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Dean had a gut feeling that something was very wrong. It wasn’t a taste or smell, sight or sound that caused his inner being to cringe in the face of the danger that was in his surroundings. It was the feeling of a bullet ripping through the core of his body. The area he was in had already been cleared of enemies, leaving nothing but jungle, which only left friendly fire as the cause of the wound in his chest. The first thought in his mind was how he didn’t want to die because some idiot was trigger happy. A commotion started up as he hit the grassy floor of the jungle with a dull thud and moan of pain.
“Winchester?” his lieutenant asked him, applying pressure to the wounds as the medic tried to figure out what to do. “Can you hear me, Winchester?”
Singer was the eldest soldier any of the others knew. He had been in the army from before Vietnam, reenlisting after being discharged when it started. He was from South Dakota, a family man who had lost his wife and son in a car accident that was caused by him being an alcoholic. The boys in the division were surrogate sons for him, treating them the way any father would -- with kindness, love, but a tough hand-- and Dean especially. Dean learned soon that he could trust Bobby with anything -- even the fact that he had a boyfriend back in Kansas who his family didn‘t know about--, knowing the man wouldn’t tell a single soul.
“Yes’ir,” he choked out through heavy lips. The pain -- barely bearable -- was talking every ounce of energy he had stored throughout the day. His wheezing and coughing brought blood to his mouth, dribbling out of the corners of his lips.
“You’re gonn’ be okay, son,” Singer said with false confidence. Dean knew that he was just trying to give him an ounce of comfort and hope even though Dean knew it was useless in the situation he was in.
“Don’t wanna die in ‘Nam sir,” he told him as he blinked back the tears that stung his eyes and threatened to drip down his face onto the already soaked grass that had seeped through his shirt and onto his warm skin.
“You ain’t gonn’ die, boy. Tell me ‘bout Kansas.” Dean’s thoughts were scrambled, Cass being the only thing on his mind.
“Cass has these blue eyes, describes ‘em as sapphires with the ocean preserved in their glass. In the winter, we’d start the fire up and camp in the livin’ room. So much smarter than me, going to college as a literature major. In the summer we’d go to this hidden spring in the woods and camp out. We loved campin’.”
One of his fondest memories was around the Christmas of 1971. Cass was trying to bake a pecan pie -- Dean’s favorite -- while listening to the radio. Dean’s arms had been wrapped around his waist for a good ten minutes, head resting in the crook of the shorter man’s neck. Hey Jude came on, Cass singing along in the angelic voice Dean had come to love. Dean could tell Cass was smiling, able to picture the way the corners of his eyes would crinkle and the laugh lines around his mouth would show with the whites of his teeth.
“Stay awake, Dean!” Singer yelled to Dean, pulling him out of the memory he had been transfixed in. For Dean, the voice of the yelling lieutenant was distorted as if he was hearing it through water, the noises of the jungle sounding the same way as his bloodstained lips spread into a weak smile.
“Comin’ home,” he choked out, his world fading into darkness. He wasn’t even sure of what was lying in wait, fear in his mind. None of it mattered though because he knew that if he woke up he’d be in the United States, but either way, his body was going back to Cass dead or alive.