Author: Lauren.

Rating: Rated M.

Character/Pairing: Haley, Dean, Sam, Jess, Dean/Haley, Sam/Jess, Haley/Jess, Sam/Haley

Summary: If you could only see the beast you've made of me.

Disclaimer: The storyline and AU scenario is mine. I claim nothing else.

Author's Note: I'm pretty sure that this is a one shot, but I wanted to post it anyway because I liked it. It's raw and painful and I love Jess at the moment, so I'm probably going to be writing a hell of a lot about her. She's my new favourite girl (: But yes, this is essentially Dean and Haley, because I never took the Saley relationship as being romantic. Hope you enjoy, and detailed reviews are so much love it hurts.

Sometimes she called her voicemail just to hear her voice.

So breezy and light and beautiful. And then the grief tore through her again and she was breathless and crying on the floor.

It was on those nights that she needed him the most, when it was all over her head and everything was moving too quickly and the days seemed like years. When she couldn't even frame her name without wanting to curl up and die. And it wasn't fair. But then nothing was, he'd always say and they'd spend another night together. Trying to make some kind of sense, or just forget, she didn't know. But she never felt so alive as when his hands were on her. She never felt anything at all.

The pain was good. When the creatures threw her around, smacked her down, squeezed her until her bones popped. Because when the blood was flowing, she knew that there was something inside of her still. Like maybe there was a way back from this. This state she'd become frozen in. Her life without Jess.

And Sam did such a good job of holding it all together, it made her ashamed. The way his sad eyes regarded her, taking in the bruises and broken bones and the empty expression. But they'd travel on, like they always did.

Painkillers and M&Ms. That was all she needed to survive. She knew Jess would have disapproved, would have hidden the chocolate, told her they had no nutritional value.

She could taste the smoke on her tongue even now. Feel her throat drying, her chest constricting, curl her fingers and dig her nails into her palms and cry. Fall on her knees and crunch her knuckles into the asphalt because she couldn't get closer, the heat consumed her. Inside out.

And then she'd find him, and press her body against his with the urgency that only his skin on hers could fix. See what you've made me, Jess. See who I am now?

Guns in her hands, wishing she could go back and get there ten minutes earlier, just to see her face again, radiant in her and Sam's happiness. Confetti and tulle and lilacs. She always smelt of lilacs. When they'd been roommates, the dorm had stank of it. And now Haley stank of it. Smelt of death.

And Dean tasted like coffee grounds. Like salt and fire and destruction because Haley wanted to drown. Drown in him and never find her way out. Let me crash and burn, it's what I really want. It's what I really want. What did she really want?

Jess.

They'd found him days later, his eyes hollow and darkened and she'd feared the worse. Feared when she thought she had nothing left. Clenched her hand in a fist around Sam's shirt as he cut him down because she couldn't stand to touch him, to feel the cold, the empty spaces between his bones where Dean used to be. And he'd told them about Sam and Mary and Jess. And God it had hurt. Too much. Like tearing her open inside, again and again. And it stung worse than smoke and fire and the blood that had been dripping from the ceiling.

Death is the easy part. It's the devastation, the emptiness, the things that still touch you after they're gone. Countless times she'd screamed at Jess, safely contained in dreams, until her best friend silenced her and the words were just bubbles and lilacs.

And she'd whisper to him while he slept. Secrets and memories and lies. And everything else that she knew she could never tell him while they were both conscious.

Sam held her together. He was safety and stability, and the long shadow he cast could always stitch her up. He radiated memories of Jess but she didn't care, she couldn't have avoided him even if she'd wanted to. And she didn't. Want to.