Big Bang Fic: Dead Soldiers: An Oral History of the End Times
Fic title: Dead Soldiers: An Oral History of the End Times (1/11)
Author name: fryadvocate
Artist name: Sabeth (nebst)
Genre: Gen
Rating: R (for language)
Word count: 43,400
Warnings/Spoilers: Religion, miracles, angels, demons, and the end times.
Summary: Although much has been written about the sociological and theological importance of the "End Times War", there has been much less written about the individuals directly involved. Using interviews with primary sources, this paper seeks to examine how Dean and Sam Winchester, two criminals with a history of violence and petty theft, became commonly known as a prophet of the Lord and the Anti-Christ.
Link to fic: Master Post
Link to art: Art is here
Introduction:
In 2007, Columbia University released a study that indicated approximately 35% of Americans believed in demons, 60% believed in Heaven, and 40% believed in angels. Two years later, Columbia University released a similar study showing that 90% of Americans believed in Heaven, 95% believed in angels, and 95% believed in demons. During the four years I taught a course in modern history at New York University, I used the results of these two studies to show how a religious uprising of a specific faith can affect the entirety of a culture.
In my class, we discussed how "demon hunts," a fragile economy, and a religious revival centered around Sam and Dean Winchester had combined to create an event colloquially known as the "End Times War."
In the spring of 2015, as I finished my lecture series on the effects that the "End Times War" had on our culture, I once again quoted the statistic about Americans almost uniformly believing in angels and demons. I acknowledged that most modern scholars see this as evidence of groupthink and public hysteria since so many believers admitted to having never seen either angel or demon. However, the near consensus in modern academics did not necessarily indicate that their findings were “the truth”; there was always work to be done.
After that class, one of my students approached me and stated that she believed in demons because her mother had been possessed.
This bold statement challenged much of the recanted testimony of many prisoners who had claimed to be possessed. Notably, after undergoing psychiatric treatment, Tina Ryder, famous for her participation in the April Attacks, denied that she had ever been possessed by a demon. In order to more fully understand what life had been like in the sort of environment that created a feeling of demonic possession, I requested an interview with my student's mother.
At our first meeting, Sarah X agreed to talk only with the promise of anonymity. When she began her story, I realized that for all of the documentation of events and facts about the "End Times War," there was too much missing from an anthropological standpoint; we did not have any collections of interviews or oral histories, studies of the effects of the "End Times War" on specific churches or sects, or an ethnography of the unique culture that existed in Las Cruces during the revival of Glory Church.
Most notably, the widely accepted perspective of Sam and Dean Winchester, the two key figures of the "End Times War," was that of the FBI. The Winchester brothers’ histories were distorted by the events that they precipitated, and there was little documentation of their private lives. They were, in fact, most often grouped with the soldiers that died during the "End Times War," despite the fact that that association was only a brief part of their involvement with the events.
Sarah X's story touched on much that had been recorded about the "End Times War" but from an entirely new viewpoint. As a primary source, she was invaluable. I began researching to see if anyone had recorded any other oral histories of the period. When I realized that no one had, I began recording them for my own studies. The most pressing concern was to record these stories before the immediacy faded, or the sources passed away. As I recorded each story, I began to form a more coherent narrative that fit (and in some cases, distinctly did not fit) with historical record.
Dean and Sam became different people in these narratives. The accepted version of their history was called into question by first person accounts of several sources. Moreover, it became apparent that grouping them with the soldiers they commanded was problematic as it covered only a small period of their involvement with the "End Times War."
In recording these stories and writing this paper, I sought to create some complexity in the historical narrative. These testimonies reveal the war as more than public hysteria and the Winchesters as more than dead soldiers.
Chapter 1: Before the End
Joanna Beth Harvelle:
I met the Winchester boys sometime in 2006? Maybe 2007. It's hard to remember now because a lot happened around that time.
I mean, I know a lot of people want me to say that as soon as I met them, I knew what was up, who was who, but the world just doesn't work like that, and my mom always says that you can't make a judgment too early.
But, yeah, soon's I met them, I knew I liked Dean. Who wouldn't? And back then, really the only men I knew were drunk farm boys that came in to shoot the shit and act like big men. The two of them were a breath of fresh air. A coupla hunters that weren't old enough to be my daddy? Sign me up for that.
Jim Novak:
Castiel used to say, "In all of time there were only two like them. Although, some of the host believe the sons of Eve were similar."
[pause]
I don't know if I believe that. To me, they were always more David and Jonathan, loving and fighting, together until the end.
Robert Singer:
You hear a lot of stories about John, and don't get me wrong here, the man could hunt and he was a pretty decent person when it came down to the line. He was just a shit-for-brains father. Ain't nothing more to it than that. The way those boys grew up was Hell on the both of 'em, but I used to think they weren't too bad for it. They both seemed alright.
Bit funny in the head about each other, and you'd swear that Dean couldn't live without his brother. Sam, though. When Dean died, it wasn't right. Just wasn't right. He looked about like you'd expect. A little more serious, a little more like maybe the last good thing in the world had been taken away.
If I had to say, it wasn't that that made him like he is. No, it was something else, something no one ever knew about. You don't just go from college kid to antichrist. Not like that.
Dean, it did happen like that. Just like that. One week I was talking to this boy who'd sold his own soul to save his brother, a few months later, he comes back from Hell a person I didn't know.
It was hard to tell how exactly. Subtle things. Little stuff. The drinking, that stare. Hell, the angels were a pretty big sign.
Ruby:
You've probably already talked to Jo and Bobby. I think everyone that knew them from before is dead. So, let me just say this. Straight out.
John Winchester was a shitty father. I can't think of a single way he could have been a worse father. No, really.
I mean, I know demons that pretended to be better parents than he was.
You want to know why one of his kids is the 'antichrist' and the other is, well, Dean? I'll give you a hint. Two words. The first one is 'John', the second ends in '-chester.' It isn't all demon blood and destiny. Sometimes it's just that Daddy taught you how to use a shotgun and didn't teach you how to ride a bike.
Joanna Beth Harvelle:
A story about the two of them? Yeah, I've got one. I was on a hunt, this house... apartment building in the middle of a city. A girl disappears from inside her own locked apartment. Lots of things could do that. A golem, for one.
Ran into one of those in Texas, nearly folded me in half.
When I caught up with them, Dean and Sam wanted to send me back to my mom, because they were... well, she was... Look, I couldn't even date until I went away to college. Hunters were scared of my mom.
But I told them no can do, so we were hunting this thing. It was sick: the ghost had built torture chambers into his walls when he was alive, and now that he was dead he was dragging girls - blonde girls - into these pipes under the building.
I got taken and I thought that I'd be brave but all I could really think about was how grateful I was that the Winchesters were out there. You know what they say about Winchesters. Always get their ghost.
After they'd rescued me, they needed to tempt the ghost out. Here's what I remember, and out of that whole horrible evening, this is what I think of. Someone said that they needed bait, and both Dean and Sam looked at me like I was just that. Bait. Shark chum.
I think maybe that's when I fell out of love with him. Dean, I mean. Right when I figured out that there wasn't ever going to be a Mrs. Dean Winchester. Just the girl who didn't get killed.
You should talk to Bobby, though. He'd know better what they were like when they were learning to hunt.
Robert Singer:
Dean was twelve maybe? Thirteen on the outside. He called me up one day, completely out of the blue and says that his dad had been gone for nearly two weeks and Dean had run out of food.
I think he wanted me to wire him a loan. But I knew if I did that I'd never get that money back because there wasn't a loan John Winchester hadn't squirreled his way out of, and also those boys would still be stuck in a rent-by-the-hour motel in Chicago.
When I get to their room, after driving nearly twelve hours, Dean near takes my head off with a shotgun. Thing was loaded with buckshot. Boy makes me take a nice long swig of holy water - don't know if he knew what it was, just made me take a drink. Then he asks me all these questions about silver eyes and shedding skin.
That's how I find out that their daddy was after a shape-shifter.
So, I got inside that room, packed up as much as I could and put the boys in my truck. Sam was young. Seven or eight, and he was so afraid of me, 'cause he knew I was pissed at his daddy. He was real quiet and just when I started to feel pretty shitty, Dean pulls out this ragged old kids' book and starts reading to him.
Damned if he didn't know that kid better than a mother. He and Sam were really good the whole way to Blue Earth. I dropped 'em off with Jim Murphy, this old pastor I used to know.
About two weeks later, John calls me, ready to come down to South Dakota and kill me himself. That man had a temper you wouldn't believe. I told him where his kids were and warned him that he better not leave 'em like that again, no matter how good Dean was with a shotgun.
Didn't hear a lot from them after that. Maybe John got the message, maybe the boys just stopped wanting help from anyone.
Miranda Reyes:
I'll be honest, I didn't know anything about the Winchesters until the first story I did for CNN. I got a hold of their FBI file through some contacts of mine and it's messy stuff.
The Winchesters kept moving, and finding new schools. Social services was called a shocking number of times. Even with all the uprooting they did, I still don’t know how they managed to stay ahead of CPS.
Mike Guenther:
John and Mary were really sweet folks when you got to know them. First time I met her, Mary seemed like one of those pretty girls that've had some bad things happen to her. I said so to my wife, and we both thought that maybe John'd taken her out of somewhere she didn't want to be, you know? Because she was so young, and John was such a nice kid.
Everyone knew Sam Campbell was kind of odd - if he'd been alive now they'd call the cops on him because every now and then you'd see his wife with some funny bruises. Mary used to have those, too.
Back then, though, what happened in your house was your own business. That's what everyone used to think. Not just me, everyone. Who knows what was going on, and I just went to my job every morning, we said hello on Sundays.
But then Sam Campbell died and everyone kind of thought... well, me and Carol thought it was probably for the best. That maybe John had caught him doing something he shouldn't to his daughter and... made sure that Mary was safe.
Because she loved John. Boy, did she love him. She used to smile whenever she saw him, her whole face would just light up.
Her older kid - Dean - he used to smile like that when he was a baby.
Anyway, she got some inheritance money from both of her parents' insurance, and she married John pretty quick. Over at John's church, they thought it was because there was a bun in the oven, if you know what I mean. But, nine months later, it's just the two of them.
I was trying to find a partner for this garage, and John's father asked me if I would take him on, if John had the money to make partner. I thought the money would come from John's parents, a little bit of a wedding present, but it was Mary's name on the check. I think she always did have a better head for that sort of thing than John.
For the first couple of years, they lived out of this little tiny apartment. You wouldn't believe how small it was. They'd spent all of their savings and her inheritance on his buy-in to the partnership, but then business picked up and John got a little faster at his work.
It was just like him to work at something 'til he got it right. He worked on cars until I think he was even better than I was at brakes, and he could do oil changes in his sleep.
Mary used to bring Dean by when John took his lunch, the two of them were like teenagers still. Here they'd been married almost seven years and they were still making each other laugh.
My wife used to bring them food when they were first starting out, because apparently Mary couldn't cook anything. Nearly killed John a couple of times, food poisoning.
But he loved her, and she loved him.
Don't know what they'd think of how their boys turned out.
Chapter 2
Author name: fryadvocate
Artist name: Sabeth (nebst)
Genre: Gen
Rating: R (for language)
Word count: 43,400
Warnings/Spoilers: Religion, miracles, angels, demons, and the end times.
Summary: Although much has been written about the sociological and theological importance of the "End Times War", there has been much less written about the individuals directly involved. Using interviews with primary sources, this paper seeks to examine how Dean and Sam Winchester, two criminals with a history of violence and petty theft, became commonly known as a prophet of the Lord and the Anti-Christ.
Link to fic: Master Post
Link to art: Art is here
Introduction:
In 2007, Columbia University released a study that indicated approximately 35% of Americans believed in demons, 60% believed in Heaven, and 40% believed in angels. Two years later, Columbia University released a similar study showing that 90% of Americans believed in Heaven, 95% believed in angels, and 95% believed in demons. During the four years I taught a course in modern history at New York University, I used the results of these two studies to show how a religious uprising of a specific faith can affect the entirety of a culture.
In my class, we discussed how "demon hunts," a fragile economy, and a religious revival centered around Sam and Dean Winchester had combined to create an event colloquially known as the "End Times War."
In the spring of 2015, as I finished my lecture series on the effects that the "End Times War" had on our culture, I once again quoted the statistic about Americans almost uniformly believing in angels and demons. I acknowledged that most modern scholars see this as evidence of groupthink and public hysteria since so many believers admitted to having never seen either angel or demon. However, the near consensus in modern academics did not necessarily indicate that their findings were “the truth”; there was always work to be done.
After that class, one of my students approached me and stated that she believed in demons because her mother had been possessed.
This bold statement challenged much of the recanted testimony of many prisoners who had claimed to be possessed. Notably, after undergoing psychiatric treatment, Tina Ryder, famous for her participation in the April Attacks, denied that she had ever been possessed by a demon. In order to more fully understand what life had been like in the sort of environment that created a feeling of demonic possession, I requested an interview with my student's mother.
At our first meeting, Sarah X agreed to talk only with the promise of anonymity. When she began her story, I realized that for all of the documentation of events and facts about the "End Times War," there was too much missing from an anthropological standpoint; we did not have any collections of interviews or oral histories, studies of the effects of the "End Times War" on specific churches or sects, or an ethnography of the unique culture that existed in Las Cruces during the revival of Glory Church.
Most notably, the widely accepted perspective of Sam and Dean Winchester, the two key figures of the "End Times War," was that of the FBI. The Winchester brothers’ histories were distorted by the events that they precipitated, and there was little documentation of their private lives. They were, in fact, most often grouped with the soldiers that died during the "End Times War," despite the fact that that association was only a brief part of their involvement with the events.
Sarah X's story touched on much that had been recorded about the "End Times War" but from an entirely new viewpoint. As a primary source, she was invaluable. I began researching to see if anyone had recorded any other oral histories of the period. When I realized that no one had, I began recording them for my own studies. The most pressing concern was to record these stories before the immediacy faded, or the sources passed away. As I recorded each story, I began to form a more coherent narrative that fit (and in some cases, distinctly did not fit) with historical record.
Dean and Sam became different people in these narratives. The accepted version of their history was called into question by first person accounts of several sources. Moreover, it became apparent that grouping them with the soldiers they commanded was problematic as it covered only a small period of their involvement with the "End Times War."
In recording these stories and writing this paper, I sought to create some complexity in the historical narrative. These testimonies reveal the war as more than public hysteria and the Winchesters as more than dead soldiers.
Chapter 1: Before the End
Joanna Beth Harvelle:
I met the Winchester boys sometime in 2006? Maybe 2007. It's hard to remember now because a lot happened around that time.
I mean, I know a lot of people want me to say that as soon as I met them, I knew what was up, who was who, but the world just doesn't work like that, and my mom always says that you can't make a judgment too early.
But, yeah, soon's I met them, I knew I liked Dean. Who wouldn't? And back then, really the only men I knew were drunk farm boys that came in to shoot the shit and act like big men. The two of them were a breath of fresh air. A coupla hunters that weren't old enough to be my daddy? Sign me up for that.
Jim Novak:
Castiel used to say, "In all of time there were only two like them. Although, some of the host believe the sons of Eve were similar."
[pause]
I don't know if I believe that. To me, they were always more David and Jonathan, loving and fighting, together until the end.
Robert Singer:
You hear a lot of stories about John, and don't get me wrong here, the man could hunt and he was a pretty decent person when it came down to the line. He was just a shit-for-brains father. Ain't nothing more to it than that. The way those boys grew up was Hell on the both of 'em, but I used to think they weren't too bad for it. They both seemed alright.
Bit funny in the head about each other, and you'd swear that Dean couldn't live without his brother. Sam, though. When Dean died, it wasn't right. Just wasn't right. He looked about like you'd expect. A little more serious, a little more like maybe the last good thing in the world had been taken away.
If I had to say, it wasn't that that made him like he is. No, it was something else, something no one ever knew about. You don't just go from college kid to antichrist. Not like that.
Dean, it did happen like that. Just like that. One week I was talking to this boy who'd sold his own soul to save his brother, a few months later, he comes back from Hell a person I didn't know.
It was hard to tell how exactly. Subtle things. Little stuff. The drinking, that stare. Hell, the angels were a pretty big sign.
Ruby:
You've probably already talked to Jo and Bobby. I think everyone that knew them from before is dead. So, let me just say this. Straight out.
John Winchester was a shitty father. I can't think of a single way he could have been a worse father. No, really.
I mean, I know demons that pretended to be better parents than he was.
You want to know why one of his kids is the 'antichrist' and the other is, well, Dean? I'll give you a hint. Two words. The first one is 'John', the second ends in '-chester.' It isn't all demon blood and destiny. Sometimes it's just that Daddy taught you how to use a shotgun and didn't teach you how to ride a bike.
Joanna Beth Harvelle:
A story about the two of them? Yeah, I've got one. I was on a hunt, this house... apartment building in the middle of a city. A girl disappears from inside her own locked apartment. Lots of things could do that. A golem, for one.
Ran into one of those in Texas, nearly folded me in half.
When I caught up with them, Dean and Sam wanted to send me back to my mom, because they were... well, she was... Look, I couldn't even date until I went away to college. Hunters were scared of my mom.
But I told them no can do, so we were hunting this thing. It was sick: the ghost had built torture chambers into his walls when he was alive, and now that he was dead he was dragging girls - blonde girls - into these pipes under the building.
I got taken and I thought that I'd be brave but all I could really think about was how grateful I was that the Winchesters were out there. You know what they say about Winchesters. Always get their ghost.
After they'd rescued me, they needed to tempt the ghost out. Here's what I remember, and out of that whole horrible evening, this is what I think of. Someone said that they needed bait, and both Dean and Sam looked at me like I was just that. Bait. Shark chum.
I think maybe that's when I fell out of love with him. Dean, I mean. Right when I figured out that there wasn't ever going to be a Mrs. Dean Winchester. Just the girl who didn't get killed.
You should talk to Bobby, though. He'd know better what they were like when they were learning to hunt.
Robert Singer:
Dean was twelve maybe? Thirteen on the outside. He called me up one day, completely out of the blue and says that his dad had been gone for nearly two weeks and Dean had run out of food.
I think he wanted me to wire him a loan. But I knew if I did that I'd never get that money back because there wasn't a loan John Winchester hadn't squirreled his way out of, and also those boys would still be stuck in a rent-by-the-hour motel in Chicago.
When I get to their room, after driving nearly twelve hours, Dean near takes my head off with a shotgun. Thing was loaded with buckshot. Boy makes me take a nice long swig of holy water - don't know if he knew what it was, just made me take a drink. Then he asks me all these questions about silver eyes and shedding skin.
That's how I find out that their daddy was after a shape-shifter.
So, I got inside that room, packed up as much as I could and put the boys in my truck. Sam was young. Seven or eight, and he was so afraid of me, 'cause he knew I was pissed at his daddy. He was real quiet and just when I started to feel pretty shitty, Dean pulls out this ragged old kids' book and starts reading to him.
Damned if he didn't know that kid better than a mother. He and Sam were really good the whole way to Blue Earth. I dropped 'em off with Jim Murphy, this old pastor I used to know.
About two weeks later, John calls me, ready to come down to South Dakota and kill me himself. That man had a temper you wouldn't believe. I told him where his kids were and warned him that he better not leave 'em like that again, no matter how good Dean was with a shotgun.
Didn't hear a lot from them after that. Maybe John got the message, maybe the boys just stopped wanting help from anyone.
Miranda Reyes:
I'll be honest, I didn't know anything about the Winchesters until the first story I did for CNN. I got a hold of their FBI file through some contacts of mine and it's messy stuff.
The Winchesters kept moving, and finding new schools. Social services was called a shocking number of times. Even with all the uprooting they did, I still don’t know how they managed to stay ahead of CPS.
Mike Guenther:
John and Mary were really sweet folks when you got to know them. First time I met her, Mary seemed like one of those pretty girls that've had some bad things happen to her. I said so to my wife, and we both thought that maybe John'd taken her out of somewhere she didn't want to be, you know? Because she was so young, and John was such a nice kid.
Everyone knew Sam Campbell was kind of odd - if he'd been alive now they'd call the cops on him because every now and then you'd see his wife with some funny bruises. Mary used to have those, too.
Back then, though, what happened in your house was your own business. That's what everyone used to think. Not just me, everyone. Who knows what was going on, and I just went to my job every morning, we said hello on Sundays.
But then Sam Campbell died and everyone kind of thought... well, me and Carol thought it was probably for the best. That maybe John had caught him doing something he shouldn't to his daughter and... made sure that Mary was safe.
Because she loved John. Boy, did she love him. She used to smile whenever she saw him, her whole face would just light up.
Her older kid - Dean - he used to smile like that when he was a baby.
Anyway, she got some inheritance money from both of her parents' insurance, and she married John pretty quick. Over at John's church, they thought it was because there was a bun in the oven, if you know what I mean. But, nine months later, it's just the two of them.
I was trying to find a partner for this garage, and John's father asked me if I would take him on, if John had the money to make partner. I thought the money would come from John's parents, a little bit of a wedding present, but it was Mary's name on the check. I think she always did have a better head for that sort of thing than John.
For the first couple of years, they lived out of this little tiny apartment. You wouldn't believe how small it was. They'd spent all of their savings and her inheritance on his buy-in to the partnership, but then business picked up and John got a little faster at his work.
It was just like him to work at something 'til he got it right. He worked on cars until I think he was even better than I was at brakes, and he could do oil changes in his sleep.
Mary used to bring Dean by when John took his lunch, the two of them were like teenagers still. Here they'd been married almost seven years and they were still making each other laugh.
My wife used to bring them food when they were first starting out, because apparently Mary couldn't cook anything. Nearly killed John a couple of times, food poisoning.
But he loved her, and she loved him.
Don't know what they'd think of how their boys turned out.
Chapter 2