a man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then he's still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away but then he's still left with his hands.
{❦} It started off as a simple question, one that she hadn’t really expected to utter. It had been bouncing around in her thoughts for a while and suddenly it fell from her lips on a whim, but now, looking at him, the two of them high in the clouds together, it could work. They could disappear in the sea of people, become two broken nobodies in a crowd. Excitement colors her voice, she’s nearly in his lap, her forehead pressed against his for a moment before she’s pouring herself another shot and nodding, placing the joint between his lips once again.
“We could do it, Sam. Leave everything behind.”
Her chance at a normal life was stolen away when she was five years old, her mother dead, her father snapped, jumped off the deep end, whatever. Point being, she hadn’t been happy in a long time. Pockets full of Daddy’s money and a fake id had gained her access to places a high schooler shouldn’t have set foot in, and for years she sought out dangerous situations, bad people, because nothing was scarierthan going home.
{ And if she died, well then she died. That was that. }
But that was when things got r e a l l y bad, her father didn’t like her stumbling in at seven in the morning with a bloody nose, her hair tangled and smelling of smoke, the taste of booze stuck behind her teeth. So he hit her harder, she drank more.
One or the other was bound to be the death of her, until she met Sam. And she clung to him like he was going to be able to save her, though he couldn’t even save himself.
There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in her mind, if she hadn’t met Sam, she wouldn’t be alive. If the drugs didn’t take her life, then she would have found her way into a dangerous place, one with people who wanted to hurt her, and she would have let them, because what else does she know? The white powder they gave her numbed the pain for a short while, that was all she had wanted. But just like Sam’s girl with dark hair, Autumn so called friends had left her. Daddy had found her drugs, sent her to the hospital, again. But since Sam had been around, there had been no drug-related hospital visits.
Together they just barely managed to keep their heads above the waves, buffering the blows that never seemed to cease. But to imagine a life, the two of them would be alone, safe, healthy, far away from this constant barrage of bullshit, she very nearly started packing a bag right then and there. A smile graces her features and one of her hands holds the bottle of vodka to her lips and the other cups his jaw, g e n t l y, turning his face towards her own, making sure he was listening.
“We could go anywhere, anywhere at all and no one would stop us.”
there was a time when sam would have laughed at running away and brushed the idea away as if it held no weight. it would’ve swirled in his head for a brief moment, a fantasy to enjoy but never adopt. something for rainy days when empty glass bottles lay vanquished at his dormant father’s feet.
it’s d i f f e r e n t now.
he is desperate now —- they both are — and the stakes are higher. his refuge has been sacked and burned to the ground, and where he once could hide from the world behind four solid walls, sam finds himself staring out at a pile of smoldering embers. he has nothing here, now. no hope of salvation, not for him orhis father. there is no reason to stay, nothing holding him here with iron fingers.
something flutters inside him, hesitance and hope and something bright, and s u d d e n l y his decision is made. he and autumn will shoulder their burdens and go, and they won’t stop until the crosses on their backs feel as light as the summer rain.
autumn’s hand is soft against his jaw, and he lets her mold him like clay. he sucks at the joint like he is dying, lips pursed tight around the white paper to hide the wide grin that threatens to stretch its way across his face. it’s finally happening. they’re standing up for themselves; going to make a move away from this depth of despair and turn their faces at last toward the sun.
she is beautiful in this moment, eager and convincing. something presses deep inside his chest and he laughs, tilting his head up to the ceiling, eyes closed as he pictures blue skies and wide open highways. it calls to him in a way nothing else ever has, and a rightness settles deep within his bones.
❝ let’s do it. —— let’s get out. ❞
he’s plagued by an itch, all of a sudden, something just beneath the surface of his skin that’s begging to be let out. for his entire life, he just hasn’t been good enough.
She reaches up and playfully tugs at a strand of his hair before settling back down, her eyes closing briefly. Her hand finds it’s way to his, the one that is twirling a strand of her hair around his finger and she laces their fingers together and just holds it.
They were both broken, that much was clear.
But more than anyone or anything, they could count on one another to build each other up, only to stumble back down together. It was a roller coaster. One day they’re doing great, drinking nothing but gatorade and going out with a group of people to the movies, the next they’re covered in bruises, laying on her couch with a bottle of vodka between them trying to numb themselves of everything but each other.
His lips wrap around the joint and he lights it, she watches. Her gaze lingers on his lips for a fraction of a second, because she wonders sometimes. The boy was her rock, her best friend, but sometimes she couldn’t help but let different thoughts take over. Like the time she had snuck from her house to his in the middle of the night. He had welcomed her into bed without question, let her snuggle against him and the two of them had just, gone to sleep.
Pressed against each other like lovers, but not really.
This is important though and she sits up, wincing a bit. She didn’t bother to mask her pain around him, he could see right though that facade anyway. Another shot, then the joint plucked from his mouth to be placed between her lips as she leans towards him, hands on his knees.
“D’you wanna run away?”
he snorts, the sound harsh and undignified, and the hand not currently twined in autumn’s hair flies up to rub at his scalp.
it’s times like these that sam wonders how things could have been. in another world, he and autumn would be whole. they could sit on the warm grass and drink cream soda and beer without wondering what new horror would slither its way across their afternoon sun. he could take her into the kitchen and they could bake cupcakes, and dean’s tongue would dart out from between his pink lips to lick the batter off the spoon and dad would smile and laugh and swat at the seat of his eldest son’s pants.
but happiness ——— truehappiness, just isn’t in the cards, and so they find comfort in what little they can.
sam had never wanted to end up like this - strewn out — high and d r u n k and hopeless. but he’d been seduced in all meanings of the word, by a pretty girl with dark hair who left him as high and dry as the soft white powder she kept in the back pocket of her jeans.
autumn is his only salvation, now. he’s so alone, rubbed raw from the absence of dean and the overwhelming presence of his father. she gives him something to cling to. she’s his oasis and his refuge, and when he’s here, pressed tight against her, he can a l m o s t pretend that they’re going to be okay.
sam watches her push herself up, rising like a mermaid breaking the surface of the ocean. her hair slides through his hand like silk, leaving his palm empty and seeking.
❝ run away? ❞
his first thought is overwhelming p a n i c , because no, he can’t leave. dean is coming back [he has to come back ] and sam has to be here when he does.
❝ where’d we go? ❞
but his panic is short-lived, evaporating like a puddle of muddy water in the summer sun, and sam replaces it with visions of him and autumn, together, with no one to pull them down from their place among the stars.
{❦} “I don’t know what we did to deserve this, like we’re both decent people right?”
She brushes her fingers over her cheek, a purplish bruise marring the pale skin, this time it hadn’t been so bad. Just a quick slap before he left, leaving her alone in the stupid oversized mansion that she was expected to call home. The moment his car pulled out of the driveway, she called Sam over, knowing he probably wanted to escape his house as well.
They weren’t anything past friends, though her head on his thigh might tell an outsider a different story. But they never fucked, she wasn’t even sure if he thought of her that way and the thoughts she had about him, the ones that friends didn’t have about each other, they were always fleeting .
They were friends, friends that understood each other and took solace in the presence of a soul that understood them.
So here they sat, her head on his thigh with an open bottle of booze and a couple shot glasses on the table before them, a little white joint between her fingers. She toyed with it for a moment before holding it up to his lips for him to take it from her and light it as she didn’t want to move around too much. Her head was hurting, her cheek ached and the bruises on her ribs from last were were still throbbing with a dull pain that she had nearly drowned out.
Only a few more shots and she would be fine.
”—Sam?”
❝ yeah, ‘course — of course we are. ❞
it’s hard to tell who he’s trying to convince, but even to his own ears his enthusiasm sounds forced, like a puzzle piece pressed into the wrong slot. his gaze slides down, catching the glimmer of movement as autumn moves her hand to the purpling mark on her cheek. a sharp pang of guilt slices through the flesh of his stomach, breaking off someplace d e e p inside him. she doesn’t deserve this, she really doesn’t, and it sucks because sam knows deep down inside that he does.
he’s dragging her down, he knows, but sam needs to be selfish for once. they’re both struggling against the tide, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll manage to keep their hands clasped together as the waves roll over their heads.
autumn’s head is a warm presence on his thigh, her hair like fire where he threads it through his calloused fingers. sam’s other hand is clenched around an empty shot glass, and he spares it enough presence of mind to pour himself another serving. alcohol has always been dean’s vice, but dean is gone now, and sam might as well take his place.
the alcohol b u r n s as it sears its way down his throat, leaving his stomach feeling warm and slightly woozy. anything is better than the alternative, though, and he takes the joint from autumn’s fingers, closing his lips around the end.
