens to his own flesh and blood spout insanity. “You have to have men who are moral, and at the same time, who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling, without passion; without judgment. Without judgment, because it's judgment that defeats us.”

Sam picks this moment to enter the room and the look on Dean’s face tells him to retreat. “Samuel, come have some breakfast,” Campbell says.

“I’m...uh, actually going to head down to the river bank, before it’s too hot. Just want to grab some fruit.” The lie is flimsy and Dean notices it right away. The colonel seems nonplussed by it and nods at his youngest grandson.

The silence hangs heavy between the two officers until Campbell starts to speak again. “I worry that your mother might not understand what I've tried to be. And if I were to be killed, Dean, I would want someone to go to my home and tell her everything...”

Dean bangs his fist on the table, “My mother is dead. Shortly after we buried your empty casket, she died.”

Campbell’s face shows emotion for the first time since Dean arrived. He looks as though he’s going to cry, but pulls himself together. He gets up, leaving the captain still seething at the table.

*******

Dean is withdrawn the whole day and Sam doesn’t quite understand what’s wrong with his brother. What has happened in the short amount of time to sour his mood. Sam thought Dean was finally healing and accepting the life they could have here.

It’s well after midnight when Dean enters their room and undresses in the dark. He crawls into bed without even acknowledging Sam and turns away from him.

“Dean? What’s wrong?” Sam whispers into the darkness.

Dean sighs, “Nothing, I’m just thinking.”

Sam grabs his shoulder and rolls his brother towards him. He goes willingly. “Thinking about what?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” the captain says and starts to turn back over.

“Then help me,” the younger man says, more forcefully than strictly necessary.

Dean doesn’t want to have this conversation right now. To be perfectly honest, Dean never wants to have this conversation. So he leans in and kisses Sam.

The kisses become frantic and Sam can taste copper on his tongue, mingled in with the mint flavored tobacco from the
Kool cigarettes Dean smokes. Soon Dean has rolled on top of his brother and is attacking his jaw and throat.

By the time Dean is nipping at Sam’s collar bone, the younger Winchester is arching up off the sandbag and feather mattress. Dean descends further down Sam’s stomach and abs before shucking off his boxers.

There’s no other preamble before Dean sucks Sam’s cock down his throat in one quick motion. He relentlessly bobs his head and swallows around his brother’s dick, tongue lapping at the vein on the underside and teeth scraping around the crown.

“Oh Christ!” Sam lets out and tugs at the captain’s hair to warm him of his pending orgasm. Dean just sucks harder and then Sam is flooding his mouth with his release. His orgasm goes on forever and it feels like his stomach is turning inside out.

Once Sam’s softened cock slips out of his mouth, Dean rolls over on his side of the bed. Sam is boneless and makes an attempt to rid his brother of his boxers.

Dean is already stoking himself inside his shorts and Sam is unable to see much in the darkness. The younger brother kisses Dean, tasting himself lingering there with the tobacco and the hint of rice whisky. Sam wraps his hand around Dean’s and matches his rhythm.

It doesn’t take long until Dean moans into his brother’s kiss and erupts all over their hands and his stomach. Sam uses his own t-shirt and cleans up, before pulling the young soldier’s boxers up.

Dean immediately yawns and slings an arm across Sam’s stomach. He’s gently snoring in seconds and Sam stays awake much later. He finally falls asleep to troubled thoughts about the person he loves the most and the young captain’s fragile frame of mind.

*******

The next day begins much the same way, Sam wakes to an empty bed, but instead of finding Dean at breakfast with the colonel, he finds him by the river; the soldier is washing out his uniform and other articles of clothing. He’s clean shaven after days of stubble had covered his face, though his hair has grown out longer than Sam has ever seen it. It’s still short, but not the buzz cut that he has always favored.

“Hey,” the captain says without turning around or stopping his task.

“Hey, have you eaten yet?” Sam says, still painfully aware of Dean’s thinner form.

“No. Went for a run, cleaned up and now I’m washing our clothes.” Dean says, holding up the t-shirt Sam used as a rag the night before.

“I could have helped you,” Sam offers. “Are you going to talk to me about what’s wrong?”

Dean finally looks up at his sibling. His eyes look as though he’s seen a thousand horrors, which Sam supposed that he has. The captain glances around the riverbank to make sure they are alone, then says, “You know what’s wrong. We have to leave.”

“I thought we discussed this, he’s not crazy,” Sam says louder than he intended.

“Sam, he killed Lafitte! He didn’t just kill him, he decapitated him. Do you know how hard it is to decapitate a human being? Emotionally and physically?” Dean is pleading with his brother. “Special Forces or not, our grandfather or not, he’s Section 8. Not to mention a traitor for not returning when ordered to.”

Sam looks a little ill at the mention of Lafitte’s death. He raises his chin defiantly, “Didn’t you tell me once that war is hell and sometimes you do things that are brutal or even savage?”

“Jesus Christ, Sammy!” Dean drops the clothes on the riverbank and strides over to Sam. He takes ahold of his brother’s shoulders and says, “War is hell, people are asked to do things that are savage. Teenagers are given weapons and asked to kill and watch their friends die. But what Campbell is doing? Screeing heads and setting up his own dictatorship? That’s way beyond the savagery of war. He cares so little, that he didn’t even know about mom, about how she became even sicker after his fake death.”

Sam draws back and punches his brother. The weight behind it is enough to rattle Dean’s teeth, but Dean stays standing, he glares at his brother. Sam draws back again and Dean catches his fist, while sweeping Sam’s feet out from under him. The soldier drops onto his sibling’s waist, pinning his arms against his back. Sam struggles for a few minutes before stopping. “You done?” Dean whispers into the younger sibling’s ear.

“Yeah,” Sam acquiesces. Dean gets up and offers his hand out to his brother. Sam takes it as an olive branch, allowing the officer to help him to his feet.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have hit you,” Sam touches the blood on Dean’s bottom lip. Dean says nothing, just returns to the riverbank and finishes washing out their clothing.

*******

Dean returns to the temple around mid-day to see Milligan on the steps with several other men from the camp. He’s practicing Tai Chi and dressed like one of the natives. Dean approaches the sailor and tries to get his attention.

“Milligan? Milligan? Adam?” The captain waves a hand in front of his face, to no avail; the sailor has checked out.

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices two other soldiers from the dossier from Nah Trang. “Captain Colby? Captain?” The man doesn’t respond at all and Dean wonders what kind of drugs the natives and soldiers are all on.

“Major Spencer? Sir?” Dean tries the older officer and gets an odd glare from the man. He stares straight through Dean and goes back to his exercises.

It’s odd to see two decorated soldiers who have lost all semblance of their training. Thick beards and shaggy hair cover both of their faces and even their posture is different. Dean once thought he could pick out a soldier just by the way he carried himself. Ramrod straight backs and measured strides become second nature to soldiers. Even his grandfather still moves like a seasoned warrior.

“Major Spencer, sir? Nah Trang sent me here. You are presumed K.I.A.,” Dean tries to placate the man. “Aren’t you worried about your wife? Your sons?”

Spencer stops mid-motion and turns towards Dean. “I wrote to her. I told her to find another, I wasn’t coming home.”

Dean is stunned, a man who would rather follow a crazy old colonel then to go home? He’d give up seeing his sons grow up and for what? This cult that Campbell has created and appointed himself king of?

Dean gives up on reaching the men or the colonel. The man deserves to be brought home and court-martialed, to stand accountable for his crimes, and locked away at The Big Top. In Dean’s opinion Fort Leavenworth is too good for the soldier.

*******

Later that night, Sam shies away from Dean’s kisses when the captain finally comes to bed. He reeks of alcohol and something stronger than Kools.

Dean sits up on the side of the bed and says, “Now what’s wrong? I’m here, aren’t I?”

Sam’s heart clenches. “Are you? Are you really here? Because from where I’m sitting, you’re trapped inside your own personal hell.”

Dean sighs and begins to speak, “The colonel, our grandfather, was one of the most outstanding officers this country's ever produced. He was brilliant. He was outstanding in every way and he was a good man, too. A humanitarian man, of wit and humor. He joined the Special Forces, and after that, his ideas, methods, became...unsound.”

“Unsound?” Sam asks. His eyes trained on the back of Dean’s head.

“He’s leading a civilian army that worships the man like a god, and follows his every order, however ridiculous.” Dean faces his brother in the dark.

“Well, I have some other shocking news to tell you about good ol’ gramps. He was about to be arrested for murder,” Dean studies Sam’s features that are barely visible in the low light.

“Murder? Who did he kill? This is war!” Sam’s shocked voice rings out in the quietness of the temple.

“First, he had ordered the execution of some Vietnamese intelligence agents. Men he believed were double agents, so he took matters into his own hands,” Dean rubs the back of his neck. A telltale sign he’s upset or nervous.

Sam shakes his head, “But this is war, one the man hates, you can’t kill him for doing what he was trained to do. It’s the same thing you, dad and even grandpa Hank were trained for. It’s hypocrisy at its finest. You want to know why I refused to join? Why I fought dad tooth and nail over Stanford? Because the military is the biggest bunch of bullies on the planet. The whole fucking organization is full of hypocrites and bigots.”

“Sammy, in this war, things get confused out there.” The older sibling’s voice softens. “Power, ideals, the old morality, and practical military necessity. But out here with these natives, it’s a temptation to be God. Because the rational and the irrational, between good and evil, and good does not always triumph; Sometimes, the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. The colonel has reached his.” Dean gets up and puts his striker pants on, leaving his shirt off.

“Where are you going?” Sam sounds small, innocent in a way he hasn’t been in years.

“Sammy? Is there anything I can say to change your mind? Is there one magical sentence that will make you believe me? Make you trust me like you used to?” Dean’s eyes are glassy and he’s staring towards the ceiling to keep the tears at bay.

“I’ve always trusted you, Dean. Always.” Sam gets up and grabs his brother’s arm. “When I thought you were gone, I died a thousand times. But I don’t understand this. I don’t understand why we can’t just leave if staying isn’t an option?”

“Sam, the man ordered the assassinations of three Vietnamese men and one woman. Two of the men were colonels in the South Vietnamese Army. Then he kept going. He’s gone. Do you know why I’m here?” Dean asks quietly.

Sam nods his head but refuses to speak.

“He’s killed every soldier sent to retrieve him. Killed them or has them so brainwashed that they won’t fight him. He murdered Seaman Lafitte in cold blood. The man wouldn’t hurt a fly, but came here because he trusted me. Fat lot of good it did him. His men killed Chief Banks on the way here.

“He’s completely insane, evading the military for years. There’s been nothing but rumors and random intelligence, mostly from captured V.C. for years now. The V.C. know his name by now, and are scared of him. He and his men have played hit and run all the way into Cambodia. Do you think he’s going to walk out of here with me? Do you?” Dean is close to shouting at his brother.

“We could leave. You and me,” Sam cups Dean’s face and the soldier turns into the touch.

“He’s never letting us leave, little brother. Not without a bodybag. Even if we did survive that jungle, there’s nowhere I could go. I really don’t have any desire to be locked up in another prison and staying here? It’s like a prison without the bars. So I guess we are at an impasse, Sammy.” Dean steps out of Sam’s grasp and walks out the door of their room.

***

Sam stands with the thick envelope behind his back, watching John straighten the silver oak leaves on his collar. He’s leaning against the bathroom door as his father gets ready for work. The lieutenant colonel takes a small ruler out of the medicine cabinet and is meticulously measuring the space between his commendation bars and medals.

“Hey, dad?” Sam says quietly, watching the soldier straighten his dark tie’s Windsor knot up against the top button of his pastel green shirt.

“Yeah, Sammy?” John answers, placing the ruler back in its spot before shutting the mirrored door of the cabinet.

“I was wondering... well, sir, I’d like to talk to you,” Sam’s voice is small and cracks a little as he tries to summon the courage to discuss what he wants with the soldier.

“Of course, but spit it out. I need to leave soon,” John sounds encouraging, but Sam knows better then to trust it.

Sam takes the large envelope from behind his back and hands it to his father. The embossing of the Stanford seal is visible, it’s silver and red shining boldly in the bathroom light.

“What’s this?” John says as he turns it over in his hand and looks at the school’s crest. “I’m glad you are keeping your options open, Sam, I am.” John says with a slight frown. “But it’s early. With your grades and lineage, you’re a shoo in for West Point or Annapolis, or God forbid, The Air Force Academy like your cousin.”

Sam’s brow creases, “No dad, I want to go here. Make Stanford my first choice. I can be close by for mom during your deployment.”

John’s frown deepens, “Son, your mother was a soldier’s wife long before you and your brother were born. She was the daughter of an officer and she understands. She will be fine with you in New York.”

“Dad that’s not... that’s not what this is about. I don’t want to be a soldier. I want to go to law school or journalism school or do something else with my life. Isn’t Dean enough?” Sam’s face is red with anger as the volume of his voice rises.

“Your brother would be enough, if you were a girl, but you’re not. Winchesters always serve their countries, always have, as far back as we can trace and you will, too. So get those lofty notions about becoming wealthy or famous out of your head. You want to become a lawyer? Let the JAG Corp send you.” John says, picking up his peaked combination cap and tucking it under his arm and exiting the bathroom.

“I don’t want to be a lawyer for the military, I don’t want anything to do with the military!” Sam yells at John in the small space of the hallway.

“For God’s sake, you’re going to wake your mother,” John’s voice is calm and even, though his eyes look wild and angry. “You listen to me Samuel Winchester, you are going to serve this country and that is final. Discussion over!” John’s tone brooks no argument and he turns on his heel before leaving the house.

Sam retreats to him room. He throws the envelope in the tiny waste basket next to his desk and flings himself face first into his pillows, crying into the circle of his arms.

“Sammy?” He hears his mother’s loving voice coming from the door. “Sam?” There’s a light knock and he turns to see his rail thin and waif-like mother standing at the door. She’s holding onto the doorframe and looks as though a strong breeze would blow her away. Her blonde hair is limp and her face is washed out and pale. There are purple smudges under her red-rimmed eyes.

Sam immediately feels shame heat his face. “What are you doing out of bed, mom?” He rushes to his feet and puts a steadying arm around her.

“I’m okay,” she offers him a smile, but then sways unsteadily on her feet and says, “Help me back to the bedroom?”

“Of course,” Sam picks up her thin frame and cradles her gently.

Mary smacks his arm and says, “I could have walked, with a little help.”

“It’s ok, I don’t mind,” Sam offers her a dimpled smile, one that few people get to see these days. He carries her down the hallway and into the master bedroom, laying her gently on the bed.

“Bring me the box in the top of the closet, Sam,” Mary requests, smiling back at her youngest son.

“Sure,” he replies and slides the door to her closet open. He sees the box sitting on the top shelf, right next to a pair of his father’s combat boots. Taking it down, he sets it on the bed next to her.

“Sit down, Sammy.” His mother gently pats the bed next to her and Sam complies. “When I was your age, all I wanted to do was to become an actress,” she takes out several pictures showing her as a teenager. Beautiful and bright as the sun, her smile wide and white. “Your grandfather wanted a son, but he got me. So our great Campbell lineage was going to end with him. But you know what happened? I moved to New York, to make it big, but I met a young 2nd lieutenant fresh out of West Point and fell in love.”

Mary takes out a picture of her and John from a photo booth, it’s black and white with both smiling into the camera. The years have turned the paper a sepia color, edges turned up and wrinkled. “We married shortly after this photo and your grandfather got the son he always wanted and two strong, handsome grandsons,” Mary touches Sam’s face, and the teenager turns into the touch.

“Can I tell you a secret, Sam?” Mary says in a conspiratorial voice. Sam’s voice evades him and he just nods, leaning closer as if his mother holds all the secrets of the world.

His mother’s eyes are glistening and she blinks back the unshed tears, “I’m so proud of you and your brother, but before both of you were born, I prayed for girls.”

Sam sits back and looks at his mother, shock evident on his face, “What?” He asks.

“Don’t get me wrong, Sammy. I love both of you unconditionally, but I never wanted this life for either of you. Dean was always going to be a soldier, there was no question in my mind, but you? You can be anything you want.”

“But dad just said...” Sam begins.

“Let me show you something,” Mary reaches into the box again and takes out a brown envelope, plain and unassuming. She slowly unwraps the documents and small book that are enclosed. “Your grandfather was a great man, strong and brave. But he was not blind and he knew more than anyone that a soldier’s life isn’t always easy.”

Sam doesn’t know where she’s going with this until she hands him a folded piece of paper and the book in her hands. He unfolds the paper and reads a few lines, then with wide eyes, looks at the small book, that clearly a bank ledger. “Is this...?” Sam’s voice breaks as he looks at his mother.

“Your grandpa Campbell left you and your brother that. You can use it to go to school and your brother can buy a home or do whatever he wants. He wanted you to have a choice, Sam.” His mother’s eyes are shining, but proud.

*******

Dean runs along the river, through the fog and mist and turns to watch the natives. No one is looking his way as he slips aboard the PBR that is overrun with rejects from the jungles. There are insects and wildlife all over the bow and he ducks below deck.

He tries not to look at the blood staining the cabin and the mess of wires and the destroyed communication equipment. He opens the cargo hold and unwraps a carton of cigarettes, a bottle of whiskey and the spare radio.

Taking a shaking breath, the captain takes the cork out of the bottle and lets the strong liquid burn going down his throat. It’s burns like gasoline and heats up his insides, except for that place that will never be warm again. He has this icy pit in his chest, the likes of which even fire and brimstone can’t thaw.

Dean removes the backing on the radio, checking the batteries and then turns it on. He tunes the channel and takes ahold of the mike and taps out S.O.S. The static of the radio gives way to chirps and warped sounds of transistor communication. It crackles to life with a man’s voice.

“PBR Street Gang, this is Almighty standing by, over. PBR Street Gang, this is Almighty standing by. How do you copy?” The man’s voice sounds a million miles away and Dean just stares at it, taking another drink and pulling out his Zippo to light a cigarette.

*******

By the time Dean exits the boat, the bottle is half gone, he replaced the radio under the floor of the cabin and secured his gear.

Sam is coming down the bank when he spots his brother. “Dean? Where have you been?” Looking over his glossy-eyed sibling.

The soldier holds up his bounty of Kools and Jim Beam and gives a half-hearted smile. “Supplies, Sammy.”

Sam nods and says, “I’m sorry. Dean, you and I have never seen completely eye to eye. But it doesn’t matter, because I’ll follow you to the end of the earth.” Sam looks around and lowers his voice, “we need to talk.”

The older brother shoulders past Sam and heads towards the temple, not pausing to make sure his sibling is following.

*******

Sam wordlessly trails behind Dean, all the way back to their room. Dean sets the mostly empty bottle down on the army trunk that serves as a table in the space, depositing his sidearm, Bowie and lighter next to it. His olive green undershirt is stripped off, rattling his dog tags, despite the rubber silencers.

“Dean?” The captain finally turns towards the taller man and backs him up to the wall, he places his fingers against his lips, before tentatively kissing him. Then his tongue is licking up into the younger man’s mouth, swallowing moans and fisting his hands into his hair.

“Dean?” Sam groans out, trying to stop his brother.

“I don’t want to talk right now, Sammy. Please?” The older man cups his face, thumbs caressing cheek bones, while his fingers tangle in shaggy, chestnut locks.

Sam allows himself to be manhandled back against the makeshift mattress and watches his brother crawl over him; pulling at clothing and kissing the miles of tan skin that is being revealed, until both men are clad only in their boxers.

Dean kisses down Sam’s chest and his toned, flat stomach, stopping to suck a dark mark right above his belly-button. Then the soldier hooks his thumbs in the waistband of the younger brother’s shorts, drags them off his hips and down his long legs. It releases Sam’s hard erection, standing proudly against his stomach. He’s thick and weeping, dark vein underneath bulging an angry red color.

He teases the tip against his lips, blowing softly over the wetness pooling there, before leaning in to lick at the precome and dipping down into the slit. Sam shivers above him and Dean sucks the crown into his mouth, reaching down to cup and roll his brother’s balls in one hand. His other hand reaching out to steady Sam’s hips as he arches forward, desperately seeking friction.

Dean takes one inch at a time into his mouth, tongue laving at the bundle of nerves under the head and hollowing his cheeks. Soon, Sam’s cock is bumping against his throat, the tuft of dark curls ticking his nose as he tries to breathe in.

The captain bobs his head in an unforgiving rhythm until Sam feels pleasure uncoiling in his spine and his testicles tightening. Opening his throat, the soldier swallows around his brother’s length and Sam grabs at his sibling’s hair to warn him of his impending release. Instead of letting go, Dean sucks harder and colors explode behind the younger Winchester’s eyes as he comes harder than he has in years. Aftershocks wreck his body as he lets profanities fall out of his mouth.

Dean pulls off, nosing behind Sam’s sack and lets Sam’s come dribble out of his mouth and all over his puckered opening. He uses his fingers to smear the saliva and seed over his brother’s rim, before leaning down, spearing his tongue past the first ring of muscles. He laps at the hole, using his spit and Sam’s own release as lube, two fingers scissoring with his tongue in between the vee. He seeks out the spot deep inside of his sibling that will cause him to fall apart; when he finds it, Sam arches off the sandbags.

Dean removes his fingers and tongue; he spits in his hand and rubs it against Sam’s gaping, pink entrance. He holds his hand up to his sibling, “Spit,” he commands and the younger man complies.

The older brother strokes his own hard cock, using the saliva to wet himself down as throughly as possible. Hooking Sam’s legs over his shoulders, Dean lines himself up and shoves in, in one fluid thrust, bottoming out.

He only pauses for a second, his impatient younger sibling rocking into him frantically, clawing at anything he can reach.

The older Winchester balances on his knees, bracing himself on one hand, planted right next to Sam’s head. The other hand snaking between their bodies to pull at Sam’s rapidly harding cock as he pulls out and slams back in. He strokes his brother as quickly as he can, his hips thrusting in at a ruthless pace, matching the sinful rhythm. Skin is slapping together in a deafening squelch as Dean’s balls collide with the cheeks of Sam’s ass, filling the room with the smell of sweat and sex; the sounds are so pornographic Dean swears he could come from that alone.

The alcohol is driving him faster and faster, while Sam writhes under him, letting growls and obscenities spill out from deep in his throat. The nonsensical mumbling of his younger brother, permeates the numbness caused by the whiskey and Dean feels his orgasm building like a car of a roller coaster, being yanked to the top.

The soldier corkscrews the hand that is relentlessly striping his brother’s erection and moves his hips in a figure-eight motion. The change in the angle causes Sam to cry out and erupt all over Dean’s hand and stomach. His sphincter muscle involuntary clenches around Dean’s cock in a vise-like grip, while his inner muscles all but rip Dean’s orgasm violently from him. The captain’s vision whites out as he falls over the cliff behind his sibling, painting Sam’s insides with heat.

Dean’s knees buckle, causing his weight to tip onto his elbow, before crashing down on top of his boneless brother with a thud. Sam groans out in between his rapidly elevated breaths and tries to force air into his lungs.

The older Winchester pulls out, causing both brothers to gasp at the loss and uses his bandana to clean up the mess. He rolls onto his side next to Sam and gathers him into his arms. “You wanted to talk?” He says as casually as if they are discussing the weather.

Sam laughs and says, “Do you think ‘talk’ is an euphemism or something? Because every time I bring it up, we end up having sex.”

Dean turns his head and looks at Sam with half-lidded eyes, a smirk touching his lips, “You mean it’s not code? Well, shit.”

“Not that I don’t enjoy the distraction, but we really do need to talk,” Sam rolls over so both men are facing each other. He leans forward to peck at Dean’s mouth and then says, “What are you planning?”

Dean sighs, “He’s dying, Sam. I think he wants to die like a soldier. I think he wants me to kill him like a soldier. “

“I know he’s dying, but I thought...I thought maybe I could talk to him. Make him go back and see a Dr. I was wrong...he’s not ever going to leave here, is he?” Sam’s voice is small and Dean doesn’t want to confirm his brother’s fears, so he keeps quiet. It’s a rhetorical question anyway.

“You know?” Sam starts, misty-eyed and thoughtful, “He gave me the money for Stanford.”

“What?” Dean says, louder than he meant to, eyes widening with confusion.

“He left us both money. Mine for school and yours for when you came home. He told mom in a letter that we should have an option other than the war. That we should have a choice,” Sam has tears on his face and Dean can’t think.

He lets the information roll around in his head and still comes back to the fact that people are dead by Samuel’s hand. Good people, innocent people and no amount of money or deeds will atone for that.

“Sammy, if there was another way? You know I’d do it. I just know there isn’t,” Dean finally offers and Sam nods his agreement, wiping his cheeks with the heels of his hands.

*******

At dinner that night, the colonel tries to speak to his grandsons. “The military trains young men to kill and drop bombs on people, but won’t let them write ‘fuck’ on their airplanes because it’s obscene. Tell me, Dean, what obscenities happened at The Hilton?”

Dean stares right into his grandfather’s eyes, the memories and horror flashing through his mind, while the hate and shame bubbles up to the surface. Dean remains silent as Sam interjects, “He doesn’t want to talk about it.”

The colonel looks at the other man with no compassion in his eyes and Sam realizes that nothing has changed. He’s lost his humanity and Sam has been desperately looking for it to no avail.

They finish the meal and the brothers retreat to the solace of their room.

*******

Dean gathers all of his weapons and the small amount of supplies in one spot. He cleans his side arm and rifle methodically, then moves on to sharpen his knives and triple checks the rest of his gear.

He thinks of strategy and military gambits, but this is going to be by the seat of his pants. As long as Sam makes it out, he will be okay with that.

He tries to clear his mind, but can only push the nightmares and coldness down so far. He ends up drinking another half a fifth and settled next to his brother, letting Sam’s warmth and snores pull him down into unconsciousness.

***

The rains only increase in the jungle as summer rapidly approaches, the already humid conditions giving way to sweltering heat and a miserably balmy, climate.

During Dean’s radio call to HQ, he’d asked for another few weeks to carry out his orders; claiming that he was slowly gaining the camp’s trust, while in all honesty he was working up the courage that was necessary to carry out his orders.

The colonel had become more withdrawn as the weeks turned into a month, slowly blurring the days together, as hazy as the mists in the air.

Every time Dean made eye contact with his grandfather, the man seemed to be telegraphing a silent plea to end his suffering. Dean met his gaze with hard eyes, he wasn’t ever going to be the same after this and he sure as hell wasn’t going to grant the man sympathy.

The stoic, strong form of the soldier seemed to pale right before their eyes as whatever illness he was fighting seemed to gain ground against his body. Dean found himself wondering if the insanity was making the man sick or if the sickness was making him insane. Whatever was happening, their grandfather left his room less and less as the days marched on.

*******

Sam had become more and more antsy as the days passed, dreading what was going to happen, but not nearly as much as the waiting.

He did everything in his power to treat Dean as normally as possible. He touched him all the time, mostly casual caresses and familia gestures that kept Dean grounded. If Dean ever suspected that the lighthearted conversations and constant contact was to keep him from losing himself to the dark thoughts that plagued his mind, he never said.

The air around the brothers was changing, shadowing everything that they did. Dean’s nightmares often disturbed Sam’s sleep as much as it did his brother’s. He’d lay with his his eyes closed, feigning sleep to the sounds of Dean throwing up outside the room.

Often, attempts to become intimate with his brother would lead to Dean checking out on Sam, lost in his own private, waking nightmare. Sam had started demanding that Dean keep his eyes open, whispering reassurances that no one would ever hurt him again. His promises shallow sounding to his own ears, because this whole thing was eating his sibling up from the inside.

Dean still never flinched away from Sam’s touch or acted particularly bothered by his lingering hands. But sometimes that vacant look in his eyes and increase in his breathing would tell Sam all he needed to know about Dean’s whereabouts.

Sam’s read about “battle fatigue” and “shell shock” in his psychology books at Stanford, but it’s such an abstract term. Treated with an assortment of amphetamines and barbiturates that seem to cause more problems than they help. He can’t image turning his brother into the type of zombie that seems to surround them these days; men dosed on high levels of opioids or psychedelics.

He’s resigned himself to just hold on tight to his brother, letting the storm pass. He thinks that picking up the pieces of his brother will be easier than anything he could do to stave off the breakdown that seems to be coming. If Sam has to, he will go to medical school and learn everything he can about what’s happening to Dean.

*******

A loud clap of thunder jostles both Winchesters awake, a torrential downpours beating heavily on the stones of the temple and surrounding foliage. The lightening coming in faster and acting as a strobe light, bathing the men in distorted light.

The slow motion effects of it, reminds Sam of a rave he went to during one of the many war protests he attended. The acid and press of all those bodies, churning and screaming out to deafening anti-war music was dizzying.

Dean reaches out and soothes a hand through Sam’s hair, the younger brother’s breaths coming as pants. It isn’t until Sam climbs over his brother, half hard erection grinding to his hip that Dean realizes it’s arousal, not fear plaguing Sam.

The cool air is a respite, blowing in around the mosquito netting, bringing dampness in the exposed window. It leaves goosebumps on Dean’s flesh, the shivers he’s experiencing only partially from Sam’s wet lips on his throat. His mouth descending slowly down, leaving a trail of salvia as he nips gently at the skin, salt bursting on his tongue. Dean clutches desperately at the younger man, nails breaking the skin on Sam’s shoulder, causing him to hiss and grind their dicks together through two layers of cotton.

Sam moves lower and lower down, mouthing at skin and muscle along the way, occasionally stopping to lavish attention on a certain spot with his tongue and teeth. He soothes away the sting with gentler kisses or by blowing cool air over the damp skin, bruises forgotten as Dean arches up into his mouth.

Sam is painfully aware of what has likely happened to his brother while in captivity, never attempting to force Dean to do anything outside of letting Dean fuck him. But he’s slowly losing his resolve, because Dean has a body that was made for being taken. He has always taken everything Sam gave, shoving back just as hard and asking for more.

That’s how Sam finds himself with his tongue buried in Dean’s ass, licking and lapping at the muscles of his entrance. The whimpers and filth that falls from his sibling’s mouth, assure the younger male that his brother is definitely present and onboard with his actions. Dean’s hands are opening and closing against air, thighs splayed open wantonly, he looks and sounds like sin itself.

Sam continues to delve deeper and deeper into the pink hole, tongue a velvet spear, leaving the opening sloppy and wet. His harsh breath exits his nose right on Dean’s balls, causing the younger brother to inhale the musky scent of sweat and sex. It’s intoxicating and Sam can’t help but pry Dean further open with his fingers, slowly twisting his fingers until Dean is all but impaling himself on Sam’s hand.

The younger Winchesters takes each one of Dean’s balls in his mouth, sucking gently as he circles his fingertips over Dean’s sweet spot, causing the obscenities to come quicker, but broken off into pants. Dean is all but begging to be fucked and Sam is determined to take his time.

The third finger meets resistance and Sam takes his brother’s deflating cock past his lips and straight into his throat. “Always could suck the chrome off a bumper,” Dean growls out, canting his hips up.

Sam extracts his fingers and let’s Dean slip out of his mouth. Using his spit isn’t really ideal and he knows that, but it’s the jungle, so it will have to do. His brother needs this just as much as he does, to know he’s loved and how good it can be. Not to mention that Dean is a little masochistic, prefers a little pain with his pleasure; he’s always been rough and tumble, the definition of strong.

Sam ignores the impulse to flip his brother on his stomach, to drive into him while holding Dean’s upper body roughly against the bed; he needs to see his sibling’s face and to make sure Dean knows exactly who is doing this to him.

Sam spits into his palm and smears the salvia and precome over himself, while shoving Dean’s knees onto the hard material of the mattress by his hips. Only pausing to line himself up briefly, he then slides home in one thrust, stopping as Dean moans under him. His brother is so hot inside, tight as he can ever remember, muscles fluttering and contracting around him, making Sam nearly come.

The lightening and approaching daylight highlights the smirk on Dean’s face, letting Sam know that his brother is tightening his sphincter on purpose and narrows his eyes; that’s all the permission Sam needs to pull it and thrust back in, forcing Dean further up the makeshift mattress. The pace becomes brutal, a forceful pounding of hips together. Dean rises to meet every plunge of Sam’s cock just as hard as his brother.

“I thought you could fuck, we might as well be talking,” Dean says lowly, words coming out between breaths.

Sam gathers Dean’s ankles and places them over his shoulders, while angling up onto his knees, before grabbing the older man’s wrists in one hand above his head and balancing his weight on them. He pulls out quickly, then sets a punishing pace, drilling his dick into Dean’s prostate on every pass. He’s nailing it in an unforgiving rhythm that leaves both men soaked with sweat and sharing the same hot, heavy breaths; Sam’s face is only a fraction above the older Winchester’s every time they collide together.

Sam feels his orgasm starting to build low in his gut; it’s a warmth that rapidly spreads to his groin and he bites the inside of his cheek to stave it off. He moves even faster, crashing into Dean with reckless abandon, wrapping his freehand around his sibling’s erection and squeezing. Dean gasps out a breath and Sam’s hand strips him as quickly as he can manage, the sweat from their bodies easing the slide.

Dean has his eyes closed now and Sam knows the asshole is holding back, he always had to be the strongest and the fastest and win everything as kids. Sam will be damned if he comes first. “Open your eyes, you ass,” Sam grunts out, and Dean obeys; lust blown green eyes flutter open and Sam contorts his body to kiss Dean. “Come you bastard,” Sam says against his brother’s lips and then forces his tongue in, fucking it in and out, matching his the speed of his hips.

Dean stiffens beneath him, then bites down on Sam’s lower lip, while arching off the bed. Sam jerks back from the injury just in time for Dean to clench tightly around him and wring his orgasm from him like a dish cloth. Sam spills inside of him, just as the heat from Dean’s own release covers his fist and chest. The older brother dropping back to the bed to let Sam pummel into him as they both float back to earth.

Sam has to let go of Dean’s wrist to stop from crushing his sibling as his legs give out. Most of his weight still collapses onto the older male and Dean lets out a groan as Sam falls on him.

“Ow...” punches out of the captain as the impact forces his breath out of his body. “You heavy ass, what have they been feeding you?”

“Wheaties,” Sam replies, while slipping out of Dean. “By the way, I won.” His smile is blinding and Dean shoves him off.

“The hell you did, you clearly came before I did,” Dean is smiling back at Sam and the younger brother allows himself to think that they are going to be fine.

“You cheated,” Sam accuses, “you bit me, not to mention I felt you come first. You cheated, so you forfeit, even if you had won. Which you clearly did not.”

“First of all, how is biting, cheating? We didn’t lay out any ground rules, it’s not my fault that your sexual proclivities include biting. Secondly, who’s going to judge it as forfeit? Those are dad’s rules, I doubt you want him weighing in,” Dean says, turning on his side, head propped up on his elbow.

Sam rolls his eyes, turning to mirror his brother in the increasing light of the room. “And third?” He asks.

“Third?” Dean frowns a little, looking as confused as he does beautiful.

“There’s ALWAYS a third,” Sam answers, moving closer to place a gentle peck on the corner of Dean’s mouth.

“Didn’t you know, Sam?” The captain says against his mouth, “that all’s fair in love and war.”

Sam feels his face heat up and his chest nearly bursts, filling with something that he’d never be able describe if asked. He doesn’t get a chance to respond, because Dean is slipping his pants on and leaving the room.

*******

The storm left the camp an even hotter, soggier mess and more miserable then Sam could ever remember. Of course his own experience with this far up the swampy area was limited, he still knew that the heat was going to get worse before better.

Dean hadn’t stayed gone lone, he’d returned with clean water and several pieces of fruit, shortly after leaving. The air between them becoming heavy in the temple, before Dean announcing they both needed baths.

Sam watching a shirtless Dean in the waist deep water, his fair skin darkening to a golden color, freckles the only blemishes against the perfect color of it. Lighter locks of hair coming in as Dean’s military cut began to lose its shape and falling over his ears. He looked more boyish like this, like the years of war and exercise hadn’t completely stripped his youth from him. His form had begun filling out, softening the hard angles of his face and jawline. Sam couldn’t remember ever seeing someone so beautiful, maybe his mother as a starlet.

*******

Every night, after dinner, Dean went out to check the perimeter. He moved silently among the soldiers and natives, most too high to notice his presence. Along with his daily exercise and maintaining his gear, it was a hold over from the soldier he had been molded into over the years. While Sam had rejected and resented all of his father’s lessons, Dean had embraced them. When Dean has started slipping in high school, sneaking out to drink or hang out with friends, it had only taken a stern lecture from John about him never getting into West Point as a slacker. Dean redoubled his efforts, studying more, not meeting friends or letting much distract him.

Sam had never felt guilty for being able to distract Dean at times. He took pride in the fact that Dean would always pick him over their father, until Dean shipped out for Vietnam.

The day had flown by quickly, burgers and shakes for dinner in town, followed by Sam finally convincing Dean to fuck him. Up until that point, it had been Dean being the bottom, said it was his right as the oldest. Sam thought that maybe his brother didn’t want the guilt of doing that to his kid brother.

It hadn’t mattered in the end, because Sam was 19, he knew what he wanted and how to get it from his brother. All it had taken was Sam saying, “I want to know Dean, because what if you don’t come home.”

“I’m coming home, you know that.” Dean had assured him, both knowing that it was an impossible promise, punctuated by the fact that he’d given in on that beach.

Sam thought he finally knew what he wanted out of life, but the next morning, watching his brother pack his duffle and slip his uniform in the early light of day, he realized that it didn’t matter. His world was walking out the door, getting on an airplane and he may never see him again.

“We could go to Canada, places there are more progressive,” Sam had blurted out while Dean rolled his duffle contents as tightly as possible.

Dean just kept folding, silently packing as though his brother hadn’t spoken.

“I can’t believe that after last night, you’re still going,” Sam grabbed his brother’s arm, forcing him to look up.

Dean looked wrecked, “Come on now, Sam. That’s not fair. You wanted to know, now you do. Don’t you dare make it sound like that.”

“But I don’t know how to live without you,” Sam was crying now, but wasn’t ashamed of his tears. If he’d gotten Dean to stay, he’d have cried everyday.

“Who said anything about living without me? I’m coming home, and you are going back to California. You’ll graduate and I’ll serve my remaining four years and will be home. We will figure something out.” Dean was near tears himself. He wasn’t afraid of dying, not really. But he was afraid of what his death would do to his brother.

“You can’t promise that!! I can’t believe you’re still picking him over me. Especially now,” Sam turned away, shoving out the door and into the water.

“Sammy,” his brother’s voice was soft, coming out like a wounded animal. “I called a cab. Take care of yourself and my baby, I’ll write when I can. Please look at me, Sam. Don’t leave it like this, please?”

Sam’s pride wouldn’t let him turn around and long after the fading sound of the taxi had left he screamed out into the ocean until his voice was gone and his tears wouldn’t come.

*******

Sam wasn’t sure what made him venture out into the night to search for Dean, but he was glad that he had. The sight before him, several paratroopers whispering to the captain was a sight that Sam would have never believed.

“You’ll stand down, captain. We have every reason to believe you’ve been compromised,” Sam would have known that voice anywhere.

Sam rounds the corner to see Dean with his hands tied behind him, gaze on the ground as Colonel John Winchester berates him in front of a group of green berets.

Sam was wrestled to the ground before he knew what was happening, a strong hand covering his mouth. John knelt in front of his younger son as Dean whispered harshly, “Let him go, he has nothing to do with this.”

“If they let you up, Sam, you promise to keep quiet?” John asks, angling his son’s face to his.

Sam nods and is let up, “Now go back inside, your brother and I were having a discussion. One that you don’t have clearance for.”

“No, dad. Dean’s not the reason we are still here. You want to blame somebody, you blame me. “ Sam spoke lowly, but clearly.

“Is that true Captain Winchester?” John asks, staring at his son who refuses to meet his gaze. “You will answer me, boy. I’m your father and your commanding officer.”

“Could have fooled me on the first part,” Sam lets out snidely.

“And you will hold your tongue,” John snaps at Sam, before gazing back at Dean. “Is he telling the truth?”

“Yes and no,” Dean replies, softly before looking at his father. “Sir, it’s complicated, but I have not been comprised. If you go in all guns a-blazing, a lot of innocent people will die. Let me do it my way.”

John regards his oldest carefully before nodding, “Fine, but we are taking your brother with us.”

“No!” Both brothers say, before Dean speaks again. “If Sam turns up missing, he will know something is up. He will have me killed on sight. He’s dying, sir. I’m expecting him to force my hand anyday, he’s already asked me to kill him, honorably.”

“What?” Sam’s voice rings out before John shoots forward to cover his mouth.

“You have one week, you and your brother come out to these coordinates or we will extract you both. It won’t be pleasant.” John says and salutes.

Dean returns it after his hands are released, shooting Sam a glare before watching the soldiers slink back into the night.

*******

“What are we going to do, Dean?” Sam whispers into his brother’s ear, once they are back in their room.

“I’m going to carry out my orders and you aren’t going to interfere. If you do, you’ll either get me killed or court-martialed. You want that?” Dean whispers back, just as quietly.

Sam shakes his head and settles back against the hard pillow. He worries about what this will do to Dean, but he’s more afraid of letting Dean disobey a direct order. His dad will make him an example, that will hurt Sam just as much as Dean.

“What’s the play?” Sam asks, like they are playing pee wee football in the neighborhood again.

“He’s not going out much, not giving orders. The people around? They are high off their asses and he doesn’t even care. No way he’d have let those green berets get this far in, otherwise. I just need to get an audience with him, which has been nearly impossible. That damn witch doctor guarding him like he does,” Dean blows out a breath. Mind racing at the impending countdown on his mission and the repercussions of failure. Court martial could be the least of his worries, he could spend the rest of his life in Leavenworth for treason.

Sam closes his eyes and tries to sleep, the only thing left to do is let Dean complete his mission and then try to pick up the pieces of his brother.

*******

It takes the full seven days to finally tweedle an audience out with their grandfather. Dean showing up everyday, to be met with the same answer, “No, he’s not taking visitors.”

Things in the camp have taken on an entirely surreal feeling, the natives being restless a vast understatement. It reminds Sam of a movie depiction of Sodom and Gomorrah, drinks flowing freeing and drugs being passed around like candy at Halloween. Faces painted and tribal members in varies states of undress in all manners of couplings imaginable. There’s a large water buffalo being blessed by the camp’s self proclaimed medicine man as Dean slips into the Colonel’s chambers.

“Dean?” The man regards him carefully, “come to make good on your promise to your father?”

Dean looks shocked as Captain Colby tackles him to to the ground, twisting his arms behind him in a painful way.

“Did you think I didn’t know? I know everything.” The colonel shouts out, “Bring him in, major.”

In strides Major Spencer, frog marching Sam ahead of him. The younger brother’s hands are bound.

“Let him go,” Dean cries out, earning him a right hook from Colby and a tightened hold on his arms, testing their give. Dean sinks back to the stone floor of the colonel’s room, stifling the urge to cry out again.

“You’re hurting him,” Sam yells out to their grandfather. “Why? Why are you doing this?”

“I haven’t done anything yet, Samuel. But identify a traitor in our midst. Now we wait for your father. He and I have a long overdue conversation to have.”

Dean refuses to look up, but has resigned himself to not walking out of this one in one piece. He just hopes it’s quick.

***

The conex container was stifling as Captain Dean Winchester works the ropes that tie his wrists together. He and Sam are bound in opposite sides of the box, struggling to get free.

Dean’s wrists have already started bleeding and friction burns were chafing relentlessly. He wasn’t giving up, however.

Before either brother could break free, the steel door creaked open and in walked one of Campbell’s guards.

“On your feet!” The whisky rough voice echoed against the metal walls and reverberated in an earth shattering echo.

Sam scrambles to his feet and Dean stays in his current position, ever the rebel.

“I said, ‘Up, soldier!’ “ The guard moves forward towards Dean. The bayonet end of the rifle raised in a threatening way, while grabbing the captain by the arm and pulling him to his feet.

“Alright, alright!! I’m moving!” Dean yells, jerking his arm away from the soldier with all the hostility that he could muster.

Both brothers are lead to the door and outside in the oppressive heat.

*******

Dean checks his surroundings as he enters Campbell’s chambers. John is standing at parade rest, with five of his Green Berets, all of which were bound. John has an M16 pointed at him on one side and two 9mms trained on the other side. He was flattered that they found him such a threat.

“Let them go. They have nothing to do with this,” John’s rumbling timber rings out into the room. “Especially Sam.”

“Excuse me, colonel, Dean was sent to terminate my command and Sam... Sam was sent to spy on me. Hardly a nothing,” Campbell says thoughtfully.

“See, colonel,” Campbell rises to his feet, an endeavor that takes a lot of strength and oxygen to execute, “I was willing to die for my country once, to give my life so that two young boys I once knew could remain free, but then I took a long hard look at the boys you raised. I smelled the despair and the shame pouring off the both of them. Ever wonder why your boys are so close, John.”

“Shut up!” Sam hears his voice crack as he struggles against Major Spencer’s hold.

“Let’s talk about little Samuel, there, first.” The colonel sounds almost wistful as he gesticulates in the youngest brother’s direction. “Sam would have rather died then be forced into service, and I had to grease a lot of palms to get him away from you and finally here. But one thing I could never drag out of Sam, was his loyalty to his brother. How does it feel knowing you raised two depraved fucks, John?”

“You shut your mouth, you bastard,” Dean’s voice is even and low, his eyes have become calculating and cold.

“I’ll get to you in a minute, captain. Don’t think I don’t know about your habit of grabbing your ankles, regardless of the company,” Campbell turns away from the older brother and focuses back on Sam.

Dean stiffens next to his brother, his face going slack with the memories of Hanoi.

The first time they come for him, he’s been in captivity nine days. He’s done his best to keep a low profile in the camp, but for some reason, it never works.

The Viet Cong are small, with a slight build, but it doesn’t hurt any less when they force him face down on the wicker mat, tear his striker pants off and enter him. He loses count of the number of times and the number of men who brutalize him over and over again. He loses blood and finally consciousness, after several hours of being raped and sodomized.

He wakes filthy, covered in semen, blood and unidentifiable dirt particles. His legs won’t hold his weight as he tries in vain to stand, stumbling back down into the muck of his cage. His lower back and ass protests even the smallest movement and he can’t imagine anything ever hurting more. Then they come for him again.

*******

"Dean," Sam whispers, "Hey, stay with me," the youngest brother says as he takes stock of the situation. Samuel still monologuing like the asshole that he is.

"Proud of your boys, now? John?" Samuel's voice a thick and raspy drawl that had more to do with his illness than any type of emotion he could be feeling.

Before Sam knows what's happening, Samuel has turned towards his brother and leaning in close to Dean. "Do you know how long it took to find out you were shot down and taken to Hanoi? Twenty-four Hours. Do you know how long it took to get them to stop torturing you? Twenty-four hours. So tell me, son, after all that punishment, did you not learn your lesson?"

Dean gasps. Months and months of beatings and abuse flit through his mind and he realizes what a monster the colonel was.

"Who do you think gave up the coordinates of your LRRP's DZ?" Dean would think that Samuel is being smug, but he isn’t sure that the man was even capable of that type of emotion.

"Why, you son of a bitch!" Dean spits out and struggles against the two soldiers that have an iron grip on him. "Those bastards killed my whole company. Innocent men," the room starts swaying as Dean realizes that all of his men died, but him. Men he was sworn to protect, all to feed into this sick, megalomaniac's game.

"Of course, I wasn't really sure just how close you boys were, until you got here." The colonel leans down and says quietly, "You are still my blood and I'm sorry that it took so long to get Sam here, before you could be released."

John has been surprisingly quiet up until this point. His gaze hard and callous, letting the whole puzzle unravel inside his strategist brain. "Colonel Campbell, I'm only going to say this once, so listen closely. I loved your daughter, more than anything in this world. But I'm glad she's dead. I'm glad that she won't ever have to find out that a man that she adored and respected turned out to be a monster. Now, get the hell away from my son."

Campbell regards his son-in-law carefully. "You're hardly in any position to make demands, John."

"No, but I am," the voice comes from the door to the room as a metal object clatters to the floor and promptly fills the room with red smoke.

Dean's eyes burn as the smoke seeps in and he hears the rubber soles of jungle boots impacting on the stone floor of the temple. The next thing he knows, he's being helped to his feet in the low visibility and confusion. He looks up to see Seaman Milligan, clear-eyed and alert cutting his arms free as a team of Rangers flood into the room.

The resulting chaos and melee devolves into all-out hand-to-hand combat as one of the natives tackles Adam to the floor of the structure. Dean takes an elbow to his sternum before finally knocking a blitzed out Captain Colby off of his feet and attempting to wrestle his side arm away from him.

Sam is immediately grabbed by Major Spencer, who seems immune to the smoke in the room, and pulled by his bindings towards the stairwell leading out into the main chamber of the temple. He sees his brother get clipped by Colby twice, before the two soldiers are locked in a struggle on the floor. He hears the gunshot and time freezes.

Dean is on his back on the floor, blood trickling from a cut on his mouth as his assailant's weight has pinned him down. His eyes widen briefly before Colby then stumbles forward, now a dead weight that he unsuccessfully rolls out from under. He shoves the dead man off of him and wastes no time putting a bullet in the head of the native that is currently using Milligan as a punching bag.

He helps the younger man to his feet and says, "Man, am I glad to see you."

Adam nods briefly and the takes in the rest of the room. The red smoke distorting the occupants and making it nearly impossible to get a clear shot on anyone that isn't at point blank range.

"Dean!" The younger Winchester shouts out again throughout the crimson smoke cloud.

"Sammy!" Dean returns as he takes off into the fog in the direction of his sibling's voice. Another enemy soldier delivers a roundhouse punch to Dean's jaw before he gets even two steps. Dean tumbles down to a knee, putting him face to face with a retching Colonel Campbell.

He places the muzzle of his weapon to the colonel's forehead without hesitation. "What are you waiting for?" The man asks, looking up and locking dead eyes with his oldest grandson.

Dean debates making the bastard suffer, when he hears Sam scream out his name again. The momentary distraction is enough for the still larger form of Samuel to knock the gun away.

There's another deafening gunshot and Dean holds his breath, waiting for the pain to start. He opens eyes that he wasn't aware he closed, just in time to see blood gushing from a wound just under the colonel's heart. The man seems to fall forever, and Dean's confused eyes look up to see the smoke clearing around the form of his savior.

"Dean," General Henry Winchester says, "Go get your brother!"

"Sir, yes sir!" The captain scrambles to his feet and heads toward the door.

Just before the weapon discharges again, he can barely make out the soft voice of the general saying, "I believe my son said to get away from my grandson." The younger man flinches at the sound, but doesn't slow down as he books it down the stone steps and out into the sunlight of the jungle.

One deep breath of cleaner air and Dean sprints the only direction he could have gone before coming to a stop at the scene before him. Major Spencer has Sam clutched tightly against him, using him as a human shield, the muzzle of the 9mm pressed to Sam's temple.

John has his own sidearm pulled and is a little bloody and worse for wear. "Let him go, major. Let him go and we will discuss getting you a deal with the army?"

"A deal?" The major laughs, but there's no humor in his voice. "There's no way I'm going back there."

"There's nowhere left for you here, son." The colonel's voice sounds soothing and gentle.

The major tightens his hold on the younger sibling and spits at John, "Don't you dare equate me with those sick bastards that sprang from your loins."

Dean raises his own weapon and wets his lips. Normally, he'd never open his mouth when his father was in command of he situation, but this was Sam. "Major," the word draws the attention of all three men and Dean continues. "I suggest you let him go. You shoot my brother and I guarantee, that I will not only put a bullet in you, but I will make it as painful and take as long as possible."

The major takes another step backwards as more Rangers start filtering out of the building. Dean locks his eyes with Sam's, telegraphing all of those years of silent communication into one single look. Sam lurches against the major's hold and yells out, "Take the shot!"

Before John can react, Dean squeezes the trigger and the slug cuts through the air. The entry wound is dead center of Spencer's eyes, small and unassuming. A millisecond later, brain matter splatters out the back of the officer's skull as the exit wound explodes like a watermelon.

Dean covers the distance between him and his sibling, quickly and pulls him into his arms. "Are you okay?" The captain asks, holding Sam at arms length to look him over.

Besides some gnarly bruises and abrasions from the struggle, Sam is fine. Dean cuts the ropes off his wrists and inspects the damage. "You'll live." He announces.

"That was a hell of a shot, captain," the brothers hear John say as he approaches the pair. "What the hell were you thinking? What if you'd have missed?"

Dean had forgotten for all of two point five seconds that his father was even present. He hugs his brother tightly again before letting him go and replying, evenly, "I don't miss, sir."

John is getting ready to tear into the junior officer, when Henry calls out from the temple's steps. "Colonel, a word?"

The aging general clamps both of his grandsons on the shoulder before striding past and walking out of earshot, John falling in seamlessly to his left. Dean smiles at the image of his father standing at parade rest while the general quietly addresses the man.

"What I wouldn't give to be a fly on that wall," Sam says and slings his arm across the shoulders of the shorter man and pulls him back towards the temple. Dean stills beside him when he notices the hundreds of natives kneeling along the steps as soldiers carry body bags out. The familiar hand of one of the corpses is hanging out of one and Dean strides forward and stops the corporals carrying it.

He closes his eyes and inhales a calming breath before pulling at the thin nylon material. Sam stops him, "You don't need to see this."

"Yeah, Sam, I kinda do." He jerks out of his brother's grasp and raises the haphazardly draped, green covering up and is surprised that he feels no emotion at all.

Sam says something to the young men holding the body and they nod and place it on the ground at the brothers' feet. After the men retreat back into the temple Dean sinks down on his haunches and finds the stainless steel, ball chain and the two thin, fine-blanked tags at the end. A gentle tug releases the clasp and the captain holds them in his hand for a few moments before separating them.

Sam sits quietly by, unsure of what he could possibly say to all of this. Of how their separation and pain of the last two years was all a game, orchestrated by a mad man who had decided that he was a god. Someone worthy of doling out punishment and wrath on what he saw as crimes against humanity.

The captain unhooks the small chain around his own neck and threads the metal in between his own two tags before reattaching it and tucking it into his undershirt. The other tag is placed in the colonel's mouth, with a precision and clinical detachment that Sam wishes his brother did not possess.

Dean pulls out his Bowie from the small of his back and takes ahold of the man's right hand. Sam is perplexed at first, then with sickening horror, he sees that the West Point Class ring on the man's finger is tightly cutting into the skin. "Dean, leave it," the younger man pleads.

His brother doesn't look up, he just quietly says, "The man that this ring belonged to, is buried in Arlington and I'm going to see that it gets there. This is not the same man and he doesn't deserve to wear this symbol."

Sam looks away and hears the wet sound the blade makes as it cuts through flesh, careful to keep his eyes trained down until Dean places the ring on his own finger and knocks the setting against the hard stone ground three times before rising to his feet. Without breaking his stride, he kicks the chin of the body with the toe of his combat boot, effectively wedging the tag between the colonel’s teeth and Sam flinches back.

"You coming?" The older man asks over his shoulder and it is only then that Sam rushes to his feet.

"Dean? I don't know what to say, 'I'm sorry' doesn't quite cut it, you know?" Sam is wrecked, voice thick with tears and emotion and Dean turns to look at his brother.

"Sammy, it's not your fault. He was sick and crazy. I'm alive and hey, I didn't even have to kill kim. Isn't that what you were so afraid of? That if I pulled the trigger, it would send me over the edge? Make me cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?"

Sam sighs, "I was a little worried about that, but Dean you killed three men today. Two of whom were fellow officers. Something you were obviously never trained for. It's okay to not be a hundred percent okay with that."

"Sammy, as far as I'm concerned, the minute they sided with the colonel, they became the enemy. The man murdered four platoons of innocent men to punish me. Don't you think for a second that I'm sorry he's dead. Because I'm not." Dean meets his brother's eyes in a silent plea to let it go.

*******

It's sundown when the general finds his oldest grandson below the deck of the PBR. He's down to his green undershirt and covered in grease as he attempts to rig the engine and radio back up in some semblance of working order. Milligan snaps to attention in the process of handing the captain a crescent wrench.

"Sailor, I need a couple of minutes with Captain Winchester." He orders.

"Yes, sir!" The young man says and about faces, before hurrying up onto the deck.

Dean stands at attention and his grandfather regards the man carefully before addressing him.

"As you were, captain," Henry says and gestures to the small table where Dean has pieces of machinery scattered across. The junior officer sits down tentatively, wiping his hands on a dirty shop rag. The general notices the ring on the captain's finger and glances down at his own.

"I knew Samuel when your parents were just toddlers, we didn't just know each other, we were friends. He was smart and brave, funny...When he found out that Mary was engaged to your father, he was ecstatic. I'm not going to even pretend to know why he joined Special Forces at his age, where he'd never be any higher than colonel, but I can tell you that the man I put a bullet in? That was not the man I served with, not the man that gave out hundreds of cigars the day you were born or couldn't wait to tell the masses about Sam."

Henry takes a moment to study the insignia on his ring and then continues, "Do you see this ring? I'm proud of this ring, of what it means. I think that you are, too. But this ring is not absolution, it does not make someone judge, jury and executioner. There's too much blood on the hands of people who wear this ring to leave any margin for error. I feel like maybe I was a little too hard on your father growing up and he in turn was a little too hard on you and Sam.

"As far as I know, anything Colonel Campbell said or did after 1967, was the rantings of a sick, old soldier who was section 8." The older man pauses and looks up at Dean, "By my calculations, you owe Uncle Sam less than a year of service, now your father is going to recommend that you be promoted to major..."

"Sir?" Dean's eyes widen, confusion rolls across his face like a storm cloud.

"I'm going to suggest you go home and ride a desk until your time is up and you never look back. But whatever you decide, its your decision. I'm proud of you and this family has given enough. Your father will be, too. Just give him time." The general knocks his ring against the table, until Dean follows suit. Then he gets up and pulls the younger man into a hug. "It's good to have you home, son."

 

*******

 

Dean is still standing in the same place a hour later, when Sam comes looking for him below deck. "Adam said the general was down here to see you?"

His brother nods his head once in affirmation, before leaning against the table and going back to cleaning the tangle of wires that make up what is left of their communications board.

"Well, what did he say?" Sam asks, after a too long moment of silence from his sibling.

Dean looks a little teary-eyed when he looks up and says, "He said, ‘we're going home,’ Sam."

Sam grabs the captain by the shoulders and pulls him tightly against him, his own tears falling down his face as he holds his brother.

***

Washington D.C. November 13, 1982

Sam stands in the crowd of onlookers after the dedication ceremony at the Vietnam Memorial Wall, which had been unveiled that very morning. Dean had insisted on undertaking the road march among his fellow soldiers that trekked nearly a thousand miles across snow and less than forgiving terrain to arrive here for the celebration.

Sam has never seen such a hodgepodge of soldier as what had gathered here in the last several hours. There were soldiers in wheel chairs and leaning heavily on walkers and canes, some missing limbs and disfigured beyond recognition. Then came the ones who had no outward-injuries present, but held so much pain in their eyes that it hit Sam like a punch to the gut, as he blinked skyward to stave off the tears that collected in the kaleidoscope of hazel of his own.

That morning had yielded all bands of the armed services and their relentless renditions of The Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful, Amazing Grace, the official song of each branch plus a myriad of other appropriate tunes. Speeches were given by the high ranking brass across the board while cadets and the official honor guard had showed off their prowess and precision drills.

There were children, widows and close relatives standing proudly watching on as their loved ones were paid homage to. No one caught Sam's eye more than the mothers in the crowd. Their inconsolable tears and hysterics made Sam's heart ache, and no matter which way he turned, it seemed that one or more was always in his eye line.

After his grandfather and own father had given their own speeches, Sam has started to scan the crowd for Dean. It was nearly impossible to suss him out from the sea of uniforms and men who were of the same height and build as Dean, regardless of the uniqueness of his face and natural grace he possessed.

*******

Late afternoon was quickly approaching and the temperatures of the late fall day had instigated a retreat of most of the onlookers; The ice cold breeze has perpetrated the flocks to disperse toward hotels or to begin their long trek home.

Sam finally notices a familiar silhouette standing at the far end of the V shaped, concrete monolith which held the thousands of soldiers the didn't make it home outside of a casket. The soldier is standing on the tip toes of his combat boot, leaning against a large piece of white paper, pressed into the structure.

Sam watches him closely, torn between offering comfort and letting his brother get the most closure as possible. Tongue barely peaking out side of his mouth and a charcoal pencil held in his grasp, Dean is equal parts adorable, strong, and radiating selfless courage.

Nightfall is rapidly approaching when several gentlemen begin to make their way through the throng of onlookers and veterans that haven't yet left the memorial. "I hate to bother you," a second lieutenant says to a handful of spectators that are just within earshot. "But the National Mall and all of its exhibits are closing. We ask the you please disperse quickly and calmly as possible. We will open again in the morning, right before the parade and other festivities."

Sam's stomach turns at the use of the word festivities. Its not a damn carnival or party that should be treated as such. Its a fucking wake and funeral all rolled into one.

He hesitates for a moment before deciding to approach Dean.
The soldier is deep and thought and is oblivious to anything going on beyond the rubbing of the wall, which has covered his fingertips and hands with charcoal.

"Dean?" Sam starts, voice soothing and low. The older man is trapped in his own head and the task at hand. "Dean!" Sam tries a little harder, to no avail. "Colonel Winchester!" He finally says, the timber of his voice deep and commanding.

Dean stops his etching, back and shoulders going tense before taking a deep breath and about facing. There's a black smudge on his cheek as well as both of his hands.

"They are closing soon. We should head..." Sam stops when he notices the tears in his sibling's eyes as well as the piece of paper that is nearly full of etched names.

Dean shakes the cob webs away from his head and inhales a deep breath. "Yeah, ok Sammy." He starts to fold the paper up in his hand and takes in the fading daylight as well a the crowd that has thinned to almost non-existent.

Sam leads Dean to a nearby water fountain and wets his handkerchief in the cold water. He flinches slightly as Dean jerks back from the frigid cloth, allowing Sam to remove the dirt from his face, which a gentleness that Dean normally wouldn't allow. Once that is done, the younger brother hands over the rag, not want to push the issue with an already emotional and melancholy Officer. Dean seems to appreciate this greatly as he wipes the blackness from his fingers and palms.

Once that is complete, the taller of the pair steers the other male towards their car and back to their accommodations for the evening.

*******

Once Dean has showered, he settles down at the desk in the hotel. Sam had given him time to calm down while he went and picked up dinner for the evening. Sam approaches his sibling, precariously wrapping his arms around his middle and resting his chin on Dean's shoulder from behind.

The names that stand out in stark contrast in front of the Winchester boys, make tears pinprick his eyes. He swallows past the huge lump in his throat and drums up the courage to say, "Your company?"

Dean lets a couple of tears fall down from his face and just nods. Sam understands as much as he possible can, given the circumstance and holds the soldier tighter.

"Okay, time for your medicine," Sam announces, as soon as the tension has somewhat dissipated.

Dean only puts up a token protest and playfully turns the office chair around to face the younger of the pair, "I had to fall in love with a damn Dr," theres no real heat in his voice as he kisses Sam. Its warm and almost chaste.

"You fell in love with a kid, same as I did. Thee fact that you are a stubborn, insatiable, and brave (which is said reluctantly) soldier came later and it was too late."

"Lets go eat and then get some sleep, we both need it," Sam suggests, to which Dean agrees with for once.

*******

The brothers returned home in late 1973, there was no fanfare or parades waiting on them and that was fine with them. Dean was bestowed several medals and commendations for his tour, all of which he hated the sight of initially. Then he learned that they helped him remember his fallen soldiers and the country of innocents that he he swore to protect.

West Point has contacted him numerous times since the events of Cambodia. Their offers became more and more enticing as he realized that he could train teenagers to be the best soldiers of his ability. It also gave him leverage where Sam was concerned. He used his influence as well of that of John's to get Sam into a top notch medical school.

So as it stood, Lt Colonel Dean Winchester, Senior Professor of strategy and survival, was one of his students' favorite teachers. Unlike many of his colleagues, his Vietnam experience was more than hiding behind of his troops. He'd seen horrors unimaginable, but retained that empathy and understanding to train kids who had no idea what they could face. He owed that to Sam.

Sam was a psychiatrist, he donated his life to Medical School and had devoted his heart to helping other soldiers and had dedicated his career to educating the brass that Shell shock and Battle Fatigue were not accurate terms; The type of psychological damage many experienced was something else entirely. Granted, his devotion to Dean was behind his fervor and almost obsessive behavior, didn't mean that others couldn't benefit.

It had taken John awhile to get past his sons' closeness and he couldn't deny that he was extremely proud them- Henry made sure of that.

***

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