escritoireazul | Meme: DVD Commentary for "flesh + blood" Supernatural, Jo Harvelle

wizened_cynic requested a DVD Commentary on "flesh + blood", a Supernatural Jo Harvelle story I actually wrote for

wizened_cynic back in 2008, for December Drabbles. (Before I was calling it December Drabbles, actually, and in my second year of grad school, how was that so long ago? The end of that semester was literally the halfway point of that grad program.)

Title: flesh + blood

This was towards the end of my lowercase titles phase (and actually, probably a bit after, now that I think about it, I just wasn't writing as much fanfic as I was writing profic, so you didn't see the shift so clearly in my fanfic titles), but I still think sometimes lowercase is exactly the impression I want to create. Not of unimportance, but of difference, a subtle (though perhaps not that subtle) note of discordance that things are a little off here. And since I was writing apocalypse fic set to a Christmas carol, yes, that's what I wanted.

Content: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Self-Harm

I wrote this in the middle of season four, but I wasn't watching season four, not really. I was still so angry at season three and the explosion of the misogyny and racism that had been present since season one, I couldn't watch season four. I also had absolutely zero interest in Castiel; at one point when I finally did marathon through part of season four, I said: there is no good reason for [Castiel] to be a white man and I am tired of stories about white men and their pain and drama or whatever.

I haven't watched Supernatural since.

Summary: Soon the world will shift and rise again.
Prompt: Written for: wizened_cynic who requested Jo and "What Child Is This"

I grew up not celebrating Christmas for religious reasons, and as a part of that, we were't allowed to participate in school celebrations, so I have very little knowledge of Christmas carols, and have to look them up each time. (I do love "Carol of the Bells" though.)

Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,

So when I looked up the lyrics then listened to it, I was struck by these lines in particular, the juxtaposition of the innocence of a newborn child and the salvation born from torn flesh and blood (and here you can see me finding the title), especially with some of the other lines, with their "loving hearts" and all. Salvation (safety) comes from sacrifice.

Jo curls her fingers around the hilt of the knife. It is worn, rough against her palm. Her thigh aches, burns, and grows tight as the blood dries. She will wash it away soon, clear her pale skin until she can see the sigils, the power beyond words she is cutting into her flesh.

This sharp introduction to Jo, in a world which could still be the world of the show, not an alternate universe as I'm actually envisioning, was intentional. This is safety (salvation) from sacrifice, her blood and her flesh and her pain. There is strength in symbols, and the shedding of blood is a symbol and an act at the same time.

Also, focusing on Jo the survivor who acts as opposed to Supernatural all our women are victims or villains was intentional, of course.

There are carolers on the street, and she can hear them through the closed window.

Or perhaps that is her memory, but she thinks that is wrong, too. No carolers would come to the Roadhouse. If they did, they would have been greeted with holy water and guns and holy words.

She has holy carved into her body, heaven and hell made into flesh.

Again, playing at details that might work into the actual canon of Supernatural, but trying to twist it just a little so that readers feel a bit on edge; will they be greeted with guns just because that's what the Harvelles do (as we've seen in the show), or is there something else going on here?

Jo's belief here is what is giving her power, not something outside forcing its way into her. She believes, and she has made the sacrifice, so she has become something more than she was before, without leaving that something before behind.

The window is cold when she presses her forehead against the glass. She leaves a blur, a streak of grease. She hasn’t washed her hair in weeks. The hot water stings too much, makes her wince and roll her body and mewl the pain.

The little details, how much hot water hurts when it hits cuts, and how her hair would have gone greasy; apocalyptic details in a world that is only subtly an apocalypse. There isn't pleasure in this pain for Jo, but there is safety and salvation and transcendence, and I was trying to capture that without eroticizing it completely.

Soon, she thinks, it will not matter that her home has burned nor her mother vanished. Killed, perhaps, or taken by the things which roam the dark.

Soon the world will shift and the voices which whisper promises to her will rise again.

Oh, hello apocalypse that actually could have occurred on the show but I didn't know it at the time. The monsters are winning, and Jo is doing everything she can to protect herself, paying her pound of flesh and blood (title!) to drive away the evil that tries to tempt her out of the sanctuary she has created for herself, her body as a temple, marked and preserved.