peace in pieces
real-placebo-effect
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for alex. i loved you so i drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars. also on tumblr.
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i.
He falls in love with Jess and it's undeniable, inevitable, understandable.
Her shoulders shove at Sam's when they walk together, she doesn't hesitate to kick at his legs or pinch his sides. Jess is all sharp humour and pop culture references and fresh jasmine and soft angles.
When they're in bed, she fits against against his chest, legs locking around his waist, mouth molded against his own. Nails rake down his back, she pulls at his hair and marks his neck.
Their hands join, and it's seamless; like joining one half to the other.
It was inevitable that he'd fall in love with Jess because she was everything Dean was and everything Sam wasn't and she fits against him in a way he never thought anyone else ever would, again.
ii.
His shoulders quake with the weight of the world and the Impala is silent as Dean tries to outrun memories again. Each drop of blood and wet gasp and curl of flame echoes behind Sam's eyelids to flood his face.
Dean doesn't touch him, doesn't embrace him, reach for his hand or even pat his shoulder.
Dean does what he does best and keeps on driving. Sam is a map of tragedy and broken countries and Dean tries to drive his way through with a give 'em hell attitude and his GED.
Sam's edges are burnt by fresh jasmine incense.
iii.
Sam spends the next three years breaking exquisitely, with each letter carved into his soul, digging its claws in deeper and deeper, etched out into him forever like Dean's cooling, bleeding, congealing body.
M-O-N-S-T-E-R
iv.
Dean comes back and that should heal him but it doesn't; Dean's accusing glares and sharp words and barely-there Sammy's drip poison the scars of old words, makes them raw and real and red again, overflowing until he can taste it in the back of his throat, feel it in the barrel of his Glock.
In comparison, Ruby's blood tastes sweet.
v.
I will never lie to you. I will never betray you. But you will say yes to me.
Lucifer stands across the room from him and his hands are across his chest. Sam doesn't think he'll ever stop breaking, doesn't think he'll ever be whole, but he's Sam, he's Dean's little Sammy and he'll drag himself back because he's gotta. Because he owes Dean this, owes him more than just a bowl of Lucky Charms, or his heart, or his soul. He owes Dean allegiance and loyalty and faith — things he can't afford himself, but he can give it to Dean.
Lucifer's eyes are a vast, impossible blue with a twist of understanding. His misery eclipses the Devils' too wide slice of waning sad smiles.
vi.
He falls, falls, falls, never to hit the ground, never to shatter to pieces, never to be allowed to pick himself up again and make himself whole.
Sam falls, endlessly, torn apart by archangels and barely put back together again.
vii.
Maybe one day, Sam'll meet a girl, with wildfire eyes and tempestuous hair and a grin wide enough for him to curl in. (Maybe, she'll get on her knees in a nondescript bar and Sam'd brace his hands against the tiles and come down her throat uncontrollably. Maybe, she'll lie awake in bed with him, just touching and feeling, hands stroking his face and chest and back and threading through his hair, like Dad and Dean and Bobby never did.
Maybe, she'll kiss every single inch of him — all of him, in and out — and hum stupid catchy tunes just so he knows that despite everything, Sam is the most beautiful man she's ever seen. Maybe, she'll whisper it in the dark, turn on the lights and whisper it, say that she knows he's broken, broken so bad, but that it doesn't mean he's useless, doesn't always mean it's a bad thing. Maybe, Sam would see Lucifer again, smirking and playing with a hot poker, and she would kiss him until he forgets to breathe, and when he opens his eyes again, Sam will know what's real.
Maybe she won't fit against him quite right; their hands don't lock together, her lips formed against his own, hipbones scraping. Maybe, she's not everything Dean is or everything Sam is and maybe she's just herself.)
Maybe, Sam won't.
In the meantime, there's a Möbius strip of road in front of him and Dean's singing at the top of his lungs and the sky is vast and welcoming as Sam falls into it, breaking apart once more, and he finds peace in pieces.