how'd we lose that good that was given us?
In addition to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
weatheredlaw, I would also like to blame ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
callowyn, skullage, and zempasuchil. YOU GUYS ARE THE WORST AT SAVING ME FROM MYSELF. :(
Anyway, here is the rambling synopsis/outline (...outlinefic?) for a 'verse I don't have time to write. WW2 AU, Pacific theater. Sam/Dean pining, Dean/Castiel-ish probably sort of maybe, Victor, Bobby-ish, PG13, character death.
It's a 4500-word outline, on account of how it keeps trying to be real fic.
Sam's not going to war because of his heart condition, and when they find out, Dean chucks his head affectionately. Lucky bastard, he says. They live on a farm in Kansas with Uncle Bobby, who isn't really their uncle, but he's family anyway. They take care of each other. It's enough.
It's the night before Dean ships out, and he and Sam are on the porch drinking out of the same bottle of whiskey, shooting the shit. Dean realizes maybe he wants his brother, maybe he aches for him. An explosion going backwards, all the dispersed particles coming together again to the point of origin. It just clicks, he's not sure what happened, or what happens. Dean can pinpoint the moment where the pin drops, but not why it drops.
Sam's rambling some crap about their shitty tractor or whatever, Dean doesn't even know, mostly just watching Sam. He's been watching Sam all his life.
Sam gesticulates with his left hand, and Dean thinks, "Oh." Sam taps the bottle with his fingernail and Dean thinks, "Oh."
Dean, hey, are you listening?
Yeah. Yeah, he is.
Bobby comes out on the porch and says it's time to call it a night, Dean's got an early start tomorrow. Dean says man, don't remind me
Who else would, is what Bobby wants to know. Get inside, ya idjits.
Bobby shuffles back inside, Sam and Dean pause at the doorway and then look at each other. Sam mock-bows, gesturing widely like "this way, sir". Heroes first, he says.
Dean rolls his eyes. Shaddup.
And then later Dean's not sleeping. Maybe he doesn't really want his brother, maybe it's just the weight of goodbye. Yeah. That must be it, because what is he, what kind of a brother is he, what kind of brother would think this or want this, but then here he is thinking it, here he is wanting it. A desire shot through with fear.
It's nothing, it's nothing. It's just goodbye. Either way, it's a good thing Dean's going.
Yeah.
That dry swallow, y'know. The blood going cold in his veins thinking about it.
Next morning, Bobby shakes Dean's hand. I'm proud of you, son.
Sam shakes his hand too, and Dean's not sure who initiates the hug
For two seconds, Dean pretends he's not gonna let go. Two seconds of no Hitler, no Hirohito, two seconds of no goddamn war collecting all the young men to die. He can have two seconds. Then Bobby says, "You come home now," and Sam just smiles this brittle smile, and goodbye sinks in anyway.
+
BLAH BLAH BASIC TRAINING WHAT EVEN GOES ON THERE, ARMY BUREACRACY & HIERARCHY, POP CULTURE AND POLITICAL REFERENCES OF 1940S AMERICA, RESEARCH RESEARCH BLAH, RACIST WAR PROPAGANDA BLAH, SIGNS OF THE TIMES
+
Dean spends a month throwing up on a boat as it takes him across the Pacific. He writes letters to Sam and Bobby. He writes letters to Sam that he doesn't send.
One time, he gives up his meal to the guy next to him because he's too seasick to eat it. Hey thanks, man.
This is how Dean meets Victor Henriksen.
They play checkers sometimes. Victor tries to teach him chess. He labels the chess pieces with "PAWN" and "QUEEN". Dean doesn't have the patience for chess, but it takes his mind off the swaying of the boat, which is necessary. Victor's bishop takes Dean's queen for the third time in a row and he says, "What did I tell you about protecting your blindsides?" All scolding and shit.
Dear Sam and Uncle Bobby, I met this guy Victor, I think you'd like him. He is kind of a jerk.
One time when they're attempting another game of chess, their sergeant who has been watching them quietly takes Dean's bishop and checks Victor's king.
Their sergeant comes from a family both Catholic and military, Victor informs him when the guy slinks away after what was possibly an attempt at small talk.
Dean says oh you know him?
Victor says, you can tell.
A saint medallion hangs next to the dogtags around the sergeant's neck. Saint Anthony, Dean will learn later. Patron saint of lost things.
Dean just wants to keep his head down and get into as little shit as possible until the war is over, but the sarge and him keep bumping into each other in a series of interactions where awkwardness develops into bewildered antagonism. It is a big boat but there's not a lot of breathing room. For all that Dean spent most of his youth being brash and flashy and loud, he was more or less a good boy. A good kid. Does what Bobby says and only gets into the kind of misdemeanours typical of his age and high spirits. Drinks too much the night before then falls asleep in the tractor all morning, gets sunburnt all to shit. Red as a fucking lobster. Things like that.
But him and the sarge, they keep butting heads. Maybe it's over menial tasks, or over little details about the condition of his uniform, and inevitably about ideology.
"I'm not really a man of faith, sir."
"I didn't say faith in God."
After Dean gets back one night from cleaning the toilets (disciplinary action for mouthing off) Dean says to Victor, "Maybe I'm just not an army kind of guy, man. It's, uh - what do they call it. 'Doesn't respond well to authority'."
"No one is an army kinda guy," Victor says. "The army makes you into one."
Dear Sam and Bobby, hope you guys are well and that things back at the farm are good. I am good, but I have this sergeant, his name is Castiel, he is kind of a dick.
Bobby writes back, they're all dicks, son.
Sam writes back, things at the farm are good, don't worry about us, take care of yourself.
Dean stares at his brother's handwriting. It's not that he's worried.
+
DEAN'S ON A BOAT, HE'S ON A BOAT OH SHIT. BOAT STUFF HAPPENS??
WHAT EVEN IS THE BOAT LIKE? WHAT ARE SOLDIERS OUTFITTED WITH, WHAT CAN THEY BRING, HOW DO THEY HANG OUT, UGH ARMY LINGO, CHARLIE COMPANY ON THE LCI CAPTURING THE POSITION WITH TWO BATTERIES OF 105S ETC ETC ETC, HOW DOES ARMY WORDS idek
+
Dean's up on deck mopping the shit out of it (disciplinary action), and Kansas is so very fucking far away. He thinks about it everyday, about the distance between here and there.
Little things like griddle cakes and hay itching in his shirt and fresh apples. The little spark that awoke in him the night before left, refusing to gutter out. Sam's fingernail idly tapping on the whiskey bottle. Sam becoming abstract in his mind. Perhaps it all becomes abstract - Kansas, the farm, Bobby. His brother is an ache that haunts him when Dean finds a quiet moment for himself. Sam is sanded down into something Dean can easily tuck into a corner of his heart.
Is it really Sam in his head or just the blood of his hunger soaking into memory, into desire?
The first time he jerked off to Sam, Dean just felt drained afterwards. This heavy acceptance. This justification, "it's okay because you're not doing it to him, it's okay because you're far away, it's okay because you're lonely". You think you've hit rock bottom. It's okay because you've hit rock bottom. It doesn't matter because you're here.
You think to yourself this is as low as I'm ever gonna go, but then one morning, you're topside cleaning shit off the deck, and then you see land.
+
"Shit's about to hit the fan," Victor says. The disembarkation alarm buzz angrily beneath their feet.
Victor shows Dean the picture he has. That's my wife, he says. We were just married not long before I shipped out. And Dean tells him he's got a brother back home, and an uncle.
Well here's to them, Victor says. He raises the picture and grins. Dean has no picture, so he just nods.
When was the last time he was on a beach? Was it Virginia? It was long ago.
My god. Look: there are fucking palm trees.
Castiel's voice ringing out across the deck. They're going ashore.
+
Summers in Kansas are hot as hell but it's nothing compared to this goddamn island.
Trees with leaves like umbrellas. Trees with roots that go up all the way out of the ground, all the way up the trunk, all the way above your head. You could grab on to the roots and climb. Fields of grass that go up to the their knees, to their chests, up over their heads and it's like being in the corn when we were kids, Sam. You used to chase me through the corn. I'd let you catch me.
Victor's right: shit hits the fan. The firefights and the mortars and the blood. One fine morning, they're trying to capture a hill on the far side of the valley and the ground explodes not that far from Dean, right next to Pfc. Gallagher. Andy is blown back, knocking Dean over and is dead before they hit the ground. Dean's ears are ringing, and then they aren't, then they are again. When his vision comes back, the first thing he sees is a fern, small and delicate in front of him. He lifts his hand to it, vaguely wondering why it's hard to breathe, vaguely aware of loud noises getting louder.
Dean touches the fern, and its leaves shiver and close.
Someone pulls the corpse off him and yells his name. Someone grabs him and shakes him and yells hey wake up hey. Blue eyes boring into him like someone shot twice into this guy's head so you can see the sky behind him.
"You have to get up," Castiel is saying. "Do you hear me?"
Castiel's grip is too hard and it hurts. It shocks him out of stupor.
"You have to get up."
Did Dean kill that fern? Is it dead?
"Get up."
Dean grips back, his fingers digging into Castiel's arms. He takes a shaky breath.
Somehow he gets up.
+
Dean only sends half the letters he writes to Sam.
It's probably for the best. Dean's not gonna fuck his brother. He's not gonna give himself the chance.
They march through the jungle and wade through rivers and Pfc. Shurley gets dysentery and Miller goes on patrol one day and doesn't come back. You're shooting blind into the night and all you hear is people yelling, you can't even tell the language. Dean forgets to clean his bayonet one night and the next morning it's crusted over, like rust.
OKAY SO NOW WHAT, WHAT DID SOLDIERS DO WHEN THEY WEREN'T GETTING SHOT AT, IDEFK, DO COCONUTS GIVE DEAN THE RUNS, HOW MUCH DO THEY INTERACT WITH THE LOCALS, DOES DEAN GO AWOL, he probably goes AWOL, NO NO NO, CAS GOES AWOL.
YES.
And when people are like "!??! WHERE IS THE SARGE" Dean goes "hmm" and steals away and tracks Cas down, who is off HAVING DOUBTS about REGRETTABLE SHIT, and clutching his saint medallion. SCENERY PORN WITH BEACHES AND JUNGLES ET CETERA.
Dean says, "I'm not the one supposed to be the one chewing you out, sarge. Sir."
"You do that anyway."
"My friend back home has one of those," Dean says of the saint medallion. "My buddy Ash. He was a shit Catholic, though. They shipped him off to Europe, god knows what happened to him."
"It's Saint Anthony," Cas says.
"Who?"
Cas explains.
"You think the war is lost, sir?" Dean asks, after a pause.
But the sarge just looks at him, y'know. Like who the hell is this guy. The sarge gives Dean this look a lot. Dean's getting used to it.
"It's not my place to say," Castiel finally replies.
"They're asking about you back at camp, sir."
"So," Castiel says, "lead the way."
Off they go.
+
"My brother Michael always said to me you're not in the army to philosophize, you're here to fight."
"God and country, right?"
"For family."
Family is everything. They can agree on that, at least.
+
EXPLOSIONS!!!!!!!! GUNFIGHTS!!!!!!!!! MORTARS AND SHELLING!!!!! DEAN JACKING OFF TO SAM WHEN IT OCCURS TO HIM TO DO SO!!!! Sam's a sneaky sumbitch, even the memory of Sam. Can't a man jerk off thinking of movie stars and pin-up girls without his brother popping in there like a sudden blackout? Dean comes, and then he feels restless under his skin. He can't tell the difference anymore between Sam and missing Sam. When Dean sleeps, he doesn't dream. He doesn't sleep much to begin with.
"Everyone dreams," Victor retorts. "It's just that people don't remember 'em when they wake up."
Is it true? Has Dean been dreaming? Has he been dreaming of home? Has he been comforted without his knowing? Is forgetfulness robbing him of solace?
"It's no use remembering dreams," says Castiel. "They're not much good for anything."
"Lots of nice things there ain't much use for, sarge."
"It's just another thing to carry."
"I'll carry 'em," Victor shrugs. "I'll carry them all the way back home."
+
"Sir, Henriksen is still in there, sir."
This is the most important thing Dean's ever fought with Castiel about.
"Sir."
But Castiel has his orders. Around them: heavy fire, depleted artillery, every reason to refuse.
Dean says, "Sir, we can't just--"
This exchange takes place at approximately 1400 hours. By 1430, most of Charlie Company's cleared the hillside. Dean and Castiel return to camp at 1724 hours, Victor Henriksen in tow between them. They are severely reprimanded, then recommended for the Purple Heart.
Victor's convalescing and twilight's fading out, and Dean goes to find Castiel. He doesn't quite manage to say thank you. Dean reckons this isn't one of those things you thank people for anyway, and he's seen men look suddenly shriveled when congratulated for valiant deeds done in wartime. So Dean doesn't say anything; he babbles a whole lot of nothing instead. Castiel babbles back more nothing in kind.
It's not that late, but Castiel says it's getting late anyway.
"Don't pray too hard, you'll give yourself an aneurysm," Dean says.
"I'll thank you not to tell me how to talk to my god."
"Ah, well, then don't thank me."
Castiel smiles. "Dismissed, soldier."
Dean smiles back.
+
A man of faith though he is, Castiel has never felt comfortable with the confessional. He would rather keep his wrongdoings to himself, deep inside so he can shrug them off at his convenience. Priests make him feel guilty and far from God.
He's watching Dean play a pickup game of football with the recruits. Most of them are without shirts and they are sweaty and dirty and browned by the sun, and Castiel realizes with quiet resignation that he will have confessions about this man. Castiel accepts this realization as he does all other imperatives bestowed upon him. He fingers his medallion, a nervous habit perhaps, and watches Dean score a touchdown. He gets hoisted up on shoulders of Henriksen and Reznick, and then Dean too is laughing and raising his arms in victory, and Castiel claps along with the other officers.
+
It's not necessarily that there is a turning point for them, because where are they turning from anyway? And where are they turning to? But if there is one, it's probably the time Castiel saves Dean's life. The CO yells at Cas's back, "Don't say I didn't fucking warn you! I warned you, son! You get back here right fucking now!"
And meanwhile Dean doesn't know where he is, what's happening, what's going on. He doesn't know much of anything. He can't hear out one ear. This is it, this is it, I'm sorry Sam, I'm sorry Bobby, this is it. He's not sure if he can move or if he just doesn't want to.
"Dean!"
It's all the same, it's all the same because it doesn't matter anymore.
"DEAN!"
Just give it a--
The afterlife looks strangely like the medic bay.
Victor drops by later, full of a swagger that conceals his actual worry for his friend until later, when his smile goes tight and he goes suddenly quiet and he will clasp Dean's shoulder and squeeze. But right now, Victor is grinning and saying, "Look at this motherfucker. Lazarus risen!"
Dean asks, "Did we win? I thought-- what happened?"
"You're the fucking teacher's pet is I think what happened."
"What?"
Then someone else's voice: "Dean?"
They both look up, and it's the sergeant, looking as if he's waiting to be told that sorry, this is a bad time.
+
The newer letters to Sam supercede his previous assertions about Castiel, if not by admittance than by anecdotes. Today the sarge and I -- then we --
Sarge says --
I told him he was full of shit, though.
Dean imagining his brother smiling affectionately as he reads it, and Sam, when he actually reads it, imagining his brother doing the same.
+
STUFF BLAH FEELINGS RESEARCH UST PINING ARMY ARMY EXPLOSIONS ARMY JUNGLE
Castiel looks for Dean, and when he finds him, Dean straightens up. There's that wild look in Castiel's eyes. What's wrong? "Sir?"
"At ease," Castiel says softly.
OMG WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? DO THEY MAKE OUT?? IS THERE SEXING??? WHOOOOOO KNOOOOOOOWS
+
"What's going on between you and the sarge?"
+
Dean talks about home, and Castiel talks about family. It takes Dean a while to figure they're not always the same thing. Not the way Castiel talks about them, at least.
"It's not a matter of missing them," Castiel replies, when Dean asks. "That doesn't matter. That's not the point."
"What is the point?" Dean asks, and when he is unable to get an answer that satisfies him, he frustratedly asks, "Do you love them?" It is a ridiculous question and it deserves the ridiculous look Castiel gives him for it.
All the men in Castiel's family go into the military. When Dean asks if he has sisters, Castiel says his household wasn't an easy place for Anna to grow up in. His brother Balthazar writes to him about her because he knows Castiel wants to know. Anna isn't the letter-writing type.
"Not to me, at least," Castiel adds hesitantly.
"What happened there?"
Instead of answering, he says, "He says our brother Michael thinks she's running with the communists."
Dean raises an eyebrow.
When Dean tells an anecdote about shenanigans with the good ol' boys, Castiel replies with a story about hunting with his brothers: it was cold out, it was his first time, the deer wouldn't die. It just bled and bled and it wouldn't die.
Dean tells Cas about his brother. Tells him a story about Sam.
In the story, it's harvest time.
He's telling Sam not to work himself too hard, you know about your heart, but Sam keeps on keeping on because he likes being outside. Sweating together in the sun, working on the farm together.
Stop asking me if I'm okay, Dean. I'm okay. I'll tell you if I'm not okay.
Dean says okay well you just tell me. Here, drink more water.
If Dean's not there to curb Sam's desperation for self-reliance, them Sam WOULD collapse, he explains to Castiel. We're sweating ourselves to exhaustion and come on, Sam, you're drenched.
It gets hot as balls in Kansas. Gets as hot as here sometimes.
(Him and his brother sitting under the apple trees together, eating their sandwiches.
I wanna go to college, Dean.
You wanna leave?
I said I want to go to college.)
Fields of wheat. The late afternoon sunlight on their bodies, in his brother's hair. Soon their uncle will call them in for supper.
"So, you," Castiel says, "you miss him." As if trying out the words on his tongue.
"Well yeah, 'course I miss him but I. I'm glad that, y'know. That he's there, and not here, in the middle of all this shit with me. I mean. I'm glad he's safe. I think he's safe. I think he's okay."
+
Pain is not always sacrifice, Castiel says. My father said that once.
Yeah? Your father?
My brother says it all the time. It was him my father said it to. He doesn't have much to say to me.
My old man's dead.
Oh.
Do you believe that? What your father said. Or your brother, whichever.
I think so. The opposite is true too.
How do you mean?
Sacrifice is not always pain.
+
Dean gets worse at chess.
+
The brutalities of war have telephone-gamed Dean's memories of Sam. Are these memories, or memories of memories? Is Sam, too, slipping away from him? Dean's stopped jerking off to him. It weighs too much on his heart. It is too animal and inadequate. It feels like a trick. It is a compromise. It seems like a waste, and the waste - not the love - is the sin.
It's unclear whether Victor somehow stumbles upon Dean's unsent letters. If he does, he's unsurprised, not because he expects it, but because it seems like such a small atrocity in light of everything else he's seen and had to do. No room for judgment in the middle of chaos. He would tuck these letters back into Dean's bag, and never mention them again.
Everyone is allowed their silences. You still sometimes find something where the noise collides, if you keep the right silences.
+
Castiel makes a bad call and an attack goes awry. When Dean runs headfirst into the firefight like some goddamn fucking hero, Castiel feels personally responsible, and runs after. The CO curses at his back, yelling, yells at Henriksen to stop standing there with his yap open, a bug'll fly in, son, you tell the men to fall back.
Castiel gets Dean out of whatever they have both plunged him into and they almost make it out but then MORE ENEMY FIRE. Dean has to rescue him the rest of the way. It's a long way. Camp is all the fucking way over there, and they are in terrible conditions. JUNGLE=HELL METAPHORS.
Castiel, still delirious, slumped on Dean's back as they go trudging through the jungle. Castiel murmuring, "I won't -- It's my duty, I'll get you out of here, I'll get you--"
And Dean, tightening his grip and looking straight ahead and saying "I know." He says, "You get crazier and crazier the more I know you, sarge."
And Castiel saying, "You deserve--"
"That was dumb as shit."
"You think you don't--but you--"
Sun's so goddamn hot.
The din of the jungle sets in. It's never quiet in the jungle. The delirium of the jungle. You're dwarfed, you're alienated. Castiel is muttering promises in his ear, but then he just stops talking. Dean starts talking just to keep Castiel awake, all sorts of stupid shit, like hey doesn't this feel familiar, 'cept Victor was noisier than you, but who could blame him, can't blame you either huh, it's just like my brother, you get like my brother Sam, sometimes he won't shut the fuck up, I tell him shut the fuck up Sam, and sometimes he gets quiet, he has this condition, it's his heart, I worry about him, I worry he can't take the world, I worry he won't see it, I don't know what to give him, maybe a brand new fucking heart, maybe he can have mine, hey Cas, you awake right, hey Cas, be here, stay with me, Cas.
Dean starts sounding delirious too, maybe.
And Castiel all the while saying, "You deserve it, you think you don't, but you do," and Dean saying, "Yeah."
Dean saying, "We're almost there," and all he sees is the jungle for miles around.
When they get back, they take Cas off him and rush the both of them to the medic tent. They're lying on adjacent cots and they can hear the medics buzzing around the other cots, they can hear people play a pickup game of football outside.
Dean says, "Hey." His throat's so dry.
Cas says, "Mm."
Dean says, "We're even."
And then he closes his eyes.
+
The haphazard intersections of war. You take what you can, you find what you find. Doesn't necessarily mean you get to keep it
Dean dies.
After they go back stateside, Castiel makes the visit to the farm himself.
"Come with me," he had said to Victor on the boat over. "You were his friend too."
Victor gave him a long look, then said no. "I was friends with Dean, sarge, not his family. I say leave them be. Let them mourn in peace, sir. I'm going back to my family, and you ought to go back to yours."
Castiel goes to Lawrence alone, and he and Sam study each other over coffee in the kitchen, thinking, "So this is the guy." Castiel saying, "Your brother was a good man." Castiel telling Sam about Dean carrying him through the jungle and saying it should've been the other way around, because if there's a man in that company who deserves to be saved, it's your brother, and I told him so. I told him so, Sam.
And then, because Castiel seems to be expecting something from him, Sam says, "I believe you."
Bobby stays in up his bedroom the whole time and refuses to come out.
Sam leads him out to the orchard at the edge of the farm. When me and Dean were boys, he says, we used to play here all the time. Climb the trees, eat the apples. Ate them until we got sick. Our uncle used to say, leave some for the picking. We'd sneak apples into bed. They're good apples. Here.
Sam picks one off a tree and offers it to Castiel. They sit in the shade of the trees, eating apples. He tells Castiel about Jessica. She's a schoolteacher in town, also makes the best damn apple pie Sam ever ate. Dean loved her pies. Then to Sam's surprise, he finds himself saying, "I'm gonna ask her to marry me."
It was a thought Sam has been mulling over for months. Castiel is the first person he tells. He says it out loud and realizes it is true.
Sam says, "We got our mom's engagement ring in the attic. I'm gonna wait for the right time."
Castiel says, "Don't wait too long."
"What about you? Do you have a girl waiting at home?"
Castiel doesn't. "Jessica sounds like a lovely girl," he adds.
"I love her," Sam nods. "She's wonderful."
Castiel says "It's good to finally meet you," and Sam says "Yeah you too."
Sam gives him some apples for the trip back. Castiel eats them on the bus. They're delicious.
THE EEEENNNNNND
Anyway, as you see, this outline is lacking in... like, IDK. IN CONTEXT, I GUESS? I'm not even sure what island they're on. Is it Guadalcanal? Can I get away with putting them in the Philippines? What kinds of conflicts took place in the various islands? How did they play out logistically? What are the names of weapons and parts of weapons? What do they call ANYTHING in the army? Army lingo, you confuse and frighten me. Also, the slang of the era, oy, do not even. Also, views and attitudes towards the Japanese and how that plays out among American soldiers. HMMMMMM. I've been oblique in this outline, but if I were to actually write this fic, it feels unfair to avoid the issue as this outline has.
Plus, the eternal question: WHAT IS CASTIEL'S LAST NAME. (Probably Smith or Brown or Black or Johnson. Or possibly Castiel is the last name. Maybe his name is Louis Castiel. HAHA IDK, SPN HUMAN AUS, HOW DO THEY WORK.)
TOO MANY THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT, SO I POST THIS NOW AND WASH MY HANDS OF IT. THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.
weatheredlaw, I would also like to blame callowyn, skullage, and zempasuchil. YOU GUYS ARE THE WORST AT SAVING ME FROM MYSELF. :(Anyway, here is the rambling synopsis/outline (...outlinefic?) for a 'verse I don't have time to write. WW2 AU, Pacific theater. Sam/Dean pining, Dean/Castiel-ish probably sort of maybe, Victor, Bobby-ish, PG13, character death.
It's a 4500-word outline, on account of how it keeps trying to be real fic.
Sam's not going to war because of his heart condition, and when they find out, Dean chucks his head affectionately. Lucky bastard, he says. They live on a farm in Kansas with Uncle Bobby, who isn't really their uncle, but he's family anyway. They take care of each other. It's enough.
It's the night before Dean ships out, and he and Sam are on the porch drinking out of the same bottle of whiskey, shooting the shit. Dean realizes maybe he wants his brother, maybe he aches for him. An explosion going backwards, all the dispersed particles coming together again to the point of origin. It just clicks, he's not sure what happened, or what happens. Dean can pinpoint the moment where the pin drops, but not why it drops.
Sam's rambling some crap about their shitty tractor or whatever, Dean doesn't even know, mostly just watching Sam. He's been watching Sam all his life.
Sam gesticulates with his left hand, and Dean thinks, "Oh." Sam taps the bottle with his fingernail and Dean thinks, "Oh."
Dean, hey, are you listening?
Yeah. Yeah, he is.
Bobby comes out on the porch and says it's time to call it a night, Dean's got an early start tomorrow. Dean says man, don't remind me
Who else would, is what Bobby wants to know. Get inside, ya idjits.
Bobby shuffles back inside, Sam and Dean pause at the doorway and then look at each other. Sam mock-bows, gesturing widely like "this way, sir". Heroes first, he says.
Dean rolls his eyes. Shaddup.
And then later Dean's not sleeping. Maybe he doesn't really want his brother, maybe it's just the weight of goodbye. Yeah. That must be it, because what is he, what kind of a brother is he, what kind of brother would think this or want this, but then here he is thinking it, here he is wanting it. A desire shot through with fear.
It's nothing, it's nothing. It's just goodbye. Either way, it's a good thing Dean's going.
Yeah.
That dry swallow, y'know. The blood going cold in his veins thinking about it.
Next morning, Bobby shakes Dean's hand. I'm proud of you, son.
Sam shakes his hand too, and Dean's not sure who initiates the hug
For two seconds, Dean pretends he's not gonna let go. Two seconds of no Hitler, no Hirohito, two seconds of no goddamn war collecting all the young men to die. He can have two seconds. Then Bobby says, "You come home now," and Sam just smiles this brittle smile, and goodbye sinks in anyway.
+
BLAH BLAH BASIC TRAINING WHAT EVEN GOES ON THERE, ARMY BUREACRACY & HIERARCHY, POP CULTURE AND POLITICAL REFERENCES OF 1940S AMERICA, RESEARCH RESEARCH BLAH, RACIST WAR PROPAGANDA BLAH, SIGNS OF THE TIMES
+
Dean spends a month throwing up on a boat as it takes him across the Pacific. He writes letters to Sam and Bobby. He writes letters to Sam that he doesn't send.
One time, he gives up his meal to the guy next to him because he's too seasick to eat it. Hey thanks, man.
This is how Dean meets Victor Henriksen.
They play checkers sometimes. Victor tries to teach him chess. He labels the chess pieces with "PAWN" and "QUEEN". Dean doesn't have the patience for chess, but it takes his mind off the swaying of the boat, which is necessary. Victor's bishop takes Dean's queen for the third time in a row and he says, "What did I tell you about protecting your blindsides?" All scolding and shit.
Dear Sam and Uncle Bobby, I met this guy Victor, I think you'd like him. He is kind of a jerk.
One time when they're attempting another game of chess, their sergeant who has been watching them quietly takes Dean's bishop and checks Victor's king.
Their sergeant comes from a family both Catholic and military, Victor informs him when the guy slinks away after what was possibly an attempt at small talk.
Dean says oh you know him?
Victor says, you can tell.
A saint medallion hangs next to the dogtags around the sergeant's neck. Saint Anthony, Dean will learn later. Patron saint of lost things.
Dean just wants to keep his head down and get into as little shit as possible until the war is over, but the sarge and him keep bumping into each other in a series of interactions where awkwardness develops into bewildered antagonism. It is a big boat but there's not a lot of breathing room. For all that Dean spent most of his youth being brash and flashy and loud, he was more or less a good boy. A good kid. Does what Bobby says and only gets into the kind of misdemeanours typical of his age and high spirits. Drinks too much the night before then falls asleep in the tractor all morning, gets sunburnt all to shit. Red as a fucking lobster. Things like that.
But him and the sarge, they keep butting heads. Maybe it's over menial tasks, or over little details about the condition of his uniform, and inevitably about ideology.
"I'm not really a man of faith, sir."
"I didn't say faith in God."
After Dean gets back one night from cleaning the toilets (disciplinary action for mouthing off) Dean says to Victor, "Maybe I'm just not an army kind of guy, man. It's, uh - what do they call it. 'Doesn't respond well to authority'."
"No one is an army kinda guy," Victor says. "The army makes you into one."
Dear Sam and Bobby, hope you guys are well and that things back at the farm are good. I am good, but I have this sergeant, his name is Castiel, he is kind of a dick.
Bobby writes back, they're all dicks, son.
Sam writes back, things at the farm are good, don't worry about us, take care of yourself.
Dean stares at his brother's handwriting. It's not that he's worried.
+
DEAN'S ON A BOAT, HE'S ON A BOAT OH SHIT. BOAT STUFF HAPPENS??
WHAT EVEN IS THE BOAT LIKE? WHAT ARE SOLDIERS OUTFITTED WITH, WHAT CAN THEY BRING, HOW DO THEY HANG OUT, UGH ARMY LINGO, CHARLIE COMPANY ON THE LCI CAPTURING THE POSITION WITH TWO BATTERIES OF 105S ETC ETC ETC, HOW DOES ARMY WORDS idek
+
Dean's up on deck mopping the shit out of it (disciplinary action), and Kansas is so very fucking far away. He thinks about it everyday, about the distance between here and there.
Little things like griddle cakes and hay itching in his shirt and fresh apples. The little spark that awoke in him the night before left, refusing to gutter out. Sam's fingernail idly tapping on the whiskey bottle. Sam becoming abstract in his mind. Perhaps it all becomes abstract - Kansas, the farm, Bobby. His brother is an ache that haunts him when Dean finds a quiet moment for himself. Sam is sanded down into something Dean can easily tuck into a corner of his heart.
Is it really Sam in his head or just the blood of his hunger soaking into memory, into desire?
The first time he jerked off to Sam, Dean just felt drained afterwards. This heavy acceptance. This justification, "it's okay because you're not doing it to him, it's okay because you're far away, it's okay because you're lonely". You think you've hit rock bottom. It's okay because you've hit rock bottom. It doesn't matter because you're here.
You think to yourself this is as low as I'm ever gonna go, but then one morning, you're topside cleaning shit off the deck, and then you see land.
+
"Shit's about to hit the fan," Victor says. The disembarkation alarm buzz angrily beneath their feet.
Victor shows Dean the picture he has. That's my wife, he says. We were just married not long before I shipped out. And Dean tells him he's got a brother back home, and an uncle.
Well here's to them, Victor says. He raises the picture and grins. Dean has no picture, so he just nods.
When was the last time he was on a beach? Was it Virginia? It was long ago.
My god. Look: there are fucking palm trees.
Castiel's voice ringing out across the deck. They're going ashore.
+
Summers in Kansas are hot as hell but it's nothing compared to this goddamn island.
Trees with leaves like umbrellas. Trees with roots that go up all the way out of the ground, all the way up the trunk, all the way above your head. You could grab on to the roots and climb. Fields of grass that go up to the their knees, to their chests, up over their heads and it's like being in the corn when we were kids, Sam. You used to chase me through the corn. I'd let you catch me.
Victor's right: shit hits the fan. The firefights and the mortars and the blood. One fine morning, they're trying to capture a hill on the far side of the valley and the ground explodes not that far from Dean, right next to Pfc. Gallagher. Andy is blown back, knocking Dean over and is dead before they hit the ground. Dean's ears are ringing, and then they aren't, then they are again. When his vision comes back, the first thing he sees is a fern, small and delicate in front of him. He lifts his hand to it, vaguely wondering why it's hard to breathe, vaguely aware of loud noises getting louder.
Dean touches the fern, and its leaves shiver and close.
Someone pulls the corpse off him and yells his name. Someone grabs him and shakes him and yells hey wake up hey. Blue eyes boring into him like someone shot twice into this guy's head so you can see the sky behind him.
"You have to get up," Castiel is saying. "Do you hear me?"
Castiel's grip is too hard and it hurts. It shocks him out of stupor.
"You have to get up."
Did Dean kill that fern? Is it dead?
"Get up."
Dean grips back, his fingers digging into Castiel's arms. He takes a shaky breath.
Somehow he gets up.
+
Dean only sends half the letters he writes to Sam.
It's probably for the best. Dean's not gonna fuck his brother. He's not gonna give himself the chance.
They march through the jungle and wade through rivers and Pfc. Shurley gets dysentery and Miller goes on patrol one day and doesn't come back. You're shooting blind into the night and all you hear is people yelling, you can't even tell the language. Dean forgets to clean his bayonet one night and the next morning it's crusted over, like rust.
OKAY SO NOW WHAT, WHAT DID SOLDIERS DO WHEN THEY WEREN'T GETTING SHOT AT, IDEFK, DO COCONUTS GIVE DEAN THE RUNS, HOW MUCH DO THEY INTERACT WITH THE LOCALS, DOES DEAN GO AWOL, he probably goes AWOL, NO NO NO, CAS GOES AWOL.
YES.
And when people are like "!??! WHERE IS THE SARGE" Dean goes "hmm" and steals away and tracks Cas down, who is off HAVING DOUBTS about REGRETTABLE SHIT, and clutching his saint medallion. SCENERY PORN WITH BEACHES AND JUNGLES ET CETERA.
Dean says, "I'm not the one supposed to be the one chewing you out, sarge. Sir."
"You do that anyway."
"My friend back home has one of those," Dean says of the saint medallion. "My buddy Ash. He was a shit Catholic, though. They shipped him off to Europe, god knows what happened to him."
"It's Saint Anthony," Cas says.
"Who?"
Cas explains.
"You think the war is lost, sir?" Dean asks, after a pause.
But the sarge just looks at him, y'know. Like who the hell is this guy. The sarge gives Dean this look a lot. Dean's getting used to it.
"It's not my place to say," Castiel finally replies.
"They're asking about you back at camp, sir."
"So," Castiel says, "lead the way."
Off they go.
+
"My brother Michael always said to me you're not in the army to philosophize, you're here to fight."
"God and country, right?"
"For family."
Family is everything. They can agree on that, at least.
+
EXPLOSIONS!!!!!!!! GUNFIGHTS!!!!!!!!! MORTARS AND SHELLING!!!!! DEAN JACKING OFF TO SAM WHEN IT OCCURS TO HIM TO DO SO!!!! Sam's a sneaky sumbitch, even the memory of Sam. Can't a man jerk off thinking of movie stars and pin-up girls without his brother popping in there like a sudden blackout? Dean comes, and then he feels restless under his skin. He can't tell the difference anymore between Sam and missing Sam. When Dean sleeps, he doesn't dream. He doesn't sleep much to begin with.
"Everyone dreams," Victor retorts. "It's just that people don't remember 'em when they wake up."
Is it true? Has Dean been dreaming? Has he been dreaming of home? Has he been comforted without his knowing? Is forgetfulness robbing him of solace?
"It's no use remembering dreams," says Castiel. "They're not much good for anything."
"Lots of nice things there ain't much use for, sarge."
"It's just another thing to carry."
"I'll carry 'em," Victor shrugs. "I'll carry them all the way back home."
+
"Sir, Henriksen is still in there, sir."
This is the most important thing Dean's ever fought with Castiel about.
"Sir."
But Castiel has his orders. Around them: heavy fire, depleted artillery, every reason to refuse.
Dean says, "Sir, we can't just--"
This exchange takes place at approximately 1400 hours. By 1430, most of Charlie Company's cleared the hillside. Dean and Castiel return to camp at 1724 hours, Victor Henriksen in tow between them. They are severely reprimanded, then recommended for the Purple Heart.
Victor's convalescing and twilight's fading out, and Dean goes to find Castiel. He doesn't quite manage to say thank you. Dean reckons this isn't one of those things you thank people for anyway, and he's seen men look suddenly shriveled when congratulated for valiant deeds done in wartime. So Dean doesn't say anything; he babbles a whole lot of nothing instead. Castiel babbles back more nothing in kind.
It's not that late, but Castiel says it's getting late anyway.
"Don't pray too hard, you'll give yourself an aneurysm," Dean says.
"I'll thank you not to tell me how to talk to my god."
"Ah, well, then don't thank me."
Castiel smiles. "Dismissed, soldier."
Dean smiles back.
+
A man of faith though he is, Castiel has never felt comfortable with the confessional. He would rather keep his wrongdoings to himself, deep inside so he can shrug them off at his convenience. Priests make him feel guilty and far from God.
He's watching Dean play a pickup game of football with the recruits. Most of them are without shirts and they are sweaty and dirty and browned by the sun, and Castiel realizes with quiet resignation that he will have confessions about this man. Castiel accepts this realization as he does all other imperatives bestowed upon him. He fingers his medallion, a nervous habit perhaps, and watches Dean score a touchdown. He gets hoisted up on shoulders of Henriksen and Reznick, and then Dean too is laughing and raising his arms in victory, and Castiel claps along with the other officers.
+
It's not necessarily that there is a turning point for them, because where are they turning from anyway? And where are they turning to? But if there is one, it's probably the time Castiel saves Dean's life. The CO yells at Cas's back, "Don't say I didn't fucking warn you! I warned you, son! You get back here right fucking now!"
And meanwhile Dean doesn't know where he is, what's happening, what's going on. He doesn't know much of anything. He can't hear out one ear. This is it, this is it, I'm sorry Sam, I'm sorry Bobby, this is it. He's not sure if he can move or if he just doesn't want to.
"Dean!"
It's all the same, it's all the same because it doesn't matter anymore.
"DEAN!"
Just give it a--
The afterlife looks strangely like the medic bay.
Victor drops by later, full of a swagger that conceals his actual worry for his friend until later, when his smile goes tight and he goes suddenly quiet and he will clasp Dean's shoulder and squeeze. But right now, Victor is grinning and saying, "Look at this motherfucker. Lazarus risen!"
Dean asks, "Did we win? I thought-- what happened?"
"You're the fucking teacher's pet is I think what happened."
"What?"
Then someone else's voice: "Dean?"
They both look up, and it's the sergeant, looking as if he's waiting to be told that sorry, this is a bad time.
+
The newer letters to Sam supercede his previous assertions about Castiel, if not by admittance than by anecdotes. Today the sarge and I -- then we --
Sarge says --
I told him he was full of shit, though.
Dean imagining his brother smiling affectionately as he reads it, and Sam, when he actually reads it, imagining his brother doing the same.
+
STUFF BLAH FEELINGS RESEARCH UST PINING ARMY ARMY EXPLOSIONS ARMY JUNGLE
Castiel looks for Dean, and when he finds him, Dean straightens up. There's that wild look in Castiel's eyes. What's wrong? "Sir?"
"At ease," Castiel says softly.
OMG WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? DO THEY MAKE OUT?? IS THERE SEXING??? WHOOOOOO KNOOOOOOOWS
+
"What's going on between you and the sarge?"
+
Dean talks about home, and Castiel talks about family. It takes Dean a while to figure they're not always the same thing. Not the way Castiel talks about them, at least.
"It's not a matter of missing them," Castiel replies, when Dean asks. "That doesn't matter. That's not the point."
"What is the point?" Dean asks, and when he is unable to get an answer that satisfies him, he frustratedly asks, "Do you love them?" It is a ridiculous question and it deserves the ridiculous look Castiel gives him for it.
All the men in Castiel's family go into the military. When Dean asks if he has sisters, Castiel says his household wasn't an easy place for Anna to grow up in. His brother Balthazar writes to him about her because he knows Castiel wants to know. Anna isn't the letter-writing type.
"Not to me, at least," Castiel adds hesitantly.
"What happened there?"
Instead of answering, he says, "He says our brother Michael thinks she's running with the communists."
Dean raises an eyebrow.
When Dean tells an anecdote about shenanigans with the good ol' boys, Castiel replies with a story about hunting with his brothers: it was cold out, it was his first time, the deer wouldn't die. It just bled and bled and it wouldn't die.
Dean tells Cas about his brother. Tells him a story about Sam.
In the story, it's harvest time.
He's telling Sam not to work himself too hard, you know about your heart, but Sam keeps on keeping on because he likes being outside. Sweating together in the sun, working on the farm together.
Stop asking me if I'm okay, Dean. I'm okay. I'll tell you if I'm not okay.
Dean says okay well you just tell me. Here, drink more water.
If Dean's not there to curb Sam's desperation for self-reliance, them Sam WOULD collapse, he explains to Castiel. We're sweating ourselves to exhaustion and come on, Sam, you're drenched.
It gets hot as balls in Kansas. Gets as hot as here sometimes.
(Him and his brother sitting under the apple trees together, eating their sandwiches.
I wanna go to college, Dean.
You wanna leave?
I said I want to go to college.)
Fields of wheat. The late afternoon sunlight on their bodies, in his brother's hair. Soon their uncle will call them in for supper.
"So, you," Castiel says, "you miss him." As if trying out the words on his tongue.
"Well yeah, 'course I miss him but I. I'm glad that, y'know. That he's there, and not here, in the middle of all this shit with me. I mean. I'm glad he's safe. I think he's safe. I think he's okay."
+
Pain is not always sacrifice, Castiel says. My father said that once.
Yeah? Your father?
My brother says it all the time. It was him my father said it to. He doesn't have much to say to me.
My old man's dead.
Oh.
Do you believe that? What your father said. Or your brother, whichever.
I think so. The opposite is true too.
How do you mean?
Sacrifice is not always pain.
+
Dean gets worse at chess.
+
The brutalities of war have telephone-gamed Dean's memories of Sam. Are these memories, or memories of memories? Is Sam, too, slipping away from him? Dean's stopped jerking off to him. It weighs too much on his heart. It is too animal and inadequate. It feels like a trick. It is a compromise. It seems like a waste, and the waste - not the love - is the sin.
It's unclear whether Victor somehow stumbles upon Dean's unsent letters. If he does, he's unsurprised, not because he expects it, but because it seems like such a small atrocity in light of everything else he's seen and had to do. No room for judgment in the middle of chaos. He would tuck these letters back into Dean's bag, and never mention them again.
Everyone is allowed their silences. You still sometimes find something where the noise collides, if you keep the right silences.
+
Castiel makes a bad call and an attack goes awry. When Dean runs headfirst into the firefight like some goddamn fucking hero, Castiel feels personally responsible, and runs after. The CO curses at his back, yelling, yells at Henriksen to stop standing there with his yap open, a bug'll fly in, son, you tell the men to fall back.
Castiel gets Dean out of whatever they have both plunged him into and they almost make it out but then MORE ENEMY FIRE. Dean has to rescue him the rest of the way. It's a long way. Camp is all the fucking way over there, and they are in terrible conditions. JUNGLE=HELL METAPHORS.
Castiel, still delirious, slumped on Dean's back as they go trudging through the jungle. Castiel murmuring, "I won't -- It's my duty, I'll get you out of here, I'll get you--"
And Dean, tightening his grip and looking straight ahead and saying "I know." He says, "You get crazier and crazier the more I know you, sarge."
And Castiel saying, "You deserve--"
"That was dumb as shit."
"You think you don't--but you--"
Sun's so goddamn hot.
The din of the jungle sets in. It's never quiet in the jungle. The delirium of the jungle. You're dwarfed, you're alienated. Castiel is muttering promises in his ear, but then he just stops talking. Dean starts talking just to keep Castiel awake, all sorts of stupid shit, like hey doesn't this feel familiar, 'cept Victor was noisier than you, but who could blame him, can't blame you either huh, it's just like my brother, you get like my brother Sam, sometimes he won't shut the fuck up, I tell him shut the fuck up Sam, and sometimes he gets quiet, he has this condition, it's his heart, I worry about him, I worry he can't take the world, I worry he won't see it, I don't know what to give him, maybe a brand new fucking heart, maybe he can have mine, hey Cas, you awake right, hey Cas, be here, stay with me, Cas.
Dean starts sounding delirious too, maybe.
And Castiel all the while saying, "You deserve it, you think you don't, but you do," and Dean saying, "Yeah."
Dean saying, "We're almost there," and all he sees is the jungle for miles around.
When they get back, they take Cas off him and rush the both of them to the medic tent. They're lying on adjacent cots and they can hear the medics buzzing around the other cots, they can hear people play a pickup game of football outside.
Dean says, "Hey." His throat's so dry.
Cas says, "Mm."
Dean says, "We're even."
And then he closes his eyes.
+
The haphazard intersections of war. You take what you can, you find what you find. Doesn't necessarily mean you get to keep it
Dean dies.
After they go back stateside, Castiel makes the visit to the farm himself.
"Come with me," he had said to Victor on the boat over. "You were his friend too."
Victor gave him a long look, then said no. "I was friends with Dean, sarge, not his family. I say leave them be. Let them mourn in peace, sir. I'm going back to my family, and you ought to go back to yours."
Castiel goes to Lawrence alone, and he and Sam study each other over coffee in the kitchen, thinking, "So this is the guy." Castiel saying, "Your brother was a good man." Castiel telling Sam about Dean carrying him through the jungle and saying it should've been the other way around, because if there's a man in that company who deserves to be saved, it's your brother, and I told him so. I told him so, Sam.
And then, because Castiel seems to be expecting something from him, Sam says, "I believe you."
Bobby stays in up his bedroom the whole time and refuses to come out.
Sam leads him out to the orchard at the edge of the farm. When me and Dean were boys, he says, we used to play here all the time. Climb the trees, eat the apples. Ate them until we got sick. Our uncle used to say, leave some for the picking. We'd sneak apples into bed. They're good apples. Here.
Sam picks one off a tree and offers it to Castiel. They sit in the shade of the trees, eating apples. He tells Castiel about Jessica. She's a schoolteacher in town, also makes the best damn apple pie Sam ever ate. Dean loved her pies. Then to Sam's surprise, he finds himself saying, "I'm gonna ask her to marry me."
It was a thought Sam has been mulling over for months. Castiel is the first person he tells. He says it out loud and realizes it is true.
Sam says, "We got our mom's engagement ring in the attic. I'm gonna wait for the right time."
Castiel says, "Don't wait too long."
"What about you? Do you have a girl waiting at home?"
Castiel doesn't. "Jessica sounds like a lovely girl," he adds.
"I love her," Sam nods. "She's wonderful."
Castiel says "It's good to finally meet you," and Sam says "Yeah you too."
Sam gives him some apples for the trip back. Castiel eats them on the bus. They're delicious.
THE EEEENNNNNND
Anyway, as you see, this outline is lacking in... like, IDK. IN CONTEXT, I GUESS? I'm not even sure what island they're on. Is it Guadalcanal? Can I get away with putting them in the Philippines? What kinds of conflicts took place in the various islands? How did they play out logistically? What are the names of weapons and parts of weapons? What do they call ANYTHING in the army? Army lingo, you confuse and frighten me. Also, the slang of the era, oy, do not even. Also, views and attitudes towards the Japanese and how that plays out among American soldiers. HMMMMMM. I've been oblique in this outline, but if I were to actually write this fic, it feels unfair to avoid the issue as this outline has.
Plus, the eternal question: WHAT IS CASTIEL'S LAST NAME. (Probably Smith or Brown or Black or Johnson. Or possibly Castiel is the last name. Maybe his name is Louis Castiel. HAHA IDK, SPN HUMAN AUS, HOW DO THEY WORK.)
TOO MANY THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT, SO I POST THIS NOW AND WASH MY HANDS OF IT. THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.