Chapter Text
Cameron Cope’s first thought as he stepped into the courtroom was how official and sterile it was. It looked plain, but had its markings of haughtiness, what with the legal books dotted around on shelves, a large flag displayed proudly against the main wall, and the ubiquity of dress uniforms.
Cam wasn’t in his dress uniform. He had one, but as a witness and someone as ‘lowly’ as a Private First Class, he was told to wear a more standard uniform lest he look “overdressed.” The subtext for that was that he would look like he had his eyes set above his rank, above his station in the Corps. Everyone had their place, and his was still quite low down.
He passed by his former Drill Instructor. Cope couldn’t help but think how small he looked. He was far from the towering, terrifying DI that tormented and then guided him the year prior. He was seated and looked… meek. Cam quickly glanced at his eyes. They looked softer — no longer so sharp and menacing. Above all, they just looked tired. Not entirely defeated, but more like a caged animal skulking in the corner, waiting to lash out; energy and fight largely spent and snuffled out. Sullivan as a whole looked like he had aged an extra five years, with a few extra wrinkles dotting his facial features.
He continued his walk to the witness box, feeling like the eyes of the world were on him. He hazarded a guess that people were wondering what a PFC was doing here. Cam realised that he barely knew either. Something about the swamp. Being the last person to see him before he vanished for hours.
Cameron was sworn in — on the Bible because what other choice was there? — and took his seat. The prosecutor stood up and fixed his eyes on Cam.
“Private Cope, please state your name, rank, and role for the record.”
Cam shifted in his seat. It felt completely surreal to testify in a court-martial. He had never done this before, never thought that he would have to do this. It felt even more bizarre that the person on trial was one of his former fucking Drill Instructors. The ones enforcing perfect behaviour in him just a year prior were now the ones under the magnifying glass, monitored for disobedient behaviour. Miller had prepped him as to what this would be like. Tried to calm his nerves. His advice was struggling to catch.
“Private First Class Cameron Gregory Cope, MOS 2789, Sir.”
“Thank you Private,” he said, offering a curt nod. So far so good. “What relationship do you have with the defendant?”
Given what the trial was about, Cam thought the use of the word relationship was either odd or very sneaky. He preferred to think it was the first, and not the second.
“Sergeant Sullivan was one of my Drill Instructors at Parris Island, Sir.”
“Platoon 2032, 1990?”
“Yes, Sir.” Calm. Cam was calm. Everything was going to be alright. He looked at Sullivan, and his face was almost indescribable. It was as if he were studying him, mystified by Cam’s presence on the stand; his eyes shooting right through him. Cam couldn’t help but sympathise; it would feel fucken weird having someone you made feel so far below you, suddenly testifying in your trial.
“Private, I’d like to draw your attention to the afternoon of August 27th,1990. Does that date mean anything to you?”
Cam swallowed. Oh, shit.
“Sir,” he began, “August 28th was my last day of boot camp, and so from memory…” his voice drew out, tone inflecting as if he were actually thinking. He wondered whether the jury panel was writing down that he was an idiot who fell apart on simple questions. “That night was the last night of the Crucible,” he continued, “the day after that, we would finish official training for boot camp.”
“Yes, that matches the records. Thank you, Private,” the prosecutor said, giving another polite nod.
He perked up a bit, “You went through a rather incredible experience on that day, concerning one Recruit Joshua Jones, yes?”
“That is correct,” he replied, and it was as if a safe of memories had been opened. The panic of waking up to Jones not being there in the tent with him, followed by the creeping anxiety of realising that it was connected to his sleepwalking. Heading out into the swamp. It was one of his most poignant memories of training.
He never saw either Jones or Sullivan again.
“Care to explain?”
“Sir, Jones was my bunkmate at boot camp. Because of this, Jones and I shared a tent together during the Crucible. I woke up on the second day, and Jones was not in the tent, but his boots were still outside.” The prosecutor nodded sagely, signalling him to continue recounting his testimony, “Jones had an issue with sleepwalking, so I reported his absence to my Drill Instructors. After a brief search, it was determined that he had walked into a nearby swamp.”
“And then what happened?” The prosecutor asked, body tilting towards him just a bit. Members of the jury panel were furiously scribbling notes, trying to get as much down as possible. The stenographer was equally tapping away. He wondered how they did it.
“Sergeant Sullivan was sent in to search; I followed him in.”
“You followed him in? Were you ordered to?”
“No. I followed him in despite not being ordered to.”
“…Why?” The prosecutor asked, sounding genuinely bewildered. Surely, he knew why? He had seen the evid— Oh.
“Jones and I had become good friends at that point. I felt a brotherhood with him and felt an overwhelming urge to look for him.”
The prosecutor blinked. Sullivan was just looking downwards now, as if in deep reflection or recollection. He wondered how Sullivan saw that entire episode.
“Please present Exhibit B to the court,” the prosecutor requested of the clerks.
Cope was presented with a thick folder of written text. Upon looking at the first page, Cam’s eyes widened a bit as he saw what it was: a transcript of his interview with NCIS after Sullivan was found.
The prosecutor confirmed his suspicions.
“Private, please read the highlighted sections from pages 2 through 19.”
Cam sighed, albeit only internally.
Jones and Cam were resting and eating lunch, after the former begged for a break and the latter relented. Cam had to admit that being able to partially dictate when his bunkmate could do something as simple as eating felt… odd. Sullivan had placed Jones within his purview and responsibility. Cam wasn't used to it, although it did feel perversely pleasurable having a measure of power over someone who had violently, literally, stabbed him in the back.
That didn’t matter though, because their bond from before had shattered. It wasn’t his own fault, Cam reasoned to himself; it was Jones who broke their deal and didn’t do the fight according to plan. Cam responded accordingly. Sure, he had beaten Jones too hard, but he had a right to feel enraged — he had been betrayed by someone he thought he could trust. Jones saw it a different way though: his bloodshot eye staring at him from the ground, and the two of them being marred in a battle of passive hostility. Jones had blamed him. He had accused Cam of being Sullivan’s “special boy,” and Cam refused to stand for that. They had been far from the laughs and solidarity in the forest ever since the Crucible started.
Thankfully, their feud was resolved by a sincere apology from Jones. Cope couldn’t help but feel bad for him, though. Jones looked crumpled and defeated — his eye bloody and his face covered in gashes and cuts, treated and bandaged over before being sent into the warzone that was the Crucible. He didn’t speak in the same playful way he had been before — his intonation stayed flat, and his voice stayed roughly monotone. Cam could sympathise with him. Pity him.
During this peace, they overheard the development of a discussion between Sullivan and the Company Commander: a stiff-lipped woman with a name that Cam could not remember, who both clearly thought they were alone. They would’ve been alone had Cam not agreed with Jones that it would be best to rest in the woods as opposed to the tent city in the clearing.
Cam and Jones’ ears pricked up — attentive.
“They’re pressing sodomy charges on you” they heard the Company Commander say to their Drill Instructor. Cam was pretty sure both his and Jones’ hearts were stopped. Jesus, sodomy?? Jones was right, Cam grimly realised to himself. It was almost surreal. Not just that their DI was basically confirmed to be gay, but also because he was being charged over it. Of course Cam knew it was illegal — God, he knew that well — but seeing the ‘justice’ in action made him feel slightly ill. What if he were next? Jones?
The seconds ticked by with zero response from Sullivan. Jones and he were still on high alert, but they still gave each other a wide-eyed glance.
“So that’s it then?” Sullivan eventually responded in a low tone, as if he were in trepidation or trying to discern if what he just heard was actually correct. That, or as if he had already thrown in the towel and accepted his fate.
The two of them continued their clandestine conversation, with him and his bunkie listening in on every syllable. Cam’s brain kept ringing with the knowledge that the Company Commander — Sullivan’s boss — had not just warned the Drill Instructor, but was explicitly supporting him.
His brain also rang knowing that their quietly macho, ever-so-domineering-and-terrifying Drill Instructor had been in a relationship with a guy. Sullivan had even confirmed it by name! Cam’s head was spinning with all the information. This was, however, interrupted by Jones coming out of their hiding spot behind a tree and stepping right in front of their DI. His attempt to stop his bunkie from leaving was futile.
“Sir!” Jones called out while rushing towards Sullivan, “Sir.”
Settled in front of him, he made his desperate plea.
“I did what you wanted, Cameron’s back on your program, I just need you to sign my medical discharge,” he begged, “like you promised.”
Cam couldn’t even register the feeling that evoked from the confirmation that Sullivan and Jones had done a dodgy deal, as if they were two politicians shaking hands in a smoke-filled room. No. Cam just felt his heart breaking. His bunkie, who was so confident, proud and tough, had never sounded so small.
“Please, Sir.”
Cam also realised that he had never heard Jones sound so sad.
The sullen-faced Drill Instructor responded in a shaky voice that “the situation had changed,” and that he was “on his own.”
Jones looked devastated, and Cam couldn’t blame him.
They returned to the clearing without a word exchanged between them, Jones unable to take his eyes off the ground three feet in front of him. Cam couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to Jones.
And Sullivan. Especially Sullivan.
Ray’s reaction was one of bewilderment. He hissed at him to stop, but Cam had already begun walking towards the clearing in the bushes that Sullivan had gone through five seconds prior to getting into the swamp.
Cam was obviously concerned about flagrantly breaking the rules, but other, more important things were on his mind. Jones walked off into the swamp while unconscious, and he was just meant to stay put? Fuck that. Jones and he had grown close, and he wasn’t about to leave him to disappear into some waterlogged bog. He thought the Marine Corps was meant to be all about brotherhood, anyway.
Cam’s boots splashed in the thin and narrow stretch of water, water that was already getting deeper and wider as they continued forward. He thought ‘they’, because Sullivan was about twenty feet in front of him. Cam was conscious of how much shit he would be in if he were found out. He continued walking forward, the water being devastatingly noisy as he plodded through.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Jones, and hoping to God that he hadn’t hit his head and drowned. Thoughts and memories of the conversation he overheard the day prior were also in his head: He just couldn’t believe that Sullivan was actually like him. They had something in common.
A shout directed at him shook him to full alertness.
“What are you doing, Cope?” Shit.
“Front and centre, now!” Sullivan ordered, authoritatively pointing in front of him.
Fucking shit. Cope attempted to not collapse into panic. That would’ve just made it all worse.
Cope scrambled to meet his demand, placing himself in front of his Drill Instructor — servile and penitent.
Sullivan stared into him and let the look linger. Cope resisted the urge to shiver, which he somehow felt the need to do despite the humidity and suffocating nature of a South Carolinian swamp in summer.
The Drill Instructor glanced to his right and demanded that McAffey present himself, causing Cope to break his position and mouth a confused ‘What’, purely to himself. His fellow recruit in question emerged from a bush next to a tree and hustled to position. Cope kept his smile and eyeroll to himself. Of course Ray would follow him here. His desire to protect and care for him was always there, and while it could get a bit annoying and often unnecessary, the fact that it was always there made Cope feel like he had struck gold and discovered the greatest friend humanity could offer.
“Tweedledee and Tweedledum,” Sullivan snarled as he looked at the both of them, "you wanna tell me what the fuck you think you're doing out here?"
"Sir, the Drill Instructor said that Jones is in this recruit's pack, Sir," Cam responded dutifully, practically automatically. If there was one thing that Cam had learnt during his time here, it is that the military knows extremely well how to break you down into nothing and turn you into a machine.
"Sir," Ray hesitated, "Cope is in this recruit's pack." A response that was almost comically flubbed, spoken in a way almost like he was trying to deliver a joke.
Military jargon — some numbers and letters from the NATO phonetic alphabet — coming from the Company Commander crackled over the radio. Sullivan spoke into the other end, reporting that he had two "stowaways," before speaking Cope and McAffey's names into the mouthpiece. He reported that he was dispatching both of them back to camp. The Company Commander responded with an affirmative*, and the crackle of the radio halted.
Sullivan leered at them, ordering that they go, before he turned around and continued his march into the swamp, attempting to find and rescue Jones from a premature end. Ray responded with an "Aye, Sir" and turned to walk in the opposite direction. Cam opted to stay put, to the incredulous reaction of the former, who stopped after a few paces of walking and turned to again face the latter.
"Cam," he said, looking at him like he was absolutely insane, "he told us to go, and if we step out of line again, we're both gonna be in deep shit."
"You're right," Cam responded, "and you're not getting in trouble for me; you need to head back-"
"I'm not gonna leave you here-" Ray clapped back, yet Cope repaid his interruption with his own.
"Ray, I got this," he declared, with a calm and steady sureness that forced Ray into silence, "you don't need to take care of me anymore."
Ray's mouth was left agape, as if ready to speak but unable to get the words out. "I'll be okay," Cam continued, "I got this, trust me."
A single tear streaked down Ray's face, his eyes shiny and slightly closed.
"I'll see you back at mainside," he said and nodded, beginning to drag his feet backwards through the water. His facial expression was indescribable, but he let Cam go.
And his blessing of faith, even if reluctant, allowed Cam to turn around and walk in the direction of his Drill Instructor, all on the quest to find Jones.
The formally and crisply dressed prosecutor held up a hand.
“If I may pause, Private,” he spoke, “did the defendant order you to return to the base?”
Cope looked up from reading out of the folder. He hadn’t incriminated his former DI at all. He was just reading from what he said in his NCIS interview, and it just so happened that he spent a bunch of that damn interview lying through his teeth about what happened on that day. When his NCIS interviewer asked him, towards the end of the interview, if he had any other pertinent information, he didn’t mention the conversation that he and Jones had overheard. A white lie.
He knew Sullivan knew that he had overheard his conversation with Fajardo. He wondered what was going through his head as he sat there at the defence desk, completely vulnerable and on the verge of being reduced to nothing in the eyes of the law.
Sullivan was probably mystified that his former recruit, whom he had treated with an extremely firm hand, was sticking his head out for him and lying. Sullivan would’ve had to have known that Cope was sitting on several bombs that could’ve sent him to jail. Someone so underneath you, having the power to ruin your career — your life — completely, and yet not pulling the trigger. Cope’s fucken head was spinning because of this newfound dynamic, so he could barely imagine what on Earth was going on in Sullivan’s.
“No, he did not, Sir.”
“And why was that?”
Cope swallowed. “He said that he would’ve sent me back, but given the search-and-rescue for Jones, he wanted me to help carry him if he was found.”
He was lying. He squirmed a bit in his seat. He could’ve just been fucking honest, and it would’ve been a whole lot more comfortable for him. But he hadn’t been telling the full truth. Sullivan knew that he wasn’t telling the truth. If Ray were here, he would’ve known that he wasn’t telling the truth. Because if he did tell the truth, he would be in deep shit. He couldn’t forget that it was he who snuck out into the swamp, and it was he who disobeyed a Drill Instructor’s order and opted to stay. Not to mention, if he told the full truth, he would’ve had to disclose the conversation the two of them had had in the swamp while on the search for Jones, and that would’ve sealed both of their fates.
Cope discovered that lying was sometimes necessary, and he hated that he had to.
“Private, to sum up what happened up to this point, you snuck into the swamp, the defendant did not order you to return despite you needing to continue training, instead he asked that you stay with him to assist with rescuing a lost and unconscious recruit?”
“Yes.” It sounded so confident. He couldn’t dare look at Sullivan.
“Thank you for clarifying, Private. Please continue.”
Cope steadied himself, trying not to break under the burden of untruthfulness.