Yellow
Summary: Sam is stung by something and in his delirium, he descerns the world in colours. Green, red, yellow. Especially yellow, like that Coldplay song Jess used to sing. Like Jess herself, maybe.
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any Coldplay songs. It would help to listen to "Yellow" by Coldplay during or before reading this, though.
Yellow
For Zoe, because it would have been her birthday Sunday and she, too, was all yellow.
Dean was green like the leaves of the trees that circled over Sam’s head. Twirling like weird little dancers, like aliens on a spaceship as even greener eyes looked down at him frantically. Dean was green like the hope of the first spring leaves, green like liveliness and new things. Green like the environment he destroyed with his gas-guzzling muscle car.
Damn, Sam thought, that venom is really doing a number on me. Because really, who even thought things like ‘my brother is green’. As the trees slowed down to a gentle waltz, Dean shook him and mouthed something that Sam didn’t understand. He wasn’t a lip-reader, after all.
Dean pulled Sam up, the movement sending a thousand licking flames up Sam’s side and into his lungs and his heart as he burned red, red, red. Then Dean’s hand was on his neck, cool green hands, soft eyes. Or the other way around. Ughh. Whatever that monster had in its teeth, it would make for one hell of a drug on the black market.
And Dean was green like that, too. Green like poison as he stood between Sam and the entire world. He was green because good things were green. The good buttons, the green light. Good against the red that was Sam.
Red like blood on his side and on his hands. Red like heat and inflamed skin. Red like…
“Damn it, Sammy. Answer me.” Dean pleaded.
Sam opened his mouth, tried to twist it into forms that would resemble words. Attempted to choke out something that wasn’t a moan or a gurgle.
“M’yeah. ‘M here.” He managed as his tongue screamed at him to stop, a bright-red, flickering stop-sign. Danger! Danger! You’ll lose air over those words!
“Good.” Came a sigh from somewhere above Sam. “Good. Let’s get you back to the car, huh? Figure out an antidote?”
Sam nodded and the trees jumped up and down on pogo-sticks as roots twirled like jump-ropes under his feet. Dean was under his arm. Green like nature, pure and good and always there. God, everything hurt. Deep, tearing aches. Fire like long gouges under his skin.
“Talk to me, dude.” Dean yelled. Or whispered. It was noise at least and it shattered Sam’s eardrums.
“’Bout what?” Sam gasped as a wave of red-hot pain roiled under his skin.
“I dunno…” Dean said and was that desperation in his voice, as he searched for something to talk about? “Jessica. Tell me about Jessica.”
Pain stabbed his heart like a fire-truck, red and angry. It was worse almost than the other pain, because he couldn’t fix this, he couldn’t hold out until a hospital or a motel and get someone to stitch it up. This pain wouldn’t go, it would fester and boil in his heart until he no longer recognised himself. Until he turned into a stone-cold hunter with blood on his hands and an obsession in his mind that he had convinced himself he hated.
Sam looked up, away from the deepening ground and the worried green of Dean’s eyes. Anywhere that would take away the memories that slammed into him with the force of a hurricane. Stars shined bright above the tree-tops. Blinking lights, with nothing to interrupt their glow.
Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you. And everything you do.
Yeah they were all yellow.
Jess had liked Coldplay. She used to sing their songs loud and off-tune as Sam tried to study. Just to piss him off.
“Jess was yellow.” Sam slurred. Dean looked at him like he’d grown a second head, but he didn’t interrupt, didn’t make the sarcastic comment that was undoubtedly zinging through his mind. Something like ‘You mean she had liver problems?’.
“Blonde, happy. Yellow.” Sam explained, but he didn’t have breath for more.
He wanted to say so much. Jess was blonde and happy and alive. She was like the sun, this bright orb of happiness that had warmed Sam to the very core. She was yellow like butter that melted on your tongue. Like a radiation sign when she was angry. She could have been like that, deadly and powerful, but she wasn’t. Instead she was yellow sunflowers that turned their heads in the afternoon sun. She was the yellow of a Van Gogh painting as she tried to capture the same intricacies in her own strokes.
“What did she like doing?” Dean pressed, desperate for anything that kept Sam awake and talking, probably.
Sam saw Jess bowed over her table, writing things on the yellowed pages of her journal. You had to write things in a journal, she had said, because it was better than typing on computer. More real. And you needed to write things down to remember them.
He saw her strumming a guitar on the beach as a fire roared between them. She could do a few songs, but she was never really any good. In his mind, Sam heard her singing, soft voice lilting and cracking. A for effort and an A+ for heart.
I came along. I wrote a song for you. And all the things you do.
And it was called Yellow.
“She wrote things.” Sam murmured and he thought he saw her standing between the trees. Tall and golden haired and smiling. Waving at him in that sarcastic way she liked to, stand-offish and looking away. Like he couldn’t hear her voice. Like he couldn’t hear her whispering to her friends, look at him. That’s my boyfriend. Isn’t he amazing?
She never could keep her voice down. Yellow just wasn’t a very subtle colour.
“What kind of things?” Dean urged, some of the panic in his voice receding now that he had gotten a real answer.
“Poems. Songs. Liked t’ rhyme.” Sam said, and now he really saw her. Yellow summer dress waving in an absent wind. Soft hands brushing through his hair. Almost like she was his again, like she’d ever been his. She never had, though. She’d never been anyone’s really. No one ever belonged to anyone. But he’d stolen some time with her. Taken his turn in the bright shine of her life.
So then I took my turn. Oh what a thing to’ve done.
And it was all yellow.
She was still singing. Murmuring into his ear. The same way that she used to, as they lay in bed, arms and legs intertwined, her soft voice behind him. The songs had been dirty sometimes, and he would look at her, this woman so entirely out of his league, and marvel. Marvel at her soft hair and her yellow smile.
Your skin. Oh yeah your skin and bones. Turn into something beautiful.
You know I love you so.
Dean was saying something again. Louder and louder, but Sam couldn’t hear it. He had eyes only for Jess. His girlfriend. His almost fiancé. The most beautiful and wonderful woman in the world. She supported him on one side, strong arm around his waist, soft skin warming his.
“You’re here.” Sam whispered. He felt her breath across his cheek as she turned to him, worried but strong.
“Of course I am.” She answered, “You’d crash and burn without me, remember?”
She smiled at that, burrowed deeper against him and continued. Coldplay, sung in her warm voice, yellow like the dancing flames in
the fire-place at her parents’ house. God, he loved her so much. He would do anything for her. Anything.
I swam across. I jumped across for you. Oh what a thing to do.
Cause you were all yellow.
Dean was there again, shaking him, trying and failing to grab his attention. How could he ever grab it over Jessica? Green was never bright enough to exceed yellow. Never would be. You needed yellow to make green, it could never exist alone and yellow would always, always come first.
Except that one time that it didn’t.
He’d left her for Dean. Alone, defenceless. She hadn’t even known what was out there, she never would have, if Sam had had a say in it. He would do anything, tell her anything, but he drew the line at involving her in their world. He didn’t want to dunk her beautiful, shining yellow into his own bloody red. Into the black massacre that lived in the shadows.
Sam felt his knees give way, his side throbbing in time with his heart as Jess smiled at him and held him close. Held him up.
I drew a line. I drew a line for you. Oh what a thing to do.
And it was all yellow.
They’d turned orange, the two of them. Sam’s dark red and Jess’ bright yellow. For a while, Sam had thought they could do it. That they could live on in the colour of the setting sun. That their life could be zest and the fresh smell of orange peels. That they could live in the apartment that had, when the moved in, looked straight out of a seventies sitcom. Orange had adorned the walls, and the floor and even the bed.
In the end the red had won, bleeding from a gash in Jessica’s stomach and falling on his head in an insane mimic of the soft rain that they’d first met in.
“Sorry,” Sam told Jess, tears falling from his eyes as his lips went numb, “Jess, I’m so sorry.”
She simply shook her head and dragged her hand through his hair. Or was that Dean? They were mixing and…
No, it was Jess. So beautiful. So alive. So much better without Sam to ruin her life.
Your skin. Oh yeah your skin and bones. Turn into something beautiful.
Ironically, it had been yellow that destroyed her in the end, Sam thought. Like everything about her was yellow. She’d choked on the yellow flames of a yellow eyed demon.
And suddenly the colour had become everything Sam despised. Everything he needed to find and kill. He hated it, hated how a monster had corrupted the purest, most beautiful of colours.
And you know, for you I’d bleed myself dry.
She was fading. Everything was fading and Sam wondered if it was the venom or the blood loss that was doing him in. He wondered if he’d see Jess. Wondered if the light at the end of the tunnel would be yellow.
He wondered what Dean would do. What would happen to that bright, lively green? Would it fade like the yellow had? Bleed out like the red in Sam’s body?
Sam felt something guide him down, lay him on his back so he could look up at the sky. At a pair of green eyes in front of green leaves.
For you I’d bleed myself dry.
The lyrics had seemed strange to Sam once. A different Sam. An orange Sam. Now he understood.
He’d bleed out every red drop of blood. He would tear out every piece of himself, if it meant getting Jessica back.
If it meant not losing green. No, not green. Dean. He would not, could not, lose Dean.
Behind the green were stars.
Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you.
Maybe Jess was looking down. Like in the Lion King. Maybe the yellow glow and the soft fingers in his hair were a falling star, Jess looking down at him.
And all the things you do.
Dean was green like life and poison. Sam was red like fire and blood. But Jess? She was like everything soft and warm.
Yeah Jess was all yellow.
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any Coldplay songs. It would help to listen to "Yellow" by Coldplay during or before reading this, though.
Yellow
For Zoe, because it would have been her birthday Sunday and she, too, was all yellow.
Dean was green like the leaves of the trees that circled over Sam’s head. Twirling like weird little dancers, like aliens on a spaceship as even greener eyes looked down at him frantically. Dean was green like the hope of the first spring leaves, green like liveliness and new things. Green like the environment he destroyed with his gas-guzzling muscle car.
Damn, Sam thought, that venom is really doing a number on me. Because really, who even thought things like ‘my brother is green’. As the trees slowed down to a gentle waltz, Dean shook him and mouthed something that Sam didn’t understand. He wasn’t a lip-reader, after all.
Dean pulled Sam up, the movement sending a thousand licking flames up Sam’s side and into his lungs and his heart as he burned red, red, red. Then Dean’s hand was on his neck, cool green hands, soft eyes. Or the other way around. Ughh. Whatever that monster had in its teeth, it would make for one hell of a drug on the black market.
And Dean was green like that, too. Green like poison as he stood between Sam and the entire world. He was green because good things were green. The good buttons, the green light. Good against the red that was Sam.
Red like blood on his side and on his hands. Red like heat and inflamed skin. Red like…
“Damn it, Sammy. Answer me.” Dean pleaded.
Sam opened his mouth, tried to twist it into forms that would resemble words. Attempted to choke out something that wasn’t a moan or a gurgle.
“M’yeah. ‘M here.” He managed as his tongue screamed at him to stop, a bright-red, flickering stop-sign. Danger! Danger! You’ll lose air over those words!
“Good.” Came a sigh from somewhere above Sam. “Good. Let’s get you back to the car, huh? Figure out an antidote?”
Sam nodded and the trees jumped up and down on pogo-sticks as roots twirled like jump-ropes under his feet. Dean was under his arm. Green like nature, pure and good and always there. God, everything hurt. Deep, tearing aches. Fire like long gouges under his skin.
“Talk to me, dude.” Dean yelled. Or whispered. It was noise at least and it shattered Sam’s eardrums.
“’Bout what?” Sam gasped as a wave of red-hot pain roiled under his skin.
“I dunno…” Dean said and was that desperation in his voice, as he searched for something to talk about? “Jessica. Tell me about Jessica.”
Pain stabbed his heart like a fire-truck, red and angry. It was worse almost than the other pain, because he couldn’t fix this, he couldn’t hold out until a hospital or a motel and get someone to stitch it up. This pain wouldn’t go, it would fester and boil in his heart until he no longer recognised himself. Until he turned into a stone-cold hunter with blood on his hands and an obsession in his mind that he had convinced himself he hated.
Sam looked up, away from the deepening ground and the worried green of Dean’s eyes. Anywhere that would take away the memories that slammed into him with the force of a hurricane. Stars shined bright above the tree-tops. Blinking lights, with nothing to interrupt their glow.
Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you. And everything you do.
Yeah they were all yellow.
Jess had liked Coldplay. She used to sing their songs loud and off-tune as Sam tried to study. Just to piss him off.
“Jess was yellow.” Sam slurred. Dean looked at him like he’d grown a second head, but he didn’t interrupt, didn’t make the sarcastic comment that was undoubtedly zinging through his mind. Something like ‘You mean she had liver problems?’.
“Blonde, happy. Yellow.” Sam explained, but he didn’t have breath for more.
He wanted to say so much. Jess was blonde and happy and alive. She was like the sun, this bright orb of happiness that had warmed Sam to the very core. She was yellow like butter that melted on your tongue. Like a radiation sign when she was angry. She could have been like that, deadly and powerful, but she wasn’t. Instead she was yellow sunflowers that turned their heads in the afternoon sun. She was the yellow of a Van Gogh painting as she tried to capture the same intricacies in her own strokes.
“What did she like doing?” Dean pressed, desperate for anything that kept Sam awake and talking, probably.
Sam saw Jess bowed over her table, writing things on the yellowed pages of her journal. You had to write things in a journal, she had said, because it was better than typing on computer. More real. And you needed to write things down to remember them.
He saw her strumming a guitar on the beach as a fire roared between them. She could do a few songs, but she was never really any good. In his mind, Sam heard her singing, soft voice lilting and cracking. A for effort and an A+ for heart.
I came along. I wrote a song for you. And all the things you do.
And it was called Yellow.
“She wrote things.” Sam murmured and he thought he saw her standing between the trees. Tall and golden haired and smiling. Waving at him in that sarcastic way she liked to, stand-offish and looking away. Like he couldn’t hear her voice. Like he couldn’t hear her whispering to her friends, look at him. That’s my boyfriend. Isn’t he amazing?
She never could keep her voice down. Yellow just wasn’t a very subtle colour.
“What kind of things?” Dean urged, some of the panic in his voice receding now that he had gotten a real answer.
“Poems. Songs. Liked t’ rhyme.” Sam said, and now he really saw her. Yellow summer dress waving in an absent wind. Soft hands brushing through his hair. Almost like she was his again, like she’d ever been his. She never had, though. She’d never been anyone’s really. No one ever belonged to anyone. But he’d stolen some time with her. Taken his turn in the bright shine of her life.
So then I took my turn. Oh what a thing to’ve done.
And it was all yellow.
She was still singing. Murmuring into his ear. The same way that she used to, as they lay in bed, arms and legs intertwined, her soft voice behind him. The songs had been dirty sometimes, and he would look at her, this woman so entirely out of his league, and marvel. Marvel at her soft hair and her yellow smile.
Your skin. Oh yeah your skin and bones. Turn into something beautiful.
You know I love you so.
Dean was saying something again. Louder and louder, but Sam couldn’t hear it. He had eyes only for Jess. His girlfriend. His almost fiancé. The most beautiful and wonderful woman in the world. She supported him on one side, strong arm around his waist, soft skin warming his.
“You’re here.” Sam whispered. He felt her breath across his cheek as she turned to him, worried but strong.
“Of course I am.” She answered, “You’d crash and burn without me, remember?”
She smiled at that, burrowed deeper against him and continued. Coldplay, sung in her warm voice, yellow like the dancing flames in
the fire-place at her parents’ house. God, he loved her so much. He would do anything for her. Anything.
I swam across. I jumped across for you. Oh what a thing to do.
Cause you were all yellow.
Dean was there again, shaking him, trying and failing to grab his attention. How could he ever grab it over Jessica? Green was never bright enough to exceed yellow. Never would be. You needed yellow to make green, it could never exist alone and yellow would always, always come first.
Except that one time that it didn’t.
He’d left her for Dean. Alone, defenceless. She hadn’t even known what was out there, she never would have, if Sam had had a say in it. He would do anything, tell her anything, but he drew the line at involving her in their world. He didn’t want to dunk her beautiful, shining yellow into his own bloody red. Into the black massacre that lived in the shadows.
Sam felt his knees give way, his side throbbing in time with his heart as Jess smiled at him and held him close. Held him up.
I drew a line. I drew a line for you. Oh what a thing to do.
And it was all yellow.
They’d turned orange, the two of them. Sam’s dark red and Jess’ bright yellow. For a while, Sam had thought they could do it. That they could live on in the colour of the setting sun. That their life could be zest and the fresh smell of orange peels. That they could live in the apartment that had, when the moved in, looked straight out of a seventies sitcom. Orange had adorned the walls, and the floor and even the bed.
In the end the red had won, bleeding from a gash in Jessica’s stomach and falling on his head in an insane mimic of the soft rain that they’d first met in.
“Sorry,” Sam told Jess, tears falling from his eyes as his lips went numb, “Jess, I’m so sorry.”
She simply shook her head and dragged her hand through his hair. Or was that Dean? They were mixing and…
No, it was Jess. So beautiful. So alive. So much better without Sam to ruin her life.
Your skin. Oh yeah your skin and bones. Turn into something beautiful.
Ironically, it had been yellow that destroyed her in the end, Sam thought. Like everything about her was yellow. She’d choked on the yellow flames of a yellow eyed demon.
And suddenly the colour had become everything Sam despised. Everything he needed to find and kill. He hated it, hated how a monster had corrupted the purest, most beautiful of colours.
And you know, for you I’d bleed myself dry.
She was fading. Everything was fading and Sam wondered if it was the venom or the blood loss that was doing him in. He wondered if he’d see Jess. Wondered if the light at the end of the tunnel would be yellow.
He wondered what Dean would do. What would happen to that bright, lively green? Would it fade like the yellow had? Bleed out like the red in Sam’s body?
Sam felt something guide him down, lay him on his back so he could look up at the sky. At a pair of green eyes in front of green leaves.
For you I’d bleed myself dry.
The lyrics had seemed strange to Sam once. A different Sam. An orange Sam. Now he understood.
He’d bleed out every red drop of blood. He would tear out every piece of himself, if it meant getting Jessica back.
If it meant not losing green. No, not green. Dean. He would not, could not, lose Dean.
Behind the green were stars.
Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you.
Maybe Jess was looking down. Like in the Lion King. Maybe the yellow glow and the soft fingers in his hair were a falling star, Jess looking down at him.
And all the things you do.
Dean was green like life and poison. Sam was red like fire and blood. But Jess? She was like everything soft and warm.
Yeah Jess was all yellow.