Fanmix - Under This Midwest Sky - Disc Two: Away From Here
Title: Under This Midwest Sky - Disc Two: Away From Here
Subject: John, Sam, and Dean Winchester
Fandom: Supernatural (pre-series)
Warnings: No spoilers. Some strong language.
Notes: Finally, part two of my long-awaited (er, maybe) pre-series Supernatural fanmix. Freaking thing got epic on me. Hope you enjoy!
As always, dedication goes to nakitamanomiko, because every Dean needs a Sam. Especially if they mean to finish these tricky little endeavors they begin.
Mix includes 16 songs, by artists like The Perishers, Switchfoot, Tegan and Sara, Matchbox Twenty, and Stabbing Westward. Each song includes a bit of fic to go along with it.
[[ DOWNLOAD THE .ZIP!! ]]
MY OLD MAN {tonic}
// me and my old man don't see eye to eye
we take our walks outside underneath the birch trees
he says, I think it's gonna freeze this year
I said, I gotta get away from here \\
John and Sam. Sam isn't like Dean, he can't do this forever. He reaches out, away from their family, and yeah, it causes friction, like trying to push out of a doorway at the same time someone's coming in. Dad wants him to stay; it's clear that the assumption is that he'll live this life for the rest of his. But he's dreaming of something else. Something he can't find under Dad's protection or in Dean's care. He has to have this for himself.
NONE OF THE ABOVE {the weakerthans}
// if you ask how I got so bitter
I'll ask how you got so vain
and all our questions blur together
the answers always sound the same \\
Sam and Dean. These are their diner table arguments, sitting across from one another, sniping at one another until there's nothing left to say and it's picking at the resin on the table. Sam's blunt fingernails can't penetrate, but Dean's pocket knife can, until Sam tells him to put it away before he gets them thrown out, even though he's hiding his activity behind the shield of his french fries. For a little while when the fighting's done, it's almost like they're brothers again.
BED OF LIES {matchbox twenty}
// don't think that I can take another empty moment
don't think that I can fake another hollow smile
it's not enough just to be lonely
don't think that I could take another talk about it
[...] don't wanna be the one who turns this whole thing over
don't wanna be somewhere where I just don't belong
where it's not enough to be sorry
[...] I am all that I'll ever be, when you - when you lay your hands over me
but don't go weak on me now
I know that it's weak, but god help me, I need this \\
The Decision. It's clear to him what he's got to do, to grasp a little piece of everything he's ever wanted for himself. It's hidden in pamphlets and papers given to him by the guidance counselors at his last high school, scrawled across the bottom of letters sent to a home nobody lived in, "Sam seems very interested in college..." He hides them all, the informational pamphlets, the applications he eventually sends with cash for the fee that he steals, guilty-necessary, from the back pocket of his brother's jeans. They're Pandora's Box, and sooner or later, he's going to have to open it and let out everything he's been hiding, all these little dreams he's coaxing into life like violets.
BEND AND NOT BREAK {dashboard confessional}
// I am fairly agile, I can bend and not break
or I can break and take it with a smile
and I am so resilient, I recover quickly
I'll convince you soon that I am fine \\
Dean. He finds the papers, Sam's handwriting, the carefully constructed lies about who he is and where he comes from. All the stories. "Mother died in a house fire." "Father is a traveling salesman." He laughs, bitter as bile, when he reads all the stupid fairytales about their lives, the typed-up essays for the applications that as paperclipped to cash he knew was missing but didn't know why. Shoving them back in, just rough enough that Sam will know he's been there, he goes out, takes out his anxiety and his hurting on a few drunk guys in the local bar, and ignores every look Sam gives him when he comes back, late, drunk and uncaring. Dad takes a piece out of him for getting smashed while he's supposed to be helping on the job. He says he's sorry and just this once, he doesn't mean it, and then the next day he can just pretend everything's okay, and pretend he's not seeing the way Sam looks at him like he's waiting for him to snap. It's too late for that.
THIS IS EVERYTHING {tegan and sara}
// no, I'm going to hold you anyway, and I'll do it without shaking
yes, I'll love you always, and I'll do it without aching
yes, I'd give you anything, I gave you everything
[...] baby, this is the last honest look I'll ever give \\
Holding On. In the end, it's Sam who approaches Dean about the letters and papers, his carefully-concealed future. He does it because he got a return, because he's got an acceptance letter in his back pocket, picked up from the drop post office box he set up a couple of weeks ago when he started sending out the applications. Telling him is like trying to talk with broken glass in your mouth, and he knows the predictable reaction, and he's startled when he doesn't get it. When Dean just looks at him like he's breaking his heart for a couple of minutes and then he walks away, goes outside and punches the brick exterior of the motel's main office hard enough that his knuckles are torn and bleeding, but at least he didn't give in and hit Sam. God knows he wanted to. God knows where that would take him. But he didn't, and that's important, even if Sam deserves it. Even if he's leaving them all behind. Even if he's leaving Dean behind. He's not ready for this.
LET ME GO {tonic}
// I never thought I'd change my ways
it was an angry thought that made me turn the other way
and I, I wanna be like that again
when I know there's hope \\
Sam. They fight like there's no tomorrow, and for this life, maybe there isn't. Orientation's in half a week and he's already made arrangements to set up in the dorms early, because he knows how this is going to go. Dad doesn't disappoint him, and the shouting match gets loud enough that he wonders if the neighbors are going to complain, if they have neighbors. Dean's standing back and every now and again he'll try to interject, try to defuse the situation, but there's nothing going, and he flinches with Sam when Dad tells him if he leaves, not to ever come back. Sam knows how this is supposed to go, that's the line that's supposed to make him say, Fine, and stay. Instead, he says Fine and he walks out the door.
BURN YOUR LIFE DOWN {tegan and sara}
// I drive around the block, and I'm not looking to my right
I feel the glass against my cheek
and I can't see you in the light
I break my heart around this \\
Dean. He's the one that drives Sam to the bus station, the morning after his little brother spends the night in the backseat of the Impala because he and Dad are both too damn stubborn to reconcile this. He catches Dad watching them leave through the slit in the window shades, and says nothing, pulling out. Sam's still in the back, though he usually sits in the passenger seat when Dean's driving, but there are Boundaries now, they have to be observed. They're different people now than they were the night before, separated by decisions, by choices. Dean drives slow, tries to convince himself Sammy won't be getting off at the bus stop, that he'll come back and maybe things will turn out okay. He's a pretty pathetic optimist sometimes, yeah.
MIDWEST SKIES AND SLEEPLESS MONDAYS {augustana}
// I left you on the interstate, I left you at some old low-rate hotel
I want to go back and lie there, underneath this midwest sky
so find your call, oh yeah, so fight or fall [...]
come and save me, underneath this midwest sky \\
Dropping Off. Dean leaves Sam at the bus station twenty minutes before the boarding call, helps him get his things and shoves an S&W and fifty bucks at him, tells him roughly to take care of himself. Call. He tries to refuse it and he's told not to take the high road, he's not gonna get far if he's not even armed. He knows he will, he knows he's trying to leave this behind, but he takes the gun and he takes the money Dean worked weekends on the road fixing other people's cars to make, and it's not like the movies here. They don't hug or even really say goodbye, just look at each other from opposite sides of the Impala's trunk full of weaponry, and Sam says, "See you," even if he isn't sure he means it, and Dean says, "Yeah," but he isn't, either.
BRIGHT LIGHTS {matchbox twenty}
// yeah, well, maybe you'll find something that's enough to keep you
but if the bright lights don't receive you
well, turn yourself around and come on home \\
Regret. He's bad at being supportive, taking his time and sitting in the car until Sam's bus is long gone, and he's not a stereotype, he doesn't wave at the tinted windows or any of that crap. But he says his goodbyes the way they have to be said, quick and silent and unwilling, wishing the whole damn time that his idiot little brother would come on out and get back in the car. He's not sure how shitty of a brother it makes him that he's half-hoping this all goes up in flames just so Sam will come home, the only home that ever really mattered: Dad and the car and him.
DIVIDED {tegan and sara}
// I don't want to live my life like a story
always thinkin' I could've been something
don't run alongside and control me, just film away and let me be
don't worry about me, I'll be fine \\
Sam. Sam watches the miles pass from the darkened window of a Greyhound bus, the cities and the gray or brown or red fields, time. He transfers buses and pretends it doesn't feel just as lonely as it is, that he's not looking over his shoulder all the time because he's not used to being on his own, he never has been before. "You want this," he says to himself, like he needs to remember it, like he's going to forget. He won't give them a reason to worry about him. He has to do this, and he's going to do it right.
MILLION MILES AWAY {goo goo dolls}
// friday night, I just got back
had my eyes shut, was dreamin' 'bout the past
I thought about you while the radio played \\
Return Trip. Dean's quiet when he gets back, and John plays with the idea of asking him how it went, where Sam's going anyway, but he doesn't. He joins in the silence, and when they leave in the morning it's regretfully, half-wanting to stick around in case Sam comes back somehow, but they both know he's not going to, so they go. Dean reads the map, and then later he pretends to sleep, eyes half-closed looking out the window his temple is pressed against. If he closes his eyes just right, thinks just the right way, if just the right song is playing on the tape Dad's put in, loud and angry... he can pretend it's not just them in the car.
ANGEL {stabbing westward}
// she showed me love could lift me higher
with a kiss, she repaired these broken wings
she revived my fading spirit
restored my faith in everything \\
Meeting Jess. He meets Jess in one of his general classes; she's a Communications major, she's cute, and she lets him borrow her pencil on the condition that he helps her find where her next class is. As it turns out, she's as lost as he is, and they manage to laugh about it once they've found someone on campus who knows where they're going. It's simple, it's normal, and he's awkward with it, like he's found something glass that's going to break. She doesn't mind, she thinks it's sweet that he's so shy about it. Really, she doesn't know the half of it.
ASK ME HOW I AM {snow patrol}
// you look like you might not last the day
I wouldn't have made it very far
[...] I've not made amends for yesterday [...]
I take a breath and grab the phone, secretly hoping you're not home
I'd leave a message, I was out, out of my mind on drink \\
Dean Calls. It's a week before he gives in and calls Sam's cell, when he's had just enough liquor and just too little sleep and he's feeling pretty numb. Sam doesn't pick up, but his voice mail does, and Dean leaves a long message, talks about where they are now (Atlanta), what they're hunting (pissy poltergeist with a re-deathwish). He never says he misses him, or that he wishes he'd come home. But it's all there underneath the words, lying between the lines like land mines.
MYSTERIES {the yeah yeah yeahs}
// my arms are all twisted; the only thing I miss is
I messed up, I missed it, I messed up the missing of you
[...] I don't even know what it's like not to go back to you
I don't even know who I like less, you or me \\
Missing 'Home'. His dorm room is quiet, comfortable; he doesn't have a roommate, and it's as bare as if no one had ever moved in. He didn't have many things, and most of them he hadn't even bothered to unpack, still in the mode of leaving not long after he'd gotten someplace. It was hard to get over the feeling that someone else should be there, the missing of Dean in the room's vacant other bed. Sam can't help almost hating himself for leaving it all behind, everything he ever knew. He knows he has to do it, that this is his life now. It doesn't make him any more comfortable with the process of leaving.
CONFESSIONS OF A FUTON REVOLUTIONIST {the weakerthans}
// 10-6 or 9-5 trying, dying to survive, never knowing what survival means
leave the apartment to buy alcohol, hang our diplomas on the bathroom wall
pick at the plaster chipped away, survey some stunning tooth decay
enlist the cat in the impending class-war, let's lay our bad day down here, dear
and make-believe we're strong, or hum some protest song, like maybe "we shall overcome someday"
overcome the stupid things we say, say I needed more than this, say I needed one more kiss
[...] we forget to feed our fear \\
Normal Life. It's a year and a half before he moves in with Jess, to a crappy hole-in-the-wall apartment with one bedroom and peeling plaster on the walls. They try to make it better just themselves; they hang up amateur paintings done by their artist friends down the street over the worst of the cracks, they even buy a real bed instead of a futon on the floor. Sam gets a job working evenings at a grocery store and cuts up the one fraudulent credit card he'd brought with him from the old life.
VICTORIOUS {the perishers}
// we drove fast, I came home on a Sunday close to midnight
felt I needed some time alone
in the car that same day, I heard your ego talking, I could tell you'd be okay
victorious, we could be victorious, once again victorious
but never again victorious \\
Stay or Go. Sam helps Dean out on one job during the first two years, takes off for a weekend and misses an important assignment because Dad's gone and Dean doesn't know where. His big brother's pretty freaked, or sounds it over the phone, which is clue enough. It turns out that Dad's fine, and Dean drives Sam back to campus and tells him, "You could stay," like it's really an option, like it's just that easy. Like he didn't see the look in their father's eyes when he found out Sam had helped Dean find him. Sam says no, "I can't," and Dean drives faster. They have it out in the parking space behind Sam's apartment, and Dean finally says some of those things that he's been holding in since he found the pamphlets two years ago in Sam's backpack, and Sam tells him to just let him go, "Just forget I was ever here." So it's no great surprise that Dean stays out of touch after that.
LET THAT BE ENOUGH {switchfoot}
// it's my birthday tomorrow, no one here could know
I was born this Thursday, twenty-two years ago
and I feel stuck watching history repeating
yeah, who am I? just a kid who knows he's needy \\
Twenty-Two. He turns twenty-two in his apartment in May, not too long before the start of the summer holidays, and Jess is the only one who knows without his saying anything. She makes a cake and it's good, as long as they cut off the burned bottom of it, and she says she loves him and he knows he can believe that. There's a call around two from an unknown number, but the call ends before he can get to it.
Yeah, he gets to be twenty-two for all of three days before he starts having those dreams; for five months before it all comes crashing down.
Subject: John, Sam, and Dean Winchester
Fandom: Supernatural (pre-series)
Warnings: No spoilers. Some strong language.
Notes: Finally, part two of my long-awaited (er, maybe) pre-series Supernatural fanmix. Freaking thing got epic on me. Hope you enjoy!
As always, dedication goes to nakitamanomiko, because every Dean needs a Sam. Especially if they mean to finish these tricky little endeavors they begin.
Mix includes 16 songs, by artists like The Perishers, Switchfoot, Tegan and Sara, Matchbox Twenty, and Stabbing Westward. Each song includes a bit of fic to go along with it.
[[ DOWNLOAD THE .ZIP!! ]]
MY OLD MAN {tonic}
// me and my old man don't see eye to eye
we take our walks outside underneath the birch trees
he says, I think it's gonna freeze this year
I said, I gotta get away from here \\
John and Sam. Sam isn't like Dean, he can't do this forever. He reaches out, away from their family, and yeah, it causes friction, like trying to push out of a doorway at the same time someone's coming in. Dad wants him to stay; it's clear that the assumption is that he'll live this life for the rest of his. But he's dreaming of something else. Something he can't find under Dad's protection or in Dean's care. He has to have this for himself.
NONE OF THE ABOVE {the weakerthans}
// if you ask how I got so bitter
I'll ask how you got so vain
and all our questions blur together
the answers always sound the same \\
Sam and Dean. These are their diner table arguments, sitting across from one another, sniping at one another until there's nothing left to say and it's picking at the resin on the table. Sam's blunt fingernails can't penetrate, but Dean's pocket knife can, until Sam tells him to put it away before he gets them thrown out, even though he's hiding his activity behind the shield of his french fries. For a little while when the fighting's done, it's almost like they're brothers again.
BED OF LIES {matchbox twenty}
// don't think that I can take another empty moment
don't think that I can fake another hollow smile
it's not enough just to be lonely
don't think that I could take another talk about it
[...] don't wanna be the one who turns this whole thing over
don't wanna be somewhere where I just don't belong
where it's not enough to be sorry
[...] I am all that I'll ever be, when you - when you lay your hands over me
but don't go weak on me now
I know that it's weak, but god help me, I need this \\
The Decision. It's clear to him what he's got to do, to grasp a little piece of everything he's ever wanted for himself. It's hidden in pamphlets and papers given to him by the guidance counselors at his last high school, scrawled across the bottom of letters sent to a home nobody lived in, "Sam seems very interested in college..." He hides them all, the informational pamphlets, the applications he eventually sends with cash for the fee that he steals, guilty-necessary, from the back pocket of his brother's jeans. They're Pandora's Box, and sooner or later, he's going to have to open it and let out everything he's been hiding, all these little dreams he's coaxing into life like violets.
BEND AND NOT BREAK {dashboard confessional}
// I am fairly agile, I can bend and not break
or I can break and take it with a smile
and I am so resilient, I recover quickly
I'll convince you soon that I am fine \\
Dean. He finds the papers, Sam's handwriting, the carefully constructed lies about who he is and where he comes from. All the stories. "Mother died in a house fire." "Father is a traveling salesman." He laughs, bitter as bile, when he reads all the stupid fairytales about their lives, the typed-up essays for the applications that as paperclipped to cash he knew was missing but didn't know why. Shoving them back in, just rough enough that Sam will know he's been there, he goes out, takes out his anxiety and his hurting on a few drunk guys in the local bar, and ignores every look Sam gives him when he comes back, late, drunk and uncaring. Dad takes a piece out of him for getting smashed while he's supposed to be helping on the job. He says he's sorry and just this once, he doesn't mean it, and then the next day he can just pretend everything's okay, and pretend he's not seeing the way Sam looks at him like he's waiting for him to snap. It's too late for that.
THIS IS EVERYTHING {tegan and sara}
// no, I'm going to hold you anyway, and I'll do it without shaking
yes, I'll love you always, and I'll do it without aching
yes, I'd give you anything, I gave you everything
[...] baby, this is the last honest look I'll ever give \\
Holding On. In the end, it's Sam who approaches Dean about the letters and papers, his carefully-concealed future. He does it because he got a return, because he's got an acceptance letter in his back pocket, picked up from the drop post office box he set up a couple of weeks ago when he started sending out the applications. Telling him is like trying to talk with broken glass in your mouth, and he knows the predictable reaction, and he's startled when he doesn't get it. When Dean just looks at him like he's breaking his heart for a couple of minutes and then he walks away, goes outside and punches the brick exterior of the motel's main office hard enough that his knuckles are torn and bleeding, but at least he didn't give in and hit Sam. God knows he wanted to. God knows where that would take him. But he didn't, and that's important, even if Sam deserves it. Even if he's leaving them all behind. Even if he's leaving Dean behind. He's not ready for this.
LET ME GO {tonic}
// I never thought I'd change my ways
it was an angry thought that made me turn the other way
and I, I wanna be like that again
when I know there's hope \\
Sam. They fight like there's no tomorrow, and for this life, maybe there isn't. Orientation's in half a week and he's already made arrangements to set up in the dorms early, because he knows how this is going to go. Dad doesn't disappoint him, and the shouting match gets loud enough that he wonders if the neighbors are going to complain, if they have neighbors. Dean's standing back and every now and again he'll try to interject, try to defuse the situation, but there's nothing going, and he flinches with Sam when Dad tells him if he leaves, not to ever come back. Sam knows how this is supposed to go, that's the line that's supposed to make him say, Fine, and stay. Instead, he says Fine and he walks out the door.
BURN YOUR LIFE DOWN {tegan and sara}
// I drive around the block, and I'm not looking to my right
I feel the glass against my cheek
and I can't see you in the light
I break my heart around this \\
Dean. He's the one that drives Sam to the bus station, the morning after his little brother spends the night in the backseat of the Impala because he and Dad are both too damn stubborn to reconcile this. He catches Dad watching them leave through the slit in the window shades, and says nothing, pulling out. Sam's still in the back, though he usually sits in the passenger seat when Dean's driving, but there are Boundaries now, they have to be observed. They're different people now than they were the night before, separated by decisions, by choices. Dean drives slow, tries to convince himself Sammy won't be getting off at the bus stop, that he'll come back and maybe things will turn out okay. He's a pretty pathetic optimist sometimes, yeah.
MIDWEST SKIES AND SLEEPLESS MONDAYS {augustana}
// I left you on the interstate, I left you at some old low-rate hotel
I want to go back and lie there, underneath this midwest sky
so find your call, oh yeah, so fight or fall [...]
come and save me, underneath this midwest sky \\
Dropping Off. Dean leaves Sam at the bus station twenty minutes before the boarding call, helps him get his things and shoves an S&W and fifty bucks at him, tells him roughly to take care of himself. Call. He tries to refuse it and he's told not to take the high road, he's not gonna get far if he's not even armed. He knows he will, he knows he's trying to leave this behind, but he takes the gun and he takes the money Dean worked weekends on the road fixing other people's cars to make, and it's not like the movies here. They don't hug or even really say goodbye, just look at each other from opposite sides of the Impala's trunk full of weaponry, and Sam says, "See you," even if he isn't sure he means it, and Dean says, "Yeah," but he isn't, either.
BRIGHT LIGHTS {matchbox twenty}
// yeah, well, maybe you'll find something that's enough to keep you
but if the bright lights don't receive you
well, turn yourself around and come on home \\
Regret. He's bad at being supportive, taking his time and sitting in the car until Sam's bus is long gone, and he's not a stereotype, he doesn't wave at the tinted windows or any of that crap. But he says his goodbyes the way they have to be said, quick and silent and unwilling, wishing the whole damn time that his idiot little brother would come on out and get back in the car. He's not sure how shitty of a brother it makes him that he's half-hoping this all goes up in flames just so Sam will come home, the only home that ever really mattered: Dad and the car and him.
DIVIDED {tegan and sara}
// I don't want to live my life like a story
always thinkin' I could've been something
don't run alongside and control me, just film away and let me be
don't worry about me, I'll be fine \\
Sam. Sam watches the miles pass from the darkened window of a Greyhound bus, the cities and the gray or brown or red fields, time. He transfers buses and pretends it doesn't feel just as lonely as it is, that he's not looking over his shoulder all the time because he's not used to being on his own, he never has been before. "You want this," he says to himself, like he needs to remember it, like he's going to forget. He won't give them a reason to worry about him. He has to do this, and he's going to do it right.
MILLION MILES AWAY {goo goo dolls}
// friday night, I just got back
had my eyes shut, was dreamin' 'bout the past
I thought about you while the radio played \\
Return Trip. Dean's quiet when he gets back, and John plays with the idea of asking him how it went, where Sam's going anyway, but he doesn't. He joins in the silence, and when they leave in the morning it's regretfully, half-wanting to stick around in case Sam comes back somehow, but they both know he's not going to, so they go. Dean reads the map, and then later he pretends to sleep, eyes half-closed looking out the window his temple is pressed against. If he closes his eyes just right, thinks just the right way, if just the right song is playing on the tape Dad's put in, loud and angry... he can pretend it's not just them in the car.
ANGEL {stabbing westward}
// she showed me love could lift me higher
with a kiss, she repaired these broken wings
she revived my fading spirit
restored my faith in everything \\
Meeting Jess. He meets Jess in one of his general classes; she's a Communications major, she's cute, and she lets him borrow her pencil on the condition that he helps her find where her next class is. As it turns out, she's as lost as he is, and they manage to laugh about it once they've found someone on campus who knows where they're going. It's simple, it's normal, and he's awkward with it, like he's found something glass that's going to break. She doesn't mind, she thinks it's sweet that he's so shy about it. Really, she doesn't know the half of it.
ASK ME HOW I AM {snow patrol}
// you look like you might not last the day
I wouldn't have made it very far
[...] I've not made amends for yesterday [...]
I take a breath and grab the phone, secretly hoping you're not home
I'd leave a message, I was out, out of my mind on drink \\
Dean Calls. It's a week before he gives in and calls Sam's cell, when he's had just enough liquor and just too little sleep and he's feeling pretty numb. Sam doesn't pick up, but his voice mail does, and Dean leaves a long message, talks about where they are now (Atlanta), what they're hunting (pissy poltergeist with a re-deathwish). He never says he misses him, or that he wishes he'd come home. But it's all there underneath the words, lying between the lines like land mines.
MYSTERIES {the yeah yeah yeahs}
// my arms are all twisted; the only thing I miss is
I messed up, I missed it, I messed up the missing of you
[...] I don't even know what it's like not to go back to you
I don't even know who I like less, you or me \\
Missing 'Home'. His dorm room is quiet, comfortable; he doesn't have a roommate, and it's as bare as if no one had ever moved in. He didn't have many things, and most of them he hadn't even bothered to unpack, still in the mode of leaving not long after he'd gotten someplace. It was hard to get over the feeling that someone else should be there, the missing of Dean in the room's vacant other bed. Sam can't help almost hating himself for leaving it all behind, everything he ever knew. He knows he has to do it, that this is his life now. It doesn't make him any more comfortable with the process of leaving.
CONFESSIONS OF A FUTON REVOLUTIONIST {the weakerthans}
// 10-6 or 9-5 trying, dying to survive, never knowing what survival means
leave the apartment to buy alcohol, hang our diplomas on the bathroom wall
pick at the plaster chipped away, survey some stunning tooth decay
enlist the cat in the impending class-war, let's lay our bad day down here, dear
and make-believe we're strong, or hum some protest song, like maybe "we shall overcome someday"
overcome the stupid things we say, say I needed more than this, say I needed one more kiss
[...] we forget to feed our fear \\
Normal Life. It's a year and a half before he moves in with Jess, to a crappy hole-in-the-wall apartment with one bedroom and peeling plaster on the walls. They try to make it better just themselves; they hang up amateur paintings done by their artist friends down the street over the worst of the cracks, they even buy a real bed instead of a futon on the floor. Sam gets a job working evenings at a grocery store and cuts up the one fraudulent credit card he'd brought with him from the old life.
VICTORIOUS {the perishers}
// we drove fast, I came home on a Sunday close to midnight
felt I needed some time alone
in the car that same day, I heard your ego talking, I could tell you'd be okay
victorious, we could be victorious, once again victorious
but never again victorious \\
Stay or Go. Sam helps Dean out on one job during the first two years, takes off for a weekend and misses an important assignment because Dad's gone and Dean doesn't know where. His big brother's pretty freaked, or sounds it over the phone, which is clue enough. It turns out that Dad's fine, and Dean drives Sam back to campus and tells him, "You could stay," like it's really an option, like it's just that easy. Like he didn't see the look in their father's eyes when he found out Sam had helped Dean find him. Sam says no, "I can't," and Dean drives faster. They have it out in the parking space behind Sam's apartment, and Dean finally says some of those things that he's been holding in since he found the pamphlets two years ago in Sam's backpack, and Sam tells him to just let him go, "Just forget I was ever here." So it's no great surprise that Dean stays out of touch after that.
LET THAT BE ENOUGH {switchfoot}
// it's my birthday tomorrow, no one here could know
I was born this Thursday, twenty-two years ago
and I feel stuck watching history repeating
yeah, who am I? just a kid who knows he's needy \\
Twenty-Two. He turns twenty-two in his apartment in May, not too long before the start of the summer holidays, and Jess is the only one who knows without his saying anything. She makes a cake and it's good, as long as they cut off the burned bottom of it, and she says she loves him and he knows he can believe that. There's a call around two from an unknown number, but the call ends before he can get to it.
Yeah, he gets to be twenty-two for all of three days before he starts having those dreams; for five months before it all comes crashing down.