"Old, Bold Marines," HL/SPN, R, gen
Disclaimers: Not mine, no moneys made, and this is not my fault. I blame Medie, Vaznetti, Eponin, and Killa for inspiring, aiding, and abetting. Idiot SPN questions were patiently answered by Eponin, Luminosity, and Vaznetti; beta provided by Devo, Eponin, Lomedet & Vaznetti (for verson 1), and/or Alyss, Devo, Dragon, & Raine (for version 2); and Kat Denton tried to keep me from making too many USMC mistakes. All screw-ups are mine, however, and I'll fix what I can as notified of it. Check my notes; one thing is a feature, not a bug. Feedback welcomed.
Rated: R for language, if nothing else. Gen, crossover with Supernatural; written for the above enablers and for
crossovers100, prompt # 26 -- Teammates. Takes place in August of '95, shortly after "Double Eagle" in Highlander, and well before the pilot for Supernatural.
Old, Bold Marines
God, I hate funerals.
They don't tell you how many of these damn things you're likely to end up at when you join the Watchers. If I wanted to be fair, I'd admit not every Watcher goes to so many, but I don't give a rat's ass about fair right now. Mac and I and a hell of a lot of upset teenagers buried Charlie DeSalvo at the start of the month, and God knows who'll try to help those kids now the way Charlie did. Richie, Mac and I buried Mikey not a week later; Richie's still grieving over the guy.
I buried Sergeant Cord by myself the day after that.
Can't say I’m surprised Duncan wasn't there. He's had enough funerals in his life, for one thing; Cord caused one of the latest, for another. Hell, this is my account, so I'll say it: I'm pretty sure Duncan and I aren't on speaking terms right now, and damn if I know when we will be again. As for Richie, well, he and Charlie'd just about formed a truce, and now they'll never find out if it would be a peace and maybe a friendship.
I get that. I just don't feel like being fair when I'm standing out here sweating myself to death in a uniform I had to buy just for the occasion.
Marine dress blue-whites -- a couple sizes larger than I used to wear, but some things you don't forget. The only part that felt odd was putting on what little fruit salad I was entitled to. The Vietnam stripes didn't bother me, but that Purple Heart made my legs ache.
I'd have buried Sarge sooner, but it took a little while to get the uniform, and Christ, too much of this couldn't be done right anyway. He'd done some things since 'Nam that I wasn't going to want to read about -- I knew killing Charlie was probably last on the list, not first -- but he'd been a Marine NCO, and he hadn't just seen combat, he'd taken green Marines out and he'd by God brought a lot of us back.
If I'd done it right, I wouldn't have been the only Marine out here sweating through dark blue wool in the August heat. Sarge was entitled to a twenty-one gun salute, and we should have had a bugler out here to play "Taps" at the end of the service. But I was the only one who'd have been there to take the flag, and there was no way to explain that we were burying a man the Corps had listed as dead twenty-plus years earlier.
So it was just me out there sweating darker patches on an already dark coat while I waited for sunset: hot, tired, and pissed off because my mortality was staring me in the face in the shape of drying dirt and squares of cut turf that didn't fit over the mound properly yet.
I couldn't play bugle and lugging a guitar case out didn't fit the dignity of the uniform somehow, but I'd brought a tape player and a recording and I was going to by God play "Taps" at sunset for the man. I only had to wait a couple hours past the end of the service and the gravediggers finishing up, but those hours made my stumps hurt like hell; a camp stool didn't go with the uniform either, and sweat and prosthetics is a shitty combination. But Cord hauled my ass out of a swamp, sixteen hours of deadweight over his shoulder, and got me on a medevac chopper. I could stand for two hours by a grave in the Washington heat.
I played that final goodbye for the sergeant, standing as close to attention as I could. When day was done, I walked all of fifty feet and pretended the shade from a couple pines was close enough to privacy to let me take the coat off, sit down on the bench donated by some bereaved family, and drink some water. I needed the water, and the rest.
I didn't want to go back to an empty apartment and face journals that needed to be updated and photo albums from the days when I had legs. I didn't want to face the bar and Alexa and hope it was one of her good days and wonder how many more good days until I didn't have my favorite waitress anymore. And I sure as hell didn't want to face Mac when I was still hot and tired from burying Cord.
Which is why I was still sitting under the pines, where it was still cooler from the afternoon's shade, when the guy showed up with a shovel and what looked like an old doctor's bag: leather, heavy, and clanking with metal and glass sounds when he set it down in the twilight. Moon wasn't up yet, so I couldn't see much, but I could see his shirt was too big for him, and he carried himself like a man with a weapon.
I might have kept my mouth shut if he hadn't started shifting those turf squares back off the grave. I didn't bother to get up, just growled, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
I'd still swear he hadn't seen me, but he didn't jump. He just turned around and looked in my direction, and one hand strayed under the tails of his shirt. Right about then, I remembered I'd just buried an immortal and I was sitting there without a weapon to my name except my words. What the hell, not the first time.
"Who's asking?" Something about his voice made me study him more closely, balancing automatically on one cane and the edge of the seat; I might have to get up in a hurry and I suck at that anymore. First thing I noticed was that he was watching my hands, not my face. Maybe expecting a gun, definitely expecting some kind of attack... right up until we were past that moment. Then the blank mask slid off his face again, almost fast enough, and he was smiling at me, genial and too fucking charming. After Amanda and Kit coming through my joint the other night, I wasn't buying it.
Dark hair, dark brown eyes, five o'clock stubble before we even hit three o'clock... I gave him my best glare, the one I saved for distributors whose deliveries didn't match my invoice sheet or musicians who showed up with a trio when the contract specified a jazz quintet. It held him still for a moment, anyway. "I'm the Marine who just buried a friend there. Next stupid question?"
His smile tilted sideways into something a damn sight more real. "Are you?" he asked. Something under the voice told me he was still testing me. "I'm looking for Joseph Dawson."
The month started with two funerals, one of them a nice guy who just didn't know his own strength; since then, I'd had had to cope with a death I never thought I'd see and a waitress I admired who was getting her nose rubbed in her own mortality. It was the wrong time to hand me some kinda test I never signed up for. "Yeah, well, you found him. If you keep messing with that grave, I ain't gonna be any too happy with you either, so this better be good."
He just looked at me, then asked, "The heat bothering you? Or the funeral?"
I could feel the blood sliding out of my face. Angry as I was, I'd have expected my heart to be pounding color into me instead. Give him credit; the guy didn't mistake it for any chance of me passing out. "Which one?" I finally grated out.
He nodded, slow and careful, and surprised me. "Even for me this might be a record," he said at last, careful of his words and tone as he hadn't been before. "How about I try this again? Mr. Dawson, my name's Johnson, Robert Johnson, and I came to ask you a few questions. Just between a couple Marines."
I looked him up and down, from the steel-toed boots to the patched jeans with a recent oil stain in the cuff, across the oversized shirt that was covering some kind of gun at his waist and the knee-length coat that hadn't kept enough of the sun off him but was doing a fine job of hiding some knives if I was any judge. After Mac and some of his troubles, I was a damn fine judge.
After I hauled my temper back in and collared it, I told him, "Strike two. One more lie and you won't even get the time of day from me, Mr. 'Smith.' You hearing me yet, Marine?" I put enough bite in it to shut up Richie on a bad day (and too many of his days were bad lately, poor kid) and the guy finally, finally quit trying to play me.
"Where'd I blow it?" he asked instead, hands carefully out from his sides.
"You're still trying to recover," I pointed out, grim. "Stop it. You're on my territory, needing something from me, and you're still pushing your luck? Take the coat off, don't reach for whatever's on your belt, and sit the hell down where I can see your hands. Quit trying to piss me off and I might even help you with whatever's important enough for you to consider digging another Marine back up."
"You mind if I move into the shade? It's hot out here." He was watching me carefully now, not sure what I had under the dress tunic I'd shed. Good.
But hell. I was hot; no sense pissing both of us off with the heat. "Yeah, okay. Come on over. God damn it, why couldn't we have done this at my bar?"
He laughed at that, which surprised me as much as him sitting down in the shade instead of trying to jump me for the gun he thought I had. Surprised hell out of me, honestly, and interfered with my perfectly justified bad mood. If he'd kept being an asshole, I could have thrown something at him, or let my temper loose -- collared wasn't chained. Although come to think of it, stopping right where he did fit in with everything else I'd seen of him so far.
"Hell, if I'd known you owned a bar, I would have come by there." He meant every word of it, but he wasn't suggesting we move there, and his eyes flicked away from me to his bag.
"After digging him up?"
He shed the coat onto the ground next to him -- it clacked softly when it landed, leather-wrapped metal hitting more leather-wrapped metal -- and sat down on the grass a couple yards away. I wasn't under any illusions. He had a gun, and he moved awful damn easy for a man out of active duty. He could kill me if he wanted to, but he needed something. So I gave him one last dirty look, looked down at my hands on my cane, and decided that my white-knuckled grip on the wood might have had something to do with his settling down.
"I don't know. That depends on whether you'll answer some questions, and what the answers are. I might need to, yeah."
For once, the bastard was being honest. Huh. I looked up at the sky, getting darker by the minute, back down at the face I was gonna lose soon in the twilight and shrugged. "Fine. You want answers; we'll go to my bar and talk there."
That got me a more cynical look than I'd expected. "You think I'm going to follow you there?"
"I'd give you a ride, but they'd tow you if you left your car here too long." I shrugged. "You want answers. I don't want to have to call the cops and report some nutcase trying to dig up a new grave."
"And it's getting dark." He got up with a shrug and even offered me an arm up. "Fine. You buried a buddy today. Let's go talk over some beers."
"Yeah, well, that's traditional." I took the hand, too. My legs were killing me, had been ever since Cord showed back up.
<>*<>*<>*<>
The 'Closed for funeral' sign was still up on the bar when I got there. I left it in place and unlocked the door. I hadn't really expected the guy to follow me, but I'd damn well meant it about calling the cops if he didn't. Think he musta heard it in my voice.
Of course, he hadn't expected me to actually own a bar, I don't think. I turned the lights on as I went, got behind the bar and asked, "Dark or light?"
He gave me a surprised look, then a cat-slanted grin. Most honest thing I'd gotten from him yet.
"Beer? Anything that isn't sex in a canoe." He took the Beck's I handed him, let the head settle a little, and drank. He didn't relax, but I started to. A double whisky helped that, and finally, finally getting my butt on my stool instead of on the prosthetics and cane. He finally said, "John. My name's John."
"Not Doe? Or Smith?" That got another grin and a headshake. I gave up and poured myself another half-finger of whisky, and left an extra glass in front of my visitor. He was enough of a pain in the ass sober that hard liquor might have helped. "So what do you want? And what's with the 'Old Corps' routine?"
That managed to offend John, but he swallowed it with the beer. "You know what they say. Retired Marines, and dead Marines, but no ex-Marines."
I snorted, drew a glass of water for each of us -- it had been hot out there -- and then let my hands rest on the bar. The tension in the room went up every time my hands fell out of his line of sight. "Sure, there are ex-Marines -- the bastards we never should have let in. What I always heard was that there aren't many old, bold Marines."
"You tell me which one Cord was then." He was studying me again, saw me get pissed about that comment on Cord, and then nod agreement because... yeah. He might'a had a point there, God damn it.
John nodded slowly when I'd finished sucking that hurt down. "Don't make me regret this, Mr. Dawson. I was Echo 2/1."
"The Professionals." I watched him, wary, because I remembered their motto as well as their nickname. Hell, I had my suspicions he'd told me that much as a warning, whether I got it now or later. No better friend, no worse enemy. I made a note of it anyway, for what little good it'd do me. With a first name that common, no last name, and no real bracket for when he was in, it wasn't much help. He might have been old enough to overlap me, and he might not. Deceptive face, the kind that could age with expression and not much at all with years. And a helluva lot guys were in 'Nam over those twenty-five years.
Maybe later I'd look him up, maybe not. The way he said it, the way he answered to the nickname, well, at least I knew he's been in, all right. "If you were looking for me, you should have known I was in the Corps."
"I was looking for Andrew Cord." John kept watching me, and God, the irony in that. "The record showed his body had been released to one Joseph Dawson, and he was being buried this afternoon. I didn't know you were Corps. I should have guessed you had been."
I shed the uniform jacket onto the bar but carefully, so the wool didn't land in condensation rings. "Yeah, well, I was. Bravo 1/9."
John was watching me closely now, but he nodded, mouth twisting with the irony of it. "Cord's outfit. The Walking Dead."
"A hell of a lot of us died, and some of the rest ain't walking too well anymore." Hell of a unit to produce a Watcher, although I had to wonder why he thought it was funny.
"I'm hearing some of the dead were walking," he finally said. That downward glance didn't fool me; he was watching my reflection in the whisky bottle.
"Sonuvabitch." I set my glass down harder than I should have, and that fast, he had a knife out. What the hell, I'd figured he was armed. I just looked at him, long and hard, but what I said wasn't what he expected. "You are just about enough to get the Marine Corps a reputation for being stupid." I used my best mild-mannered, reasonable bartender tone, the one Richie really hated provoking.
"Occasionally that's a useful reputation." He was a damn sight more wary than he had been, however. Good. "So is this a knife fight or a gun fight?"
"Neither one. Yet." I glared at him. "And I haven't even charged you for the beer. Christ. I'm going to refill my glass, and you are not going to try to knife me in my own bar. Want to see if you can fuck this up any more than you already have, John, or did you want to go back to drinking that beer?"
The knife vanished again and he took a swallow, but it didn't lower the drink enough to match the motion. Enough for courtesy, though, and John put the glass down and said, "All right, I'll try blunt. I want to know why you were just now burying a man reported dead almost thirty years ago. A guy who was selling crap weapons in Eastern Europe last month."
John wanted that info, yeah, but that wasn't all he wanted to know. I'd seen Adam come in from an angle that wasn't really his starting point often enough to recognize it when I saw it. This guy was still lying to me, just a little less blatant about it. "No, you were wondering what gave you away. Jesus. What kind of idiot researches Cord's unit and company, but doesn't research me to find I was one of Cord's lance corporals? I own, run, and play in a blues bar and you come in and claim to be Robert Johnson?"
I gave him that same top to bottom look again, more scornful this time -- channeling my old D.I. getting a new batch of recruits -- and he managed to grin and look a little embarrassed at the same time. "You ain't got the right calluses, the right hands, or enough tan for that. Not to mention, Mr. Johnson would be walking dead."
He didn't wince at that, quite, but he did look thoughtful for a moment, and a little embarrassed, too. Good. I was getting through.
I shook my head, the same pitying 'What kind of farm animals did they send me this time?' look I remembered too well from Paris Island. "So why don't we try this again. Tell me what you want and I'll let you know if you're going to get it. Bullshit me again, and you'd better get out before I call the cops in. Got it?"
He tipped his glass to me in a casual salute, embarrassment gone into amusement -- at himself, I'd say now, although at the time I thought it was directed at me. "Got it. For a man who didn't make sergeant, Mr. Dawson, you chew ass like one. All right. What I need to know -- and I do mean need--" for the first time he let me see a little of the steel behind that grin. Worse, there was some kind of bone-deep fear behind that, a huge 'Don't screw up the objective/FUBAR the unit's rep' type fear, "are the details about Sergeant Cord's death, and the lightning."
Lightning. Christ.
I still don't know what he'd found out or where, but he looked at me and said, "You spend a lot of time around lightning sites, Mr. Dawson, and you've been around a man who was reported dead by some eyewitnesses who knew dead when they saw it. I can tell you to keep a bag of salt around to line your doorways, but mostly, what I know would just get you killed."
The Watchers' poker games can teach you a really good blank expression but something gave me away because he pounced. "You do know about the lightning."
Shit. And what the hell? A bag of salt? "John, only way I can tell you about that is by bringing you in and you've already got your own mission, don't you?" It didn't take a bluesman to see that.
He nodded anyway. "I do." He watched me, brows drawn in and smile gone. He'd shifted upright somewhere in there, but I only noticed it when he relaxed again. "You don't know about the salt, do you? That's... odd. You can get magnetic fluctuations around lightning strikes, but have you noticed any sulfur residue?"
"No, just ozone and copper." Something was pricking at my memories, and then I saw the silver bracelet on his arm and had to ask, "You ever read Manly Wade Wellman?"
"Yeah. No kin to him or the Balladeer," he said, and he sounded like a man who wished he could talk to them. He also didn't try to tell me I was crazy. I was starting to think that he wasn't, either.
He sighed and took a real drink of his beer, both finishing it and telling me he was through playing bullshit games and we were down to honesty. Damn right I handed him another; for this one, he nodded a thank you. "So do you know what was going on with Sergeant Cord and the lighting?"
I just nodded, and my eyes might have closed for a moment there, what with not wanting to see Sarge or Kristin or Mikey, all in Death's arms now, and Alexa trying to ignore Him until she couldn't anymore. (Who was I to blame her for that?) When I opened my eyes again, John was refilling the glass for me and the knife was long gone, along with his inclination to try it on me.
"He was a friend of yours?" John was watching me and those dark eyes of his had seen their share of funerals, too many of them with a soloist playing "Taps," so I gave him the truth.
"Cord kept me alive a long time ago, but he wasn't the one who gave me my life back. The more I think back on it, the more I think maybe he should've been an ex-Marine. He was the one who killed a friend of mine who specialized in giving kids real lives." I hadn't realized how bitter I was about that until then, and I sure as hell hadn't realized why I resented wearing my uniform out there this afternoon.
Ian gave me a purpose, a reason to get out of bed, get through therapy. Charlie gave God knows how many kids the belief that they could do better, and that there was a way out of this neighborhood. Hell, three of them went into the Marine Corps and sent me postcards every time they changed postings. Cord… Cord tried to teach me that the unit came first, not the unit's reputation. The unit fucking well did come first, and that included against rot from the inside. Mac taught me that, and God only knows if I'll ever get to tell him that.
That thought made me pull a beer for myself. No switching to water yet, that might switch off John's story, but I'd definitely had enough whisky for a while.
Now John was pouring a cautious finger of whisky into his own glass, but he hadn't picked it up yet. "Damn. I'm sorry as hell to hear that." Odd thing was, I thought he meant that, and knew what I meant by it, too. "But I have to ask about Cord's death. No sulfur smell, you said. No cold spots around? No eyes gone white or yellow or even ink-black?"
I just shook my head, putting all that together to get something I didn't want to have to look at. Immortals are real; sounds like other things are, too, that I wasn't sure about. Might be time to get a bag of salt for under the bar.
He sipped the whisky without ever looking away from me and said, "It's important, Mr. Dawson."
"I know it is." His voice told me that, and the way he'd detoured around what he needed to ask, and the way he'd goaded me to be sure he'd get some truth. "Cord's eyes were as human as they'd ever been. So was he. He wasn't... whatever you're hunting, John."
"But not entirely human if he could come back from the dead." It wasn't a question.
I snorted, shook my head, sipped at my beer. "Fuck, Cord was human, as human as any of us. You had to see how he went wrong to be sure of it, but it was a human twist. He chose what he wanted, not what was right, and then tried to convince himself it really was right. You don't get much more human than that."
I glanced up in time to see the wince vanish again; I’m surprised he let me see that much, but 'let' might not have been the right word.
"Yeah. I suppose you don't," John said and he sounded tired now. He settled his chin on a fist, but it wasn't a preliminary for a fight. "And you know something about how Cord came back from the dead, and you're damn sure there's no black magic involved."
"I don't know what it is," I told him, "but no. It's not black magic." I smiled a little and lifted my beer in salute. "One of the best priests around used to be able to do it, too."
"Used to. Poor bastard." I didn't know if John meant me or Darius. He went on, "You're one of the musicians here, you said. I don't suppose you know evil when you see it?"
"Not just the garden-variety human kind?" I nodded to him. "Yeah. Ain't seen it often, but like the man said about porn, I know it when I see it."
"Good enough." He nodded and sipped at his whisky again. This time, he actually tasted it. He looked surprised and appreciative and took the next sip a lot slower. Some of the tension slid out of him and right then, I believed he'd been a Marine, and a good one. "I appreciate the answers, Mr. Dawson. I'm sorry I can't tell you why I needed them." He grinned at me and I could believe he'd been a hell raiser, in and out of the Corps. "But then, you can't tell me a few things, either, and I bet your stories would go pretty damn well with this whisky, too."
"Hell, make it Joe. They probably would, but I get the feeling you can't afford to pay for my whisky, either. And we've both been making some guesses today," I said dryly.
After a second, I said, "Oh, what the hell. It's my bar." I put a full bottle of it in front of him because I'd seen the pleasure at a good drink and because once he unwound, I could see he was aching here and there now that he could pay attention to the pain. "Bottle's yours as long as you promise to save this for drinking. Buy rotgut to clean out anything your prey manages to do to you, all right? This isn't for bribes, or slashes, or drowning anything -- just for a minute or two off the hunt. Deal, John?"
He reached out a hand and I took it. I could feel calluses when I shook it, and plenty of them. Still working hard with his hands, and a good firm grip that didn't assume I was crippled anywhere from mid-thigh up. Like the man said, good enough.
"Deal, Joe." He nodded to me. "Don't forget about the salt across the thresholds if you need it. And maybe some holy water under the bar with that shotgun."
I nodded to him and said seriously, "John. I can't tell you what to do about the ones that don't stay dead, and I'm gonna remind you that some of 'em are good folks... but I can refuse to say Stoker was a complete fool."
He eyed me speculatively, then grinned. "I don't always have a stake, but I always own a machete or a fire ax, Joe." He sipped the last of his whisky, sighed, and stood up. "It's been a pleasure sitting in your joint, Mr. Dawson."
I just grinned back. "Been a pleasure getting to meet you, 'Mr. Johnson.' "
For a man who could piss me off so fast, he had a good laugh. I still hear it sometimes in memory. I kinda hope one day he'll drop in for another drink.
~ ~ ~ finis ~ ~ ~
Comments, Commentary, & Miscellanea:
I'm assured by my betas and any number of fen that yes, John Winchester can piss off anyone that fast -- and frequently does.
Yes, I know, the Chicago Manual of Style, among others, insists that soldier, airman, and marine are all lower case. The Marine Corps disagrees, and Joe was a Marine and this is his story, so they're capitalized here. I’m also working off the assumption that Cord was trying to bring Joe along as a promising candidate for sergeant -- Joe always was sensible. But Joe was too startled by what was going on to have been in the Corps long, so I made him a lance corporal at most. They're not entitled to a sword with their dress blues, hence in dress blues and still unarmed.
Robert Johnson was an early blues musician, famous for dying young and for his song, "Crossroads." And the Winchesters tend to use the names of musicians for aliases.
It's Highlander canon that Joe Dawson was a Marine. His unit isn't canonical, but I didn't pick 9/1 for their nickname; I picked it for the casualty rate in Vietnam: 93.6%, the highest in Marine Corps history, according to Wikipedia.
'Sex in a canoe,' a.k.a. 'fucking close to water.' Not a compliment for a beer.
Yup, 'no ex-Marines' and 'few old, bold Marines' are catchphrases. I've also heard it phrased as 'some old aviators, and some bold aviators, but very few old, bold aviators.' However, I heard the Marine version first. Possibly in "Glory Days," come to think of it....
John Winchester was in fact in Echo 9/1 according to the Supernatural-Wiki. (Many thanks to Killa for the link!) The motto and nickname are from Wikipedia; if incorrect, my profound apologies and I'll be happy to fix any errors as pointed out to me.
Andrew Cord was an immortal on the Highlander episode "Brothers In Arms." He'd been Joe's sergeant in Vietnam and carried a very young Joe Dawson to safety after the landmine shredded Joe's legs (and publicly killed Cord). Given 9/1's nickname, Cord might well have worked at getting transferred to them. He also shot a woman to cover up a rape that would reflect badly on the unit; she had already refused a bribe. I am, after contemplation, very glad he died before Joe spent much more time with his style of mentorship.
Joe counts US involvement in Vietnam at 25 years because the US sent in the first military advisors in 1950, and pulled out completely by 1975. The Vietnam Service Medal covers 1961 to 1975. (Joe would also be entitled to wear the Vietnam Campaign Medal, awarded by the Republic of Vietnam, for wounds inflicted by an enemy force. I mention this solely for other Joe writers who might need the reference.)
FUBAR -- Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition, two steps higher than SNAFU (Situation Normal All Fucked Up). Mackiedockie tells me the middle step is TARFU -- Things Are Really Fucked Up.
Part of what set this crossover off was the fact that John Winchester is tracking a demon through occurrences of localized lightning. On Highlander, when an immortal is beheaded, it sets off a lightning storm. On Supernatural, it can also involve sulfur, electromagnetic fluctuations, cold zones, or a few other things. And on Supernatural, a line of salt across a threshold can thwart several supernatural creatures.
Manly Wade Wellman wrote a series of short stories and five novels about a character named John, known by fans as Silver John or John the Balladeer, a wandering singer and former military man -- a Vietnam vet, I believe -- who carries a guitar with silver strings and regularly fights off supernatural creatures up and down the hills of Appalachia. (Yes, I'm serious.) I can't imagine John Winchester hasn't read the stories.
In Supernatural, humans can sometimes be recognized as demon-possessed because their eyes have changed color to yellow, white, or black.
Andrew Cord killed Charlie deSalvo in "Brothers In Arms." In earlier episodes, Charlie ran a neighborhood dojo that promoted boxing and martial arts to try to keep kids out of gangs. Ian Banks was the man who recruited Joe Dawson into the Watchers from his recovery ward bed.
In the obscenity case of Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), Justice Potter Stewart wrote that "hard-core pornography" was hard to define, but that "I know it when I see it."
Bram Stoker, of course, wrote Dracula, with the two methods for killing a vampire: a stake through the heart, or decapitation.
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Rated: R for language, if nothing else. Gen, crossover with Supernatural; written for the above enablers and for
crossovers100, prompt # 26 -- Teammates. Takes place in August of '95, shortly after "Double Eagle" in Highlander, and well before the pilot for Supernatural.
Old, Bold Marines
God, I hate funerals.
They don't tell you how many of these damn things you're likely to end up at when you join the Watchers. If I wanted to be fair, I'd admit not every Watcher goes to so many, but I don't give a rat's ass about fair right now. Mac and I and a hell of a lot of upset teenagers buried Charlie DeSalvo at the start of the month, and God knows who'll try to help those kids now the way Charlie did. Richie, Mac and I buried Mikey not a week later; Richie's still grieving over the guy.
I buried Sergeant Cord by myself the day after that.
Can't say I’m surprised Duncan wasn't there. He's had enough funerals in his life, for one thing; Cord caused one of the latest, for another. Hell, this is my account, so I'll say it: I'm pretty sure Duncan and I aren't on speaking terms right now, and damn if I know when we will be again. As for Richie, well, he and Charlie'd just about formed a truce, and now they'll never find out if it would be a peace and maybe a friendship.
I get that. I just don't feel like being fair when I'm standing out here sweating myself to death in a uniform I had to buy just for the occasion.
Marine dress blue-whites -- a couple sizes larger than I used to wear, but some things you don't forget. The only part that felt odd was putting on what little fruit salad I was entitled to. The Vietnam stripes didn't bother me, but that Purple Heart made my legs ache.
I'd have buried Sarge sooner, but it took a little while to get the uniform, and Christ, too much of this couldn't be done right anyway. He'd done some things since 'Nam that I wasn't going to want to read about -- I knew killing Charlie was probably last on the list, not first -- but he'd been a Marine NCO, and he hadn't just seen combat, he'd taken green Marines out and he'd by God brought a lot of us back.
If I'd done it right, I wouldn't have been the only Marine out here sweating through dark blue wool in the August heat. Sarge was entitled to a twenty-one gun salute, and we should have had a bugler out here to play "Taps" at the end of the service. But I was the only one who'd have been there to take the flag, and there was no way to explain that we were burying a man the Corps had listed as dead twenty-plus years earlier.
So it was just me out there sweating darker patches on an already dark coat while I waited for sunset: hot, tired, and pissed off because my mortality was staring me in the face in the shape of drying dirt and squares of cut turf that didn't fit over the mound properly yet.
I couldn't play bugle and lugging a guitar case out didn't fit the dignity of the uniform somehow, but I'd brought a tape player and a recording and I was going to by God play "Taps" at sunset for the man. I only had to wait a couple hours past the end of the service and the gravediggers finishing up, but those hours made my stumps hurt like hell; a camp stool didn't go with the uniform either, and sweat and prosthetics is a shitty combination. But Cord hauled my ass out of a swamp, sixteen hours of deadweight over his shoulder, and got me on a medevac chopper. I could stand for two hours by a grave in the Washington heat.
I played that final goodbye for the sergeant, standing as close to attention as I could. When day was done, I walked all of fifty feet and pretended the shade from a couple pines was close enough to privacy to let me take the coat off, sit down on the bench donated by some bereaved family, and drink some water. I needed the water, and the rest.
I didn't want to go back to an empty apartment and face journals that needed to be updated and photo albums from the days when I had legs. I didn't want to face the bar and Alexa and hope it was one of her good days and wonder how many more good days until I didn't have my favorite waitress anymore. And I sure as hell didn't want to face Mac when I was still hot and tired from burying Cord.
Which is why I was still sitting under the pines, where it was still cooler from the afternoon's shade, when the guy showed up with a shovel and what looked like an old doctor's bag: leather, heavy, and clanking with metal and glass sounds when he set it down in the twilight. Moon wasn't up yet, so I couldn't see much, but I could see his shirt was too big for him, and he carried himself like a man with a weapon.
I might have kept my mouth shut if he hadn't started shifting those turf squares back off the grave. I didn't bother to get up, just growled, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
I'd still swear he hadn't seen me, but he didn't jump. He just turned around and looked in my direction, and one hand strayed under the tails of his shirt. Right about then, I remembered I'd just buried an immortal and I was sitting there without a weapon to my name except my words. What the hell, not the first time.
"Who's asking?" Something about his voice made me study him more closely, balancing automatically on one cane and the edge of the seat; I might have to get up in a hurry and I suck at that anymore. First thing I noticed was that he was watching my hands, not my face. Maybe expecting a gun, definitely expecting some kind of attack... right up until we were past that moment. Then the blank mask slid off his face again, almost fast enough, and he was smiling at me, genial and too fucking charming. After Amanda and Kit coming through my joint the other night, I wasn't buying it.
Dark hair, dark brown eyes, five o'clock stubble before we even hit three o'clock... I gave him my best glare, the one I saved for distributors whose deliveries didn't match my invoice sheet or musicians who showed up with a trio when the contract specified a jazz quintet. It held him still for a moment, anyway. "I'm the Marine who just buried a friend there. Next stupid question?"
His smile tilted sideways into something a damn sight more real. "Are you?" he asked. Something under the voice told me he was still testing me. "I'm looking for Joseph Dawson."
The month started with two funerals, one of them a nice guy who just didn't know his own strength; since then, I'd had had to cope with a death I never thought I'd see and a waitress I admired who was getting her nose rubbed in her own mortality. It was the wrong time to hand me some kinda test I never signed up for. "Yeah, well, you found him. If you keep messing with that grave, I ain't gonna be any too happy with you either, so this better be good."
He just looked at me, then asked, "The heat bothering you? Or the funeral?"
I could feel the blood sliding out of my face. Angry as I was, I'd have expected my heart to be pounding color into me instead. Give him credit; the guy didn't mistake it for any chance of me passing out. "Which one?" I finally grated out.
He nodded, slow and careful, and surprised me. "Even for me this might be a record," he said at last, careful of his words and tone as he hadn't been before. "How about I try this again? Mr. Dawson, my name's Johnson, Robert Johnson, and I came to ask you a few questions. Just between a couple Marines."
I looked him up and down, from the steel-toed boots to the patched jeans with a recent oil stain in the cuff, across the oversized shirt that was covering some kind of gun at his waist and the knee-length coat that hadn't kept enough of the sun off him but was doing a fine job of hiding some knives if I was any judge. After Mac and some of his troubles, I was a damn fine judge.
After I hauled my temper back in and collared it, I told him, "Strike two. One more lie and you won't even get the time of day from me, Mr. 'Smith.' You hearing me yet, Marine?" I put enough bite in it to shut up Richie on a bad day (and too many of his days were bad lately, poor kid) and the guy finally, finally quit trying to play me.
"Where'd I blow it?" he asked instead, hands carefully out from his sides.
"You're still trying to recover," I pointed out, grim. "Stop it. You're on my territory, needing something from me, and you're still pushing your luck? Take the coat off, don't reach for whatever's on your belt, and sit the hell down where I can see your hands. Quit trying to piss me off and I might even help you with whatever's important enough for you to consider digging another Marine back up."
"You mind if I move into the shade? It's hot out here." He was watching me carefully now, not sure what I had under the dress tunic I'd shed. Good.
But hell. I was hot; no sense pissing both of us off with the heat. "Yeah, okay. Come on over. God damn it, why couldn't we have done this at my bar?"
He laughed at that, which surprised me as much as him sitting down in the shade instead of trying to jump me for the gun he thought I had. Surprised hell out of me, honestly, and interfered with my perfectly justified bad mood. If he'd kept being an asshole, I could have thrown something at him, or let my temper loose -- collared wasn't chained. Although come to think of it, stopping right where he did fit in with everything else I'd seen of him so far.
"Hell, if I'd known you owned a bar, I would have come by there." He meant every word of it, but he wasn't suggesting we move there, and his eyes flicked away from me to his bag.
"After digging him up?"
He shed the coat onto the ground next to him -- it clacked softly when it landed, leather-wrapped metal hitting more leather-wrapped metal -- and sat down on the grass a couple yards away. I wasn't under any illusions. He had a gun, and he moved awful damn easy for a man out of active duty. He could kill me if he wanted to, but he needed something. So I gave him one last dirty look, looked down at my hands on my cane, and decided that my white-knuckled grip on the wood might have had something to do with his settling down.
"I don't know. That depends on whether you'll answer some questions, and what the answers are. I might need to, yeah."
For once, the bastard was being honest. Huh. I looked up at the sky, getting darker by the minute, back down at the face I was gonna lose soon in the twilight and shrugged. "Fine. You want answers; we'll go to my bar and talk there."
That got me a more cynical look than I'd expected. "You think I'm going to follow you there?"
"I'd give you a ride, but they'd tow you if you left your car here too long." I shrugged. "You want answers. I don't want to have to call the cops and report some nutcase trying to dig up a new grave."
"And it's getting dark." He got up with a shrug and even offered me an arm up. "Fine. You buried a buddy today. Let's go talk over some beers."
"Yeah, well, that's traditional." I took the hand, too. My legs were killing me, had been ever since Cord showed back up.
<>*<>*<>*<>
The 'Closed for funeral' sign was still up on the bar when I got there. I left it in place and unlocked the door. I hadn't really expected the guy to follow me, but I'd damn well meant it about calling the cops if he didn't. Think he musta heard it in my voice.
Of course, he hadn't expected me to actually own a bar, I don't think. I turned the lights on as I went, got behind the bar and asked, "Dark or light?"
He gave me a surprised look, then a cat-slanted grin. Most honest thing I'd gotten from him yet.
"Beer? Anything that isn't sex in a canoe." He took the Beck's I handed him, let the head settle a little, and drank. He didn't relax, but I started to. A double whisky helped that, and finally, finally getting my butt on my stool instead of on the prosthetics and cane. He finally said, "John. My name's John."
"Not Doe? Or Smith?" That got another grin and a headshake. I gave up and poured myself another half-finger of whisky, and left an extra glass in front of my visitor. He was enough of a pain in the ass sober that hard liquor might have helped. "So what do you want? And what's with the 'Old Corps' routine?"
That managed to offend John, but he swallowed it with the beer. "You know what they say. Retired Marines, and dead Marines, but no ex-Marines."
I snorted, drew a glass of water for each of us -- it had been hot out there -- and then let my hands rest on the bar. The tension in the room went up every time my hands fell out of his line of sight. "Sure, there are ex-Marines -- the bastards we never should have let in. What I always heard was that there aren't many old, bold Marines."
"You tell me which one Cord was then." He was studying me again, saw me get pissed about that comment on Cord, and then nod agreement because... yeah. He might'a had a point there, God damn it.
John nodded slowly when I'd finished sucking that hurt down. "Don't make me regret this, Mr. Dawson. I was Echo 2/1."
"The Professionals." I watched him, wary, because I remembered their motto as well as their nickname. Hell, I had my suspicions he'd told me that much as a warning, whether I got it now or later. No better friend, no worse enemy. I made a note of it anyway, for what little good it'd do me. With a first name that common, no last name, and no real bracket for when he was in, it wasn't much help. He might have been old enough to overlap me, and he might not. Deceptive face, the kind that could age with expression and not much at all with years. And a helluva lot guys were in 'Nam over those twenty-five years.
Maybe later I'd look him up, maybe not. The way he said it, the way he answered to the nickname, well, at least I knew he's been in, all right. "If you were looking for me, you should have known I was in the Corps."
"I was looking for Andrew Cord." John kept watching me, and God, the irony in that. "The record showed his body had been released to one Joseph Dawson, and he was being buried this afternoon. I didn't know you were Corps. I should have guessed you had been."
I shed the uniform jacket onto the bar but carefully, so the wool didn't land in condensation rings. "Yeah, well, I was. Bravo 1/9."
John was watching me closely now, but he nodded, mouth twisting with the irony of it. "Cord's outfit. The Walking Dead."
"A hell of a lot of us died, and some of the rest ain't walking too well anymore." Hell of a unit to produce a Watcher, although I had to wonder why he thought it was funny.
"I'm hearing some of the dead were walking," he finally said. That downward glance didn't fool me; he was watching my reflection in the whisky bottle.
"Sonuvabitch." I set my glass down harder than I should have, and that fast, he had a knife out. What the hell, I'd figured he was armed. I just looked at him, long and hard, but what I said wasn't what he expected. "You are just about enough to get the Marine Corps a reputation for being stupid." I used my best mild-mannered, reasonable bartender tone, the one Richie really hated provoking.
"Occasionally that's a useful reputation." He was a damn sight more wary than he had been, however. Good. "So is this a knife fight or a gun fight?"
"Neither one. Yet." I glared at him. "And I haven't even charged you for the beer. Christ. I'm going to refill my glass, and you are not going to try to knife me in my own bar. Want to see if you can fuck this up any more than you already have, John, or did you want to go back to drinking that beer?"
The knife vanished again and he took a swallow, but it didn't lower the drink enough to match the motion. Enough for courtesy, though, and John put the glass down and said, "All right, I'll try blunt. I want to know why you were just now burying a man reported dead almost thirty years ago. A guy who was selling crap weapons in Eastern Europe last month."
John wanted that info, yeah, but that wasn't all he wanted to know. I'd seen Adam come in from an angle that wasn't really his starting point often enough to recognize it when I saw it. This guy was still lying to me, just a little less blatant about it. "No, you were wondering what gave you away. Jesus. What kind of idiot researches Cord's unit and company, but doesn't research me to find I was one of Cord's lance corporals? I own, run, and play in a blues bar and you come in and claim to be Robert Johnson?"
I gave him that same top to bottom look again, more scornful this time -- channeling my old D.I. getting a new batch of recruits -- and he managed to grin and look a little embarrassed at the same time. "You ain't got the right calluses, the right hands, or enough tan for that. Not to mention, Mr. Johnson would be walking dead."
He didn't wince at that, quite, but he did look thoughtful for a moment, and a little embarrassed, too. Good. I was getting through.
I shook my head, the same pitying 'What kind of farm animals did they send me this time?' look I remembered too well from Paris Island. "So why don't we try this again. Tell me what you want and I'll let you know if you're going to get it. Bullshit me again, and you'd better get out before I call the cops in. Got it?"
He tipped his glass to me in a casual salute, embarrassment gone into amusement -- at himself, I'd say now, although at the time I thought it was directed at me. "Got it. For a man who didn't make sergeant, Mr. Dawson, you chew ass like one. All right. What I need to know -- and I do mean need--" for the first time he let me see a little of the steel behind that grin. Worse, there was some kind of bone-deep fear behind that, a huge 'Don't screw up the objective/FUBAR the unit's rep' type fear, "are the details about Sergeant Cord's death, and the lightning."
Lightning. Christ.
I still don't know what he'd found out or where, but he looked at me and said, "You spend a lot of time around lightning sites, Mr. Dawson, and you've been around a man who was reported dead by some eyewitnesses who knew dead when they saw it. I can tell you to keep a bag of salt around to line your doorways, but mostly, what I know would just get you killed."
The Watchers' poker games can teach you a really good blank expression but something gave me away because he pounced. "You do know about the lightning."
Shit. And what the hell? A bag of salt? "John, only way I can tell you about that is by bringing you in and you've already got your own mission, don't you?" It didn't take a bluesman to see that.
He nodded anyway. "I do." He watched me, brows drawn in and smile gone. He'd shifted upright somewhere in there, but I only noticed it when he relaxed again. "You don't know about the salt, do you? That's... odd. You can get magnetic fluctuations around lightning strikes, but have you noticed any sulfur residue?"
"No, just ozone and copper." Something was pricking at my memories, and then I saw the silver bracelet on his arm and had to ask, "You ever read Manly Wade Wellman?"
"Yeah. No kin to him or the Balladeer," he said, and he sounded like a man who wished he could talk to them. He also didn't try to tell me I was crazy. I was starting to think that he wasn't, either.
He sighed and took a real drink of his beer, both finishing it and telling me he was through playing bullshit games and we were down to honesty. Damn right I handed him another; for this one, he nodded a thank you. "So do you know what was going on with Sergeant Cord and the lighting?"
I just nodded, and my eyes might have closed for a moment there, what with not wanting to see Sarge or Kristin or Mikey, all in Death's arms now, and Alexa trying to ignore Him until she couldn't anymore. (Who was I to blame her for that?) When I opened my eyes again, John was refilling the glass for me and the knife was long gone, along with his inclination to try it on me.
"He was a friend of yours?" John was watching me and those dark eyes of his had seen their share of funerals, too many of them with a soloist playing "Taps," so I gave him the truth.
"Cord kept me alive a long time ago, but he wasn't the one who gave me my life back. The more I think back on it, the more I think maybe he should've been an ex-Marine. He was the one who killed a friend of mine who specialized in giving kids real lives." I hadn't realized how bitter I was about that until then, and I sure as hell hadn't realized why I resented wearing my uniform out there this afternoon.
Ian gave me a purpose, a reason to get out of bed, get through therapy. Charlie gave God knows how many kids the belief that they could do better, and that there was a way out of this neighborhood. Hell, three of them went into the Marine Corps and sent me postcards every time they changed postings. Cord… Cord tried to teach me that the unit came first, not the unit's reputation. The unit fucking well did come first, and that included against rot from the inside. Mac taught me that, and God only knows if I'll ever get to tell him that.
That thought made me pull a beer for myself. No switching to water yet, that might switch off John's story, but I'd definitely had enough whisky for a while.
Now John was pouring a cautious finger of whisky into his own glass, but he hadn't picked it up yet. "Damn. I'm sorry as hell to hear that." Odd thing was, I thought he meant that, and knew what I meant by it, too. "But I have to ask about Cord's death. No sulfur smell, you said. No cold spots around? No eyes gone white or yellow or even ink-black?"
I just shook my head, putting all that together to get something I didn't want to have to look at. Immortals are real; sounds like other things are, too, that I wasn't sure about. Might be time to get a bag of salt for under the bar.
He sipped the whisky without ever looking away from me and said, "It's important, Mr. Dawson."
"I know it is." His voice told me that, and the way he'd detoured around what he needed to ask, and the way he'd goaded me to be sure he'd get some truth. "Cord's eyes were as human as they'd ever been. So was he. He wasn't... whatever you're hunting, John."
"But not entirely human if he could come back from the dead." It wasn't a question.
I snorted, shook my head, sipped at my beer. "Fuck, Cord was human, as human as any of us. You had to see how he went wrong to be sure of it, but it was a human twist. He chose what he wanted, not what was right, and then tried to convince himself it really was right. You don't get much more human than that."
I glanced up in time to see the wince vanish again; I’m surprised he let me see that much, but 'let' might not have been the right word.
"Yeah. I suppose you don't," John said and he sounded tired now. He settled his chin on a fist, but it wasn't a preliminary for a fight. "And you know something about how Cord came back from the dead, and you're damn sure there's no black magic involved."
"I don't know what it is," I told him, "but no. It's not black magic." I smiled a little and lifted my beer in salute. "One of the best priests around used to be able to do it, too."
"Used to. Poor bastard." I didn't know if John meant me or Darius. He went on, "You're one of the musicians here, you said. I don't suppose you know evil when you see it?"
"Not just the garden-variety human kind?" I nodded to him. "Yeah. Ain't seen it often, but like the man said about porn, I know it when I see it."
"Good enough." He nodded and sipped at his whisky again. This time, he actually tasted it. He looked surprised and appreciative and took the next sip a lot slower. Some of the tension slid out of him and right then, I believed he'd been a Marine, and a good one. "I appreciate the answers, Mr. Dawson. I'm sorry I can't tell you why I needed them." He grinned at me and I could believe he'd been a hell raiser, in and out of the Corps. "But then, you can't tell me a few things, either, and I bet your stories would go pretty damn well with this whisky, too."
"Hell, make it Joe. They probably would, but I get the feeling you can't afford to pay for my whisky, either. And we've both been making some guesses today," I said dryly.
After a second, I said, "Oh, what the hell. It's my bar." I put a full bottle of it in front of him because I'd seen the pleasure at a good drink and because once he unwound, I could see he was aching here and there now that he could pay attention to the pain. "Bottle's yours as long as you promise to save this for drinking. Buy rotgut to clean out anything your prey manages to do to you, all right? This isn't for bribes, or slashes, or drowning anything -- just for a minute or two off the hunt. Deal, John?"
He reached out a hand and I took it. I could feel calluses when I shook it, and plenty of them. Still working hard with his hands, and a good firm grip that didn't assume I was crippled anywhere from mid-thigh up. Like the man said, good enough.
"Deal, Joe." He nodded to me. "Don't forget about the salt across the thresholds if you need it. And maybe some holy water under the bar with that shotgun."
I nodded to him and said seriously, "John. I can't tell you what to do about the ones that don't stay dead, and I'm gonna remind you that some of 'em are good folks... but I can refuse to say Stoker was a complete fool."
He eyed me speculatively, then grinned. "I don't always have a stake, but I always own a machete or a fire ax, Joe." He sipped the last of his whisky, sighed, and stood up. "It's been a pleasure sitting in your joint, Mr. Dawson."
I just grinned back. "Been a pleasure getting to meet you, 'Mr. Johnson.' "
For a man who could piss me off so fast, he had a good laugh. I still hear it sometimes in memory. I kinda hope one day he'll drop in for another drink.
~ ~ ~ finis ~ ~ ~
Comments, Commentary, & Miscellanea:
I'm assured by my betas and any number of fen that yes, John Winchester can piss off anyone that fast -- and frequently does.
Yes, I know, the Chicago Manual of Style, among others, insists that soldier, airman, and marine are all lower case. The Marine Corps disagrees, and Joe was a Marine and this is his story, so they're capitalized here. I’m also working off the assumption that Cord was trying to bring Joe along as a promising candidate for sergeant -- Joe always was sensible. But Joe was too startled by what was going on to have been in the Corps long, so I made him a lance corporal at most. They're not entitled to a sword with their dress blues, hence in dress blues and still unarmed.
Robert Johnson was an early blues musician, famous for dying young and for his song, "Crossroads." And the Winchesters tend to use the names of musicians for aliases.
It's Highlander canon that Joe Dawson was a Marine. His unit isn't canonical, but I didn't pick 9/1 for their nickname; I picked it for the casualty rate in Vietnam: 93.6%, the highest in Marine Corps history, according to Wikipedia.
'Sex in a canoe,' a.k.a. 'fucking close to water.' Not a compliment for a beer.
Yup, 'no ex-Marines' and 'few old, bold Marines' are catchphrases. I've also heard it phrased as 'some old aviators, and some bold aviators, but very few old, bold aviators.' However, I heard the Marine version first. Possibly in "Glory Days," come to think of it....
John Winchester was in fact in Echo 9/1 according to the Supernatural-Wiki. (Many thanks to Killa for the link!) The motto and nickname are from Wikipedia; if incorrect, my profound apologies and I'll be happy to fix any errors as pointed out to me.
Andrew Cord was an immortal on the Highlander episode "Brothers In Arms." He'd been Joe's sergeant in Vietnam and carried a very young Joe Dawson to safety after the landmine shredded Joe's legs (and publicly killed Cord). Given 9/1's nickname, Cord might well have worked at getting transferred to them. He also shot a woman to cover up a rape that would reflect badly on the unit; she had already refused a bribe. I am, after contemplation, very glad he died before Joe spent much more time with his style of mentorship.
Joe counts US involvement in Vietnam at 25 years because the US sent in the first military advisors in 1950, and pulled out completely by 1975. The Vietnam Service Medal covers 1961 to 1975. (Joe would also be entitled to wear the Vietnam Campaign Medal, awarded by the Republic of Vietnam, for wounds inflicted by an enemy force. I mention this solely for other Joe writers who might need the reference.)
FUBAR -- Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition, two steps higher than SNAFU (Situation Normal All Fucked Up). Mackiedockie tells me the middle step is TARFU -- Things Are Really Fucked Up.
Part of what set this crossover off was the fact that John Winchester is tracking a demon through occurrences of localized lightning. On Highlander, when an immortal is beheaded, it sets off a lightning storm. On Supernatural, it can also involve sulfur, electromagnetic fluctuations, cold zones, or a few other things. And on Supernatural, a line of salt across a threshold can thwart several supernatural creatures.
Manly Wade Wellman wrote a series of short stories and five novels about a character named John, known by fans as Silver John or John the Balladeer, a wandering singer and former military man -- a Vietnam vet, I believe -- who carries a guitar with silver strings and regularly fights off supernatural creatures up and down the hills of Appalachia. (Yes, I'm serious.) I can't imagine John Winchester hasn't read the stories.
In Supernatural, humans can sometimes be recognized as demon-possessed because their eyes have changed color to yellow, white, or black.
Andrew Cord killed Charlie deSalvo in "Brothers In Arms." In earlier episodes, Charlie ran a neighborhood dojo that promoted boxing and martial arts to try to keep kids out of gangs. Ian Banks was the man who recruited Joe Dawson into the Watchers from his recovery ward bed.
In the obscenity case of Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), Justice Potter Stewart wrote that "hard-core pornography" was hard to define, but that "I know it when I see it."
Bram Stoker, of course, wrote Dracula, with the two methods for killing a vampire: a stake through the heart, or decapitation.
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