Disclaimer: Supernatural ain't mine.
The actual title, that I didn't want to write in the description because it's not entirely appropriate is:
Gooks and Monsters
Warnings: There is racism in the context of being a soldier in the Vietnam War (not an excuse, just an explanation), violence, and swearing.
Guys, I'm going to go ahead and say that the first part of this is a little dark.
There are going to be some serious, not all that good things going down in this story, and I just want to clarify that this story does not represent my own beliefs. Additionally, do not hold me to any standard of accuracy when it comes to describing war or how the marines work.
Also, I would imagine that John could have a little PTSD based on how much crap he has been through.
"mẹ" means Mom/ Mommy in Vietnamese (according to Google Translate).
A/N: Man, I've been thinking about writing a war story for John for a while now. I haven't up till now, because war is a little bit of an intense topic to write about. I hope I did it justice.
Read, enjoy (poor choice of words... appreciate? Find interesting?), review!
The first time he saw one, he thought it- no, she- was the end product of Agent Orange. He had lived in a small town, where the dust was kicked up by visitors and his mama sang at the stars about Christ. He'd never known different or faced anything but a straightforward world of boys and girls, blue and pink. So the first time he laid eyes on one of them Gooks, he saw squinty eyes, pleated together and almost not even there, he saw tanned skin that had to be discolored, he saw how her face fell all over itself with wrinkles and sagging skin in what was more beastly than smile.
He saw a monster in her and shot her dead.
Because this was war and they ain't got no right to breathe so long as America stood tall. Her nation was for the free, the brave, the loyal; her nation was full of red blooded men wielding America's finest steel weaponry; her nation was of women with shrinking bosoms amidst harsh days of drying up money and draining away nuclear families. Because he had a girl back home and a memory of a mama whose thumb never forgot the feel of twirling that ring around and around her ring finger, he didn't know mercy. Not for monsters.
He knew through training, the boot camp and drill sergeants, the nightmares he would never let shine through a buried fence of wire and icy silence because it was almost worse than the real war, that there was no room for pansies and their free mercies. Stinging sweat fell into his eyes and he pulled himself up with bulging arms when he did his pushups, one more time now again, so he could hold his precious gun. The burrowing of deep, deep tired and feeling as if his body had abandoned his organs and was hollowed out now as he ran, step left right step, so he could outlast swamp and trench foot.
A carefully crafted defense within one man- that was what he was given through training and the only thing he allowed himself to be burdened with in Nam.
He would be better. He was better.
And that's why, after the first lady gook fell and he heard its children scream, mẹ! mẹ!, he stood tall and didn't turn away from the scene spread in front of him.
Befell. That's the best word to describe it. Like something was done to that gook, to the gook kids, to him. Something happened to everyone that day. Heat blasted, like a furnace, and he had a moment to think this is Hell. Lines of evaporation rose from the swamp, as if nature was trying to carry itself away from human fault. Whistles of sound- cutting through the heavy heaves of feet across squishing terrain; hushing the pants of men as they readied themselves- all leading up to a moment.
Because it was not just him and the mother and the two kids who already looked dead, listless as the gaze in their eyes was. It was a massacre. The men on his side were plenty, and they all hauled their guns up and cocked them. The gooks on the other side ambled along, like fucking cows, before they realized what was happening.
Maybe John rang out the first shot, maybe he didn't. He doesn't ask questions like those anymore, but he remembers his kill count of three and how no one within fifty miles of that spot on one hot, 'Nam day was expecting a village to be razed.
The one thing he does know though is that he finishes what he starts. So he started with the woman, gook monster enemy, and then he picked off the two kids. They were already dead by the time their turn came to eat his gun, he saw it in their eyes, their listless hollow eyes, they weren't children anymore. They were already dead, he just finished them.
The gooks were born on the wrong side, they were monsters bred.
John believed that as much as he believed he had blood on his hands. Rinse his hands, over and over again, but they were dyed red and the rivers he washed his hands in were red too, and nothing was clean.
His hair was grimy from his makeshift combing, hands running through hair and pulling out ticks- them damned bloodsuckers killed more men than hunger did, out here in Hell. His face oozed sin, sweat and screams and tropical forest poisons soaked up in his skin and coming out his pores. His shoulders raised, barricading against the swipes of branches he passed, coiled for the repetitive motion of picking up his weapon and hacking away whatever- leaves, fruits (Xoai, Chom Chom, longan), wood, people. His chest was forever sunburnt and the hairs there were falling out, too much toxic chemicals, falling from the sky. His pants had stains from grubby hands clawing at him, clinging like they saw salvation. And he'd just walk by, because their hands were covered in dirt, and they were the few out of many, and he had more kills to make. His boots were unspeakable.
He was filth. The commander of the first fleet he was in had promised him that, whispered it as he passed by each soldier in formation, shouted it and spat it, whipped the fact into the backs of their torsos, thighs, buttocks. John's first commander had promised them, had said, that's what Vietnam does.
That commander was captured by the gooks months after John joined their troop and later, hours having passed and when the troops almost forgot there was no safety in numbers, a rein of arrows fell in an arcing attack and more men died, command less and holes in their skulls. The battle was fought with them swimming through tears of guts in the end and Timmy, a friend of John's, found their commander when the silence of a finished battle came.
Timmy had said not one thing, because he had an arrow poking out of the front of his head, but John had followed his friend's body, doggedly chasing the limp form. Timmy's last duty was to lead John to their commander. John's friend was dead and John's commander was mutilated, but alive.
Sir, are you alright?
Get your faggot friend off of me, marine.
That's Tommy's body, he's dead. The current carried him to you, sir.
Get him the fuck off you piece of shit!
Sir, yes sir!
And John tossed away the body, the useless thing that it was. And John saw his commander. And John lost every sweet, juicy bit of Xoai he had eaten that morning.
His commander was flayed; the insides of his thighs were like slabs of meat, leading up to his crotch. John knew privacy no longer and he looked, gazed at the gaping spot where manhood was not.
He and his commander exchanged looks.
That's what Vietnam does. Now kill me, John.
John knows what mercy gets him as much as he knows that mercy is a myth amongst those bastard monsters. John's kindness went as far as shedding blood for his fellow soldier and for that, he has never been clean again.
John came back to a duller America. John was duller too.
He stepped off the plane with a duffel bag in his hand. Within the duffel were the few sets of clean clothes he had and he had rolled them up, even though he didn't need to conserve space. He had a very specific set of rules to follow and one of them was to be civilized.
The civilized don't wear wrinkled clothes, so he took care to remember that, rolling up his clothes and wearing them neat.
His girl waited at the foot of the plane, eager to take her spot by his side; sweet and soft spoken, the toned down saltine to his chicken soup. She smiled at him, her face looking foreign in its humanity; eyes perfectly almond shaped and American blue, skin soft and white, her joy looking pretty and with dimples being the only wrinkle on her face.
He swept her into his arms, and she breathed him in.
I've missed you.
He knew what he looked like, the rumbled mess of stale clothes and smudged under eyes and he reeked. She never once mentioned it; she never called him filthy. She trusted him to handle himself and he balanced that trust within his arsenal of abilities- knowing monsters, doling out mercy, hiding away his taint.
That night, he showered; rivets of clean, cool water coming away red by the time they hit the drain. She never once mentioned that either.
Mary used to say he drank too much.
The color red is the strongest of them all and it's a relief when everything else pales. He was numbing the war, like an ice pack after a race, and it helped when everything around him faded.
That numbness would start to drift away, like Tommy in that river of blood, when they fought. Mary would yell from deep within her gut, like a soldier, like she needed to be heard or people would die. He saw the killer within her, friend or foe?, and John's red emotion never had anywhere to go but out.
So he would yell right back. He would watch the spit fly out of his mouth and the red would fill his whole body. His face was heated and the blood on his hands felt as though it could splatter and leave stains on the carpet any minute.
And he would think of nothing but monsters. He never says the other word, that's from a different time, from a different thing he left back in Nam. Some things though, like knowing monsters, he would always carry with him.
After Mary would drag up his red, he had always needs to herd his red right back into formation.
He would leave out the front door and come back, numb again.
He and Mary almost lived a full life. Add on another fifty years and they would have finished what they started.
As it is, he shared none of his deepest, darkest secrets with her and John thinks maybe Mary had been less open than he once believed.
A look would cross her eyes, sharp and murderous, like she was tracking a soundless enemy. John remembers having had that same feeling and seeing Mary like that would make him shiver. It was a secret he would bury deeper, because the red was curious and lethal and cold (it had to be, it was war's companion) and it would have loved to open Mary up when she was like this.
John smiled like an American boy growing into a father and Mary smiled like an American girl growing into a mother. They bared themselves to each other, in embraces where all pretenses were gone and their words tumbled out like love. More, harder, I need. These times were the most honest they ever were with one another and that felt right.
The purest moment either of them was capable of made them a baby, and then another baby.
Dean, and then Sam were made of love and maybe just a little bit of red, because John and Mary never truly hid their lurking untruths, they just turned away like soldiers trained to have good timing.
If John were to describe love, he would describe Dean and Sam.
He had dreams for them. He'd never had dreams for anyone before, because hope was foolish and nightmares were the warnings his practicality allowed him. But for Dean and Sam, he could afford just a little bit of dreaming.
So John played football with Dean, thinking that maybe Dean would grow up tough, but kind. He never truly knew a smile until his baby boy came into the world, light and happy, already sporting freckles. Dean's first night was filled with gurgles and little hands trying to reach for rays of hospital lighting. Every day after that was like a race, Dean rushing to beat everyone, even though he was an only child at first. John would just watch Dean, the life bursting within his kid bigger than any type of life John had once led.
Sam was the youngest and somehow all the more vulnerable. When Sam was born, John felt the air get knocked out of him, and the atmosphere was thick. Almost like back in… But he forced himself to think of now, to think of American boys growing up safe, and John's gaze fell on Sam. A sweet, innocent baby, smiling at him like maybe John could save him.
John never got to figure out his dreams for Sam though, because Mary reminded him that monsters don't know mercy or dreams or innocence.
The night was peaceful. He was happily numb, more out of tiredness than anything, and he could hear the television in the background, mumbling about sales and 'find out what happens next time on..'. But he also heard Mary, speaking sharper than she ever allowed John to know she could. Before he knew it, Mary was screaming.
That was when the red awoke in John, fully on and in control, and John was running upstairs. John knew the scream came from inside Sammy's nursery, but Sammy was in his crib and Mary was nowhere.
Then John saw it.
He saw red, falling from the ceiling. But this was a special kind of red. It was the red that drained away dreams and burnt innocence and it was all John could do to outlast the sudden searing heat of flame. He felt Hell licking his skin again and he reached closer, until Sammy was in his arms.
He wanted nothing but to not see red anymore. Turned around and looking out the door, safety, escape, where's-, John found Dean.
Take your brother outside as fast as you can and don't look back! Now, Dean, go!
The red was eating away the house and Mary- Mary was part of that.
The red blasted straight through that night and John didn't even worry about the tainted blood that smothered him as he lifted up Dean, who was holding Sammy. All he could do was run.
Outrun the gooks, outrun the monsters, outrun nightmares. Outrun everything, because it never ends.
It's just another war.