Fic: Sing a Song of Revolution (Gen, Supernatural, Remix)
I pinch hit for Remix Redux this year due to the regulations still discounting crossovers when gauging eligibility (I'm just going to drabble my tuckus off this summer and get myself eligible for full-fledged participation next year). My remixee was the delightful elliemurasaki, and I picked Sing a Sad Song, her coda to My Bloody Valentine, which made extensive use of the song 'Hey Jude,' as my source material, and which I highly recommend you read first. My concept was pretty simple: 'Revolution' is the b-side of 'Hey Jude,' and so I flipped the subject matter too: instead of Dean POV and reflections on Mary, this is Sam POV with reflections on John.
Title: Sing a Song of Revolution
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13 (language, dark subject matter)
Disclaimer: Supernatural is the property of Eric Kripke, the CW, and their associated corporate entities. I make no claim to these characters. The lyrics to 'Revolution' are credited to Lennon-McCartney.
Beta: booster17, who, as per usual, was right about everything.
Summary: For Sam, withdrawal blurs the lines between past and present, between real and imagined, and between Lennon-McCartney.
"No - no, Dean, not like this, please. Cas, please, tell him - there's got to be - not like this, I'm begging you. I can control it, really." Sam could use his powers now, so much power flowing through his veins right now, he can feel it burning through him, itching to be let out, could use it to make them stop, but that would be proof he didn't have control, wouldn't it? "You don't get it, I took too much, I have to work my way down, cold turkey's gonna kill me." This too falls on deaf ears: there's regret and not much else in Dean's eyes as he locks the cuffs shut on Sam's wrists. "Please, Dean, don't do this to me - it hurts so bad, you've gotta help me." They're walking away from him again, won't look in the monster's eyes.
"Please," Sam begs in a whisper as the iron door bolts shut, leaving Sam no choice but to lie back on the cot in the safe room and wait for the demon blood to work its way out of his system.
No one in here but Sam, he reminds himself, though the ghosts of his past would be here soon enough - but they weren't even ghosts, just hallucinations, have to remember that. Sam adjusts himself on the cot, sitting up, looking around the safe room. Have to calm down, if he's worked up now, it's only going to get worse as the cravings take hold. Sam counts things: there are sixteen boxes of shells on the table. There are at least fifteen braids in Bo Derek's hair, seven beads on each braid, four of the little ball ones, three of the long ones. Sam can't concentrate hard enough to count the rivets in the wall, there are too many, locking him in, alone - still alone. But he can count the chain links, only two links on the cuffs, binding Sam's two hands to the one cot. Sam leans his head against the cool iron of the wall, cool contrast to the burning inside of his skin but not enough to give him any kind of relief.
The voices are starting to shout in his head, a growing cacophony still indistinct from one another. Sam hums to himself; for now he can drown the voices out. They get louder and more insistent, so Sam starts to sing along, under his breath. "But when you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out?" He laughs at the line, knowing that he sounds a little manic, a little unhinged. "Don't you know it's gonna be all right?" The laughter rushes out of him then, turns into something hysterical.
"What exactly you laughing at, son? That goddamn hippie Lennon wasn't talking about you, because things are most certainly not all right, are they, Sam?" This isn't Dad from 1978 hissing in Sam's face - not the man Sam had come to peace with - no, this is more like Dad circa 1998, the summer Sam had discovered how much his father hated that song - which meant that Sam had played it at every opportunity until Dean had tossed the last cassette copy of it out on the side of Interstate 80. "Look at you. Still have demon blood smeared on your mouth, you monster."
Sam can't help it, his tongue darts out, licks at whatever little residue might be left in reach. Dad scowls, clucks his tongue. "Disgusting. So weak and useless, chained down like the rabid dog you are." Sam cringes and curls his legs up under his chin, burying his face between his knees. He really can't deal with his father and withdrawal at the same time; hadn't been able to deal with living through it the first time either - either of them. Sam was never cut out for life under a marine drill sergeant. Ran away to Stanford instead, wanted to change his life, change the world, we all want to change the world. He had always figured Dad hated that song because of the whole Vietnam-vet thing, and maybe, in part, it had been. "When are they gonna put you down, do you think?"
Where's Dean? He'd been with Sam, rummaging through one of Dad's mini-storage units a few years back. They'd been looking for the charm to help them with a bitch of a water elemental and Sam had found a collection of 45s in a floral-print box. Dean always distracted Dad when he got like this. "Dean! Help! Please!"
Dad snorts. "What, can't take the truth, can you? Big brother's not going to bail you out this time, can't stand to even look at you." Well, what else is Sam supposed to do, chained to the fucking cot? Say you've got a real solution, we'd all love to see the plan, Sam. Dean, who normally latched onto anything of Mom's he could get his hands on, could only handle so many Joni Mitchell and Mamas and the Papas hits before he had started complaining that he couldn't take it any more.
Sam couldn't take this anymore. No, no, no. "Help! Help! Dean - Cas! Cas, are you out there, please?"
Sam knows it's only the memory of tequila stink on Dad's breath as the hallucination leans in. "You really think the angel's gonna free you again after what you did last time?" he sneers, twisting Sam's thoughts around with his mind that hates - Sam's mind, just a hallucination, Dad's dead; was two years dead when Sam figured out why the sleeve for 'Hey Jude' was so heavy - there were two copies of the disc inside. He put each on the turntable and confirmed his suspicion: Mom had worn the track right off of the first copy. The other side, the b-side, 'Revolution,' wasn't in much better shape.
Sam's in pretty bad shape as the first of the real cravings hits. "Help! Help!" he cries, and the pain hits like a full body cramp and he howls in agony while his father laughs at him. Sam's crying for Dean or Castiel or anyone to take this feeling out of him. But they don't come, they never come, second verse same as the first - the second copy, that one from the 1975 pressing, was well on its way to the same condition; Mary must have listened to them hundreds, maybe thousands of times over the years - more times than Dean had played Zeppelin II. Everything's gonna be all right, everything's gonna be all right, lyrics his mother would have hummed into his ears as an infant, before Azazel stood in her place and dripped the poison Sam so badly needs into his mouth for the first time.
Dad's chuckling now. "Still blaming the demon for all your troubles there, Sam?" Dad crouches and fills Sam's field of vision. "But then you could have stopped this all, couldn't you? But you hesitated - shot me in the leg like the worthless coward you are. Couldn't seal the deal. Couldn't bear to think of how your brother would hate you for killing me - but then I wound up dying anyway, didn't I?" Sam feels his father's thick calloused fingers lifting his chin. "And because you let Azazel go, he was able to send you to Cold Oak where you got killed by a real soldier, and then your brother had to bail your sorry ass out once again. Went to hell for you, and what did he come back to? A blood-sucking freak."
It's true, it's Sam's fault, all his fault, and Sam can't respond with anything but a wordless scream, can't lift his hands to his ears to block out words that are in his head in the first place, even with his eyes shut he can see his father. Dad's eyes are so cold - had Mary ever seen John's eyes like this, the way Sam remembers seeing too many times? The cupid said they couldn't stand each other at first. Dad hated that song, had Mom lashed out against destiny with music? But Dad hadn't looked like this in 1978, he hadn't been cold and hard then, wouldn't have looked like this in 1973 either, the first time Dean got sent back. "He could have stopped this," Sam mutters, needing this anger, needing something other than the pit of despair consuming him from the inside out, as bad as the cravings for blood. "Dean, you - you could have gone after Azazel! Killed him before he poisoned me and Jake and Ava and all of us! Before he made Jake open the Devil's Gate and let out Lilith and Ruby! Before everything! Dean for the first seal, Lilith for the last, and me and my demon blood to unlock them both, and Azazel did that, all of it, and you could have stopped him! All his special kids, everyone we killed, Lily's girlfriend and Ava's fiancé and Jake's whole squad, everyone who died because the Devil's Gate opened, the whole damn world, you could have saved them all!"
The words burn his throat as Sam shouts them out, but they ring hollow even in his ears - he knows whose fault this all is, and it's not Dean's. "We all want to change your head," whimpers Sam. Dean who left Sam alone, alone again, the illusion of Dad gone now, and Sam shudders, sobs wracking his body for what seems like forever until he's dried out of tears if not dried out of the addiction. The cuffs chafe his wrists and his throat's sore. Everything's sore and raw and open and Sam's so fucking tired he can't bring himself to react as the door unbolts, just stares up at the ceiling; four blades on the ventilation fan that never stops turning, the cravings not tolerable but not quite killing him if Sam can just stay still and quiet.
Then Dean, the prick, splashes Sam's face with holy water, can't leave well enough fucking alone. Sam's not a demon, not yet, just needs the blood to make being a human okay again for a minute. "Let me out you son of-" he snarls as he sits up, but Dean just shoves a spoon in his mouth, so Sam spits the liquid right back in in his brother's self-righteous fucking face. It's salty and warm and red as it drips off of Dean's nose, a fucking mockery, that's what it is. "That's not, I need, I need-"
"You need food, man," Dean lies. Dean fucking knows what Sam needs, but he won't let Sam have it, tell me it's the institution, say it's for his own good. Always knows better, yeah, right. Sam doesn't have to put up with this; Dean's not in his head, Sam can shut him out. Sam presses his lips together, won't meet his brother's exasperated gaze even as Dean squeezes his nostrils close until Sam has to open his mouth to breathe, nearly drowns when Dean pours another spoonful of soup into his mouth at the same time, and holds his jaw shut until Sam swallows. Dean sighs like the drama queen he always denies being - are we going to have to do this each time? - and if Sam's throat weren't so raw and the warm wet soup didn't feel so good going down, then Sam would gag it back up and see if a little puke wouldn't be enough to convince Dean to fuck off.
Instead Sam submits, lets his brother feed him like he did when Sam was a toddler, and a couple of times when he was older, too. Dean takes care of him, always has; why had Sam been so mad about this a minute ago? Better free your mind instead. Sam lets the next mouthful linger on his tongue, finally identifies the flavor - finally looks into his brother's eyes, and they're cold and empty, like Dad's. A hint of the anger flares, not so strong now, but Sam doesn't need much to pull off indignant. "Tomato rice soup?" he says, "I'm not six, dude. Or sick," and he stops there, because with mood swings like this, there's the faint possibility that he may be a little sick in the head at this moment.
Dean calls his bluff. "Bullshit," he grunts before he offers up the spoon again, but now he lets Sam slurp the soup himself. When the soup is gone, Dean sets the bowl aside and tips a bottle of water down Sam's throat, just the right angle that Sam is able to swallow it comfortably, and before he knows it the bottle is empty. Can't trust his sharp tongue well enough to ask for another bottle. Awareness of this regular thirst joins the pain of that other thirst - the one that, for right now, Sam can push away. He focuses on his brother's gentle ministrations, cold wet cloth wiping his brow, cleaning the welts from the cuffs; massaging circles that ease some of the tension out of Sam's forearms.
He wrinkles his nose: something stinks. It's not Dean; Dean smells like leather, garlic, and rye whiskey. Wears Dad's jacket, drives Dad's car, but can't stomach Dad's drink - no matter how many times he protests otherwise. Sam has cleaned the bathroom afterwards often enough to know better than to trade tequila shots with his brother. This smells as bad as those bathrooms, but different. What the hell's that smell? There's a bucket at the other end of the cot, but Sam hasn't needed it yet, and judging by all the sweat that Dean mops off of him, he won't need it for some time. The sweat: that's what smells, Sam's own human stink.
The sweat means Sam's human, why's Dean trying to take his humanity away from him? Dean thinks he's nothing but a blood-sucking freak, that's why - never took that back, still means it, you ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow. Sam can see it reflected in Dean's otherwise empty eyes. The growl wells up in Sam's chest and before he can stop himself he shoves Dean away. Shouldn't be wasting his time cleaning up the freak. Freak can't even be trusted with a spoon or bowl that Dean snatches out of Sam's reach, takes back every trace of himself that he brought in, every bit but the soup that sits heavy in Sam's stomach now that the panic room door slams shut again.
Sam screams for Dean to come back, but the sound just bounces off the walls. Bobby built the room with iron walls and rubbed salt into them, it's protecting Sam from the ghosts and the demons outside, but not from the ones within. Sam curls back in on himself, willing Dean's soup to work its way through his system faster, demon-proof his insides; a childhood remedy to banish the ghosts of Sam's memory.
"Everything's gonna be all right," he huffs, and maybe Dad did have a point, because all Sam can think is that Lennon was full of shit with that line. Revolution just means it's gonna come around again anyway.
Title: Sing a Song of Revolution
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG-13 (language, dark subject matter)
Disclaimer: Supernatural is the property of Eric Kripke, the CW, and their associated corporate entities. I make no claim to these characters. The lyrics to 'Revolution' are credited to Lennon-McCartney.
Beta: booster17, who, as per usual, was right about everything.
Summary: For Sam, withdrawal blurs the lines between past and present, between real and imagined, and between Lennon-McCartney.
"No - no, Dean, not like this, please. Cas, please, tell him - there's got to be - not like this, I'm begging you. I can control it, really." Sam could use his powers now, so much power flowing through his veins right now, he can feel it burning through him, itching to be let out, could use it to make them stop, but that would be proof he didn't have control, wouldn't it? "You don't get it, I took too much, I have to work my way down, cold turkey's gonna kill me." This too falls on deaf ears: there's regret and not much else in Dean's eyes as he locks the cuffs shut on Sam's wrists. "Please, Dean, don't do this to me - it hurts so bad, you've gotta help me." They're walking away from him again, won't look in the monster's eyes.
"Please," Sam begs in a whisper as the iron door bolts shut, leaving Sam no choice but to lie back on the cot in the safe room and wait for the demon blood to work its way out of his system.
No one in here but Sam, he reminds himself, though the ghosts of his past would be here soon enough - but they weren't even ghosts, just hallucinations, have to remember that. Sam adjusts himself on the cot, sitting up, looking around the safe room. Have to calm down, if he's worked up now, it's only going to get worse as the cravings take hold. Sam counts things: there are sixteen boxes of shells on the table. There are at least fifteen braids in Bo Derek's hair, seven beads on each braid, four of the little ball ones, three of the long ones. Sam can't concentrate hard enough to count the rivets in the wall, there are too many, locking him in, alone - still alone. But he can count the chain links, only two links on the cuffs, binding Sam's two hands to the one cot. Sam leans his head against the cool iron of the wall, cool contrast to the burning inside of his skin but not enough to give him any kind of relief.
The voices are starting to shout in his head, a growing cacophony still indistinct from one another. Sam hums to himself; for now he can drown the voices out. They get louder and more insistent, so Sam starts to sing along, under his breath. "But when you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out?" He laughs at the line, knowing that he sounds a little manic, a little unhinged. "Don't you know it's gonna be all right?" The laughter rushes out of him then, turns into something hysterical.
"What exactly you laughing at, son? That goddamn hippie Lennon wasn't talking about you, because things are most certainly not all right, are they, Sam?" This isn't Dad from 1978 hissing in Sam's face - not the man Sam had come to peace with - no, this is more like Dad circa 1998, the summer Sam had discovered how much his father hated that song - which meant that Sam had played it at every opportunity until Dean had tossed the last cassette copy of it out on the side of Interstate 80. "Look at you. Still have demon blood smeared on your mouth, you monster."
Sam can't help it, his tongue darts out, licks at whatever little residue might be left in reach. Dad scowls, clucks his tongue. "Disgusting. So weak and useless, chained down like the rabid dog you are." Sam cringes and curls his legs up under his chin, burying his face between his knees. He really can't deal with his father and withdrawal at the same time; hadn't been able to deal with living through it the first time either - either of them. Sam was never cut out for life under a marine drill sergeant. Ran away to Stanford instead, wanted to change his life, change the world, we all want to change the world. He had always figured Dad hated that song because of the whole Vietnam-vet thing, and maybe, in part, it had been. "When are they gonna put you down, do you think?"
Where's Dean? He'd been with Sam, rummaging through one of Dad's mini-storage units a few years back. They'd been looking for the charm to help them with a bitch of a water elemental and Sam had found a collection of 45s in a floral-print box. Dean always distracted Dad when he got like this. "Dean! Help! Please!"
Dad snorts. "What, can't take the truth, can you? Big brother's not going to bail you out this time, can't stand to even look at you." Well, what else is Sam supposed to do, chained to the fucking cot? Say you've got a real solution, we'd all love to see the plan, Sam. Dean, who normally latched onto anything of Mom's he could get his hands on, could only handle so many Joni Mitchell and Mamas and the Papas hits before he had started complaining that he couldn't take it any more.
Sam couldn't take this anymore. No, no, no. "Help! Help! Dean - Cas! Cas, are you out there, please?"
Sam knows it's only the memory of tequila stink on Dad's breath as the hallucination leans in. "You really think the angel's gonna free you again after what you did last time?" he sneers, twisting Sam's thoughts around with his mind that hates - Sam's mind, just a hallucination, Dad's dead; was two years dead when Sam figured out why the sleeve for 'Hey Jude' was so heavy - there were two copies of the disc inside. He put each on the turntable and confirmed his suspicion: Mom had worn the track right off of the first copy. The other side, the b-side, 'Revolution,' wasn't in much better shape.
Sam's in pretty bad shape as the first of the real cravings hits. "Help! Help!" he cries, and the pain hits like a full body cramp and he howls in agony while his father laughs at him. Sam's crying for Dean or Castiel or anyone to take this feeling out of him. But they don't come, they never come, second verse same as the first - the second copy, that one from the 1975 pressing, was well on its way to the same condition; Mary must have listened to them hundreds, maybe thousands of times over the years - more times than Dean had played Zeppelin II. Everything's gonna be all right, everything's gonna be all right, lyrics his mother would have hummed into his ears as an infant, before Azazel stood in her place and dripped the poison Sam so badly needs into his mouth for the first time.
Dad's chuckling now. "Still blaming the demon for all your troubles there, Sam?" Dad crouches and fills Sam's field of vision. "But then you could have stopped this all, couldn't you? But you hesitated - shot me in the leg like the worthless coward you are. Couldn't seal the deal. Couldn't bear to think of how your brother would hate you for killing me - but then I wound up dying anyway, didn't I?" Sam feels his father's thick calloused fingers lifting his chin. "And because you let Azazel go, he was able to send you to Cold Oak where you got killed by a real soldier, and then your brother had to bail your sorry ass out once again. Went to hell for you, and what did he come back to? A blood-sucking freak."
It's true, it's Sam's fault, all his fault, and Sam can't respond with anything but a wordless scream, can't lift his hands to his ears to block out words that are in his head in the first place, even with his eyes shut he can see his father. Dad's eyes are so cold - had Mary ever seen John's eyes like this, the way Sam remembers seeing too many times? The cupid said they couldn't stand each other at first. Dad hated that song, had Mom lashed out against destiny with music? But Dad hadn't looked like this in 1978, he hadn't been cold and hard then, wouldn't have looked like this in 1973 either, the first time Dean got sent back. "He could have stopped this," Sam mutters, needing this anger, needing something other than the pit of despair consuming him from the inside out, as bad as the cravings for blood. "Dean, you - you could have gone after Azazel! Killed him before he poisoned me and Jake and Ava and all of us! Before he made Jake open the Devil's Gate and let out Lilith and Ruby! Before everything! Dean for the first seal, Lilith for the last, and me and my demon blood to unlock them both, and Azazel did that, all of it, and you could have stopped him! All his special kids, everyone we killed, Lily's girlfriend and Ava's fiancé and Jake's whole squad, everyone who died because the Devil's Gate opened, the whole damn world, you could have saved them all!"
The words burn his throat as Sam shouts them out, but they ring hollow even in his ears - he knows whose fault this all is, and it's not Dean's. "We all want to change your head," whimpers Sam. Dean who left Sam alone, alone again, the illusion of Dad gone now, and Sam shudders, sobs wracking his body for what seems like forever until he's dried out of tears if not dried out of the addiction. The cuffs chafe his wrists and his throat's sore. Everything's sore and raw and open and Sam's so fucking tired he can't bring himself to react as the door unbolts, just stares up at the ceiling; four blades on the ventilation fan that never stops turning, the cravings not tolerable but not quite killing him if Sam can just stay still and quiet.
Then Dean, the prick, splashes Sam's face with holy water, can't leave well enough fucking alone. Sam's not a demon, not yet, just needs the blood to make being a human okay again for a minute. "Let me out you son of-" he snarls as he sits up, but Dean just shoves a spoon in his mouth, so Sam spits the liquid right back in in his brother's self-righteous fucking face. It's salty and warm and red as it drips off of Dean's nose, a fucking mockery, that's what it is. "That's not, I need, I need-"
"You need food, man," Dean lies. Dean fucking knows what Sam needs, but he won't let Sam have it, tell me it's the institution, say it's for his own good. Always knows better, yeah, right. Sam doesn't have to put up with this; Dean's not in his head, Sam can shut him out. Sam presses his lips together, won't meet his brother's exasperated gaze even as Dean squeezes his nostrils close until Sam has to open his mouth to breathe, nearly drowns when Dean pours another spoonful of soup into his mouth at the same time, and holds his jaw shut until Sam swallows. Dean sighs like the drama queen he always denies being - are we going to have to do this each time? - and if Sam's throat weren't so raw and the warm wet soup didn't feel so good going down, then Sam would gag it back up and see if a little puke wouldn't be enough to convince Dean to fuck off.
Instead Sam submits, lets his brother feed him like he did when Sam was a toddler, and a couple of times when he was older, too. Dean takes care of him, always has; why had Sam been so mad about this a minute ago? Better free your mind instead. Sam lets the next mouthful linger on his tongue, finally identifies the flavor - finally looks into his brother's eyes, and they're cold and empty, like Dad's. A hint of the anger flares, not so strong now, but Sam doesn't need much to pull off indignant. "Tomato rice soup?" he says, "I'm not six, dude. Or sick," and he stops there, because with mood swings like this, there's the faint possibility that he may be a little sick in the head at this moment.
Dean calls his bluff. "Bullshit," he grunts before he offers up the spoon again, but now he lets Sam slurp the soup himself. When the soup is gone, Dean sets the bowl aside and tips a bottle of water down Sam's throat, just the right angle that Sam is able to swallow it comfortably, and before he knows it the bottle is empty. Can't trust his sharp tongue well enough to ask for another bottle. Awareness of this regular thirst joins the pain of that other thirst - the one that, for right now, Sam can push away. He focuses on his brother's gentle ministrations, cold wet cloth wiping his brow, cleaning the welts from the cuffs; massaging circles that ease some of the tension out of Sam's forearms.
He wrinkles his nose: something stinks. It's not Dean; Dean smells like leather, garlic, and rye whiskey. Wears Dad's jacket, drives Dad's car, but can't stomach Dad's drink - no matter how many times he protests otherwise. Sam has cleaned the bathroom afterwards often enough to know better than to trade tequila shots with his brother. This smells as bad as those bathrooms, but different. What the hell's that smell? There's a bucket at the other end of the cot, but Sam hasn't needed it yet, and judging by all the sweat that Dean mops off of him, he won't need it for some time. The sweat: that's what smells, Sam's own human stink.
The sweat means Sam's human, why's Dean trying to take his humanity away from him? Dean thinks he's nothing but a blood-sucking freak, that's why - never took that back, still means it, you ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow. Sam can see it reflected in Dean's otherwise empty eyes. The growl wells up in Sam's chest and before he can stop himself he shoves Dean away. Shouldn't be wasting his time cleaning up the freak. Freak can't even be trusted with a spoon or bowl that Dean snatches out of Sam's reach, takes back every trace of himself that he brought in, every bit but the soup that sits heavy in Sam's stomach now that the panic room door slams shut again.
Sam screams for Dean to come back, but the sound just bounces off the walls. Bobby built the room with iron walls and rubbed salt into them, it's protecting Sam from the ghosts and the demons outside, but not from the ones within. Sam curls back in on himself, willing Dean's soup to work its way through his system faster, demon-proof his insides; a childhood remedy to banish the ghosts of Sam's memory.
"Everything's gonna be all right," he huffs, and maybe Dad did have a point, because all Sam can think is that Lennon was full of shit with that line. Revolution just means it's gonna come around again anyway.