Chapter Text
Gunfire lit up the darkness. The rustle of leaves was heavy in the air, bringing with it the promise of a rain that was more natural than that of the bullets. A man was shouting orders, orders that made no sense in the pitch black of the night. Someone fell. Someone screamed. The gunfire responded in kind.
Heavy breathing surrounded him, loud enough to give them all away. Mickey’s face came into sight, sweat-soaked, streaked with dirt, blue eyes wide with horror. He held his gun close to his chest, like he was protecting it instead of the other way around. He was whispering something. Something indecipherable.
Then a shot rang out across the forest, louder than all the rest. Mickey shuddered and looked down. A spot of blood showed through the front of his uniform, wavering there for an unrealistically long moment before spreading across the fabric. Mickey’s face paled and he fell forward into the mud.
Suddenly, his voice could be heard.
“Ian. Ian. Ian…”
“MICKEY!” Ian woke, screaming. He shot up in bed, his heart pounding, the night making it impossible for him to see. He tried hard to bring his breath back under control. He tried hard to blink, but the darkness made it seem like his eyes were already closed. Shaking, he lay back down. “Just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream.”
He repeated the mantra for several minutes before giving up on it. He stood and walked over to his desk, rummaging through one of the drawers. All of Mickey’s letters were piled neatly in the corner, by date, but there was only one he wanted to read. Only one letter where Mickey, tired and scared, had said what he had really wanted to say. What Ian hoped he had really wanted to say.
Ian slipped the letter from the pile and waited for his eyes to adjust to the light. Of course, he didn’t really need to. He had the letter memorized from start to finish. It was crumpled from multiple foldings, stained yellow from Ian’s sweat, and the ink had faded so it was nearly unreadable. But at the moment, Ian needed not just the words, but the words in Mickey’s chicken scratch writing that was damned near impossible to read.
Ian,
Ten hours we walked through the damned jungle today. Soaking wet. Never stopped raining. We were fired on eleven times. And Gus isn’t even sure we’re safe here for the night. He won’t let us light the fires, but even if he did, there’s not enough dry wood for it.
If I die here, if I fucking die in this fucking jungle, I need you to know that I love you. That you are the best part of my life, my best memory, and I wish I had known you sooner. I wish I had longer with you. If I fucking die, know that it was never, ever because I put myself in harm’s way. Because I only have on goal out here. And it’s to come home to you.
So be there, okay? Wait for me. Because I’m coming back to you, I swear to god. If this goddamned jungle ever ends, if this war ever ends, if I ever come home, it’s going to be for you. And I can’t make it out here if you don’t make it back there.
I worry about you.
I miss you. I love you.
-Mick
Ian’s breathing slowed and he closed his eyes. His heart beat had slowed but he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep again. So he folded up the letter, stuffed it in his pocket, and headed out to walk around the camp.
He listened as the soldiers slept, their breathing like a gentle lullaby in the calm night. The smell of rain was in the air, incoming. No one stirred. Not a soul was awake. The new soldiers were better than the old ones. Sticklers for the rules. Ian wasn’t sure if he liked that. Made it hard to push the whole “collective responsibility” thing.
He made his way back to the clearing and touched a hand to the flagpole. The same flagpole Mickey had climbed more than six months ago. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend it was still warm from Mickey’s touch, even though it was ice cold against the heat of the summer night.
Looking towards the horizon, Ian saw the storm coming in. Black clouds moved across the sky like an opposing army and he knew the downpour would be biblical. It would also be over by morning, leaving little more than a soggy field and some less-than-fully-rested soldiers who had been woken by the thunder.
On an impulse, Ian ran into the mess hall and found the wake-up horn. He blasted it sharply and several times before coming back to the clearing. The camp stirred, the soldiers moving languidly and rubbing their eyes. They stumbled into the clearing, forming straight lines, and standing at ease.
Almost all drafters.
Almost all more receptive to orders than anyone else Ian had ever trained.
“ATTEN-SHUN!”
They all snapped into position.
“Who can tell me,” Ian asked, “what’s behind them?”
The soldiers glanced at each other, expecting a trick question. A few whispered answers reached Ian’s ears. The camp. Tents. Their stuff. Shit. Did he take our stuff again? Ian waited patiently until one soldier, a die-hard named Davidson, raised his hand.
“Yes?” Ian asked.
“A storm, sir.”
Ian smiled. “A storm. Yes. Do you have any idea how many storms you’re going to have to survive in ‘Nam?” No one responded. “Lots. Ones worse than this. So we’re going to start up the morning a little early so you can experience the kind of downpour that is going to soak you through every single day until the end of your service. Any objections?”
As expected, there were none.
“Start running.”
The men took off. They made it two laps before the rain started, sprinkling down with less force than a motel shower. Then lightning cracked across the sky and the thunder rumbled in challenge to the laughing soldiers. And, just as Ian predicted, the sky opened up into a biblical downpour that had the men dragging their feet through the mud as their soaked shirts tried to drag them down so they could become one with the ground.
Ian watched them disinterestedly, thinking about Mickey in the same rain. Wondering if this storm had crossed the ocean, if Mickey had already experienced it. He itched for a cigarette, but knew that in the rain and without Mickey’s taste on it, it would be useless. He had all but stopped smoking since Mickey left.
The men finished their laps and dropped into their push-ups. The mud splattered around their bodies as they dropped, covering their fingers and darkening their skin. “IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?” Ian shouted over the downpour. Several of the men had fallen in their attempts. “THIS IS NOTHING. THIS IS SPITTING IN VIETNAM.”
He wasn’t sure how many of them believed him, but none of them complained. All of them kept going. He spotted one soldier half-assing it, and walked over to him. Nash. He placed his foot on the man’s back and he collapsed into the ground, his face smashing into the mud.
“PUSH-UPS!”
Nash struggled back to push-up position and started again, struggling with Ian’s added weight and the slippery ground. Ian backed off when he finished, but stayed staring at him when he switched to sit-ups. The group waited for Nash to finish, nearly fifteen minutes after everyone else, and then stood, ready to go to the mess hall.
“Breakfast isn’t ready yet,” Ian snapped. “We’re running a gun drill.”
Two soldiers immediately pulled away to get the equipment from the shed. Three more followed them. Ian had them set up the targets unevenly and instructed them to created cover for themselves and the targets. He watched as the men loaded their guns with seriousness, trying to keep the weapons out of the worst of the rain.
Ian loaded his own gun and stood facing his men. “Hit the targets,” he said. “Simple enough?”
They nodded.
It wasn’t simple. The cover was good, maybe too good, and the rain threw off their sights. The men were miserable and tired and kept glancing over at Ian as if asking when they could go back to sleep or take a shower. He stared back at them blankly. If Mickey was doing this, they could do it too.
The sun didn’t rise. It stayed hidden behind the clouds, causing time to stop altogether, until the mail trunk came trundling into camp. Ian barely noticed it until the soldier driving it cleared his throat and handed him a stack of letters. He waited for the second stack to be removed from the bag. It wasn’t.
“No letters for me?” Ian asked, trying to keep the panic from his voice.
“Oh,” the driver said. He turned back to the bag and started rummaging through it. Ian waited, tapping him foot in the mushy grass. The soldier held out a single envelope, addressed by Fiona. “Here you go, sir.”
Ian took it, nodded, and sent the truck on its way. He tried to stop the chill spreading across his body, stopping his blood in his veins, and constricting his lungs. There was any number of reasons that Mickey wouldn’t have written. He was under heavy fire. He’s dead. It’s raining too hard to keep the paper dry.He’s dead. They’re in constant motion. He’s dead. He…
He’s dead.
He’s dead.
He’s dead.
Mickey’s dead.
Ian’s mouth opened and he swallowed air. He tried to shake off the thought but it followed him like a ghost. He stuffed the letters from his family in his pocket and then ducked into the mess hall to put down the soldiers’ letters.
He stood there for a long time, gripping the wooden table, trying to breathe normally. The chef came in to start breakfast and offered no more than a passing greeting, which Ian ignored. He collected himself. He made the words “Mickey’s dead” into background noise and headed back outside.
To see that all hell had broken loose. The targets were, to be fair, too hard to hit. But that didn’t mean that his soldiers should have taken the place of the targets and been shooting at each other with real guns.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?” Ian shouted.
The scene before him froze. All the soldiers looked at him with sheer terror in their eyes and, for once, Ian wasn’t offended by it. They should be scared of him. All of them should be absolutely fucking terrified of what he was going to do to them.
Mickey’s dead. Mickey’s dead. Mickey’s dead.
“Who the hell decided this was a good idea?” he asked when he got close enough to be heard. No one said anything. “You will tell me right now or every last one of you will be running laps until you puke up your lungs.”
Nothing.
“You think this is a fucking joke? These are real guns. They hold-” Ian shot his gun into the ground. The platoon jumped. “Real, goddamn bullets. And if you shoot each other with them, you will die.”
“Come on,” a voice said. The same lilting, sarcastic tone as Mickey.MickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdead. “We stood where the targets are. And no one can hit the fucking targets.”
“Who said that.”
The soldiers split before his glare to reveal Nash standing near the back, soaked to the bone, and shivering. He twirled his gun on one finger with the safety off. “We were just having some fun. We’re soaking and miserable and-”
“And you’re going to be soaking and fucking miserable in Vietnam,” Ian snapped, walking towards him. “Are you telling me, when you’re soaking and miserable halfway across the world, with enemy soldiers hiding in the jungle, to ‘have some fun’ you’re going to shoot at each other?”
Nash shrugged. “We’ll probably shoot at them.”
Ian shot another bullet into the ground. Nash’s eyes went wide as saucers. “Do you think,” Ian said, so softly the pounding rain nearly drowned out his voice, “this is a fucking joke?”
“No, sir.”
Ian shot the ground again. Closer to Nash. He jumped. “Is this a joke, soldier, or are you going to fucking war?”
“I’m going to war, sir.”
Another shot. Nash swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing against the edge of his sharp chin. With the rain, it was hard to tell whether there were tears in his eyes or if the rain was just reflected in their dark blue depths. Ian stepped closer to him and he tried to step back. Ian grabbed him by the shirt and kept less than an inch of space between them, his hot breath ruffling Nash’s jacket.
“You’re a fucking sorry excuse for a soldier,” Ian whispered.MickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdeadMickeysdead. Louder now. Louder than the rain. Louder than the tears of the soldier in front of him.
“And you don’t deserve to be one.”
Ian let off his last shot and Nash screamed. Blood poured into the already soaked grass and Nash fell, clutching his foot and moaning. Every single soldier stepped back as Ian stared down at the man in the grass. He could feel the horror of the rest of his platoon, the way they looked at him like he was a monster, and he felt strangely detached from all of it. Detached from the blood coming from Nash’s foot. The blood coming from Mickey’s chest.
Swallowing, Ian stepped back. He flicked the safety back on and headed into the mess hall to call for a doctor. Finally, something managed to break through the endless repeat of his worst fear. A different worst fear.
I’m going to be discharged.