SPN fic: "Hard as Iron, Standing like a Stone"
This is a prose poem. No specific spoilers. No warnings. PG. 427 words.
The title is suggested by the poem, "In the Bleak Midwinter" by Christina Rossetti.
"Hard as Iron, Standing like a Stone"
Ice crystals spread, fractal,
the branches of a tree in winter,
curling across the glass in a mockery of life.
Ice freezes inward, crystals aligning molecules
tightly and more tightly as heat bleeds off,
leaving nothing but the dense order of intense cold.
Frost crawls across a glass, blurring the reality
of whatever's on the other side.
Breath on a mirror shivers, hardens.
Ice seals the surface of a lake,
submerged secrets darkened by depth.
In hell, a soul is slowly shutting down,
as the heat of his humanity drains
into a sink of absolute indifference.
Lucifer regarded him as a pretty plaything,
something nice to wear to the gala.
Lightbringer, Morningstar, a shell now, hollow,
so densely turned inward
that he's barely a blip on the event horizon--
but cold, so cold, pulling everything inside, icing it all over.
Sam is frozen there, inside the horror,
watching souls turn each other
inside out like writhing worms,
unknowingly straining toward their lord,
despairing for a glimpse of his fabled beauty,
never knowing how close they've come.
Shock upon shock sears into Sam's glazed eyes.
Lucifer doesn't gloat, shrunken so far down
Sam can hardly sense him;
all Sam feels is the biting numbness spreading out
from where the Morningstar has lodged,
a sliver in Sam's heart.
So Sam stares, unable to fight or fly,
as torturers crow and shredded souls plead,
agonies, cruelties, blasphemies unending.
No one tortures Sam.
No one asks him anything.
No one even sees him there.
The cage is the heart of hell,
Lucifer its sluggishly pounding beat,
cold fury eating away at souls all around them.
They don't know to question the source of their hatred,
misery, helpless, ravaging envy. They just feel
the cold burn, invisible sun irradiating it all.
Sam, though, he knows.
He knows who brought their Lord back to them.
He remembers slamming into the cage,
feeling himself locked home,
the cataclysmic burst, the shockwave
of twisted intent blasting outward,
spreading the sickness unstoppably.
Sam hears the sighs of all those souls,
the slither of blades and the indrawn breaths,
the pause before the shrieking resumes.
He hangs there, frozen, as Hell explodes around him.
Unceasingly, unceasingly, unceasingly,
what he has wrought presses in upon him.
His heart at last succumbs to Lucifer's icy sliver,
his eyes glaze over, his ears refuse to hear,
and Sam is sealed against the darknesses of the Pit.
Released, his memories are clear as crystal,
mind still sharp as splintered glass,
heart locked safe in a diamond sheath,
cool, collected, shattered, shards.
The title is suggested by the poem, "In the Bleak Midwinter" by Christina Rossetti.
"Hard as Iron, Standing like a Stone"
Ice crystals spread, fractal,
the branches of a tree in winter,
curling across the glass in a mockery of life.
Ice freezes inward, crystals aligning molecules
tightly and more tightly as heat bleeds off,
leaving nothing but the dense order of intense cold.
Frost crawls across a glass, blurring the reality
of whatever's on the other side.
Breath on a mirror shivers, hardens.
Ice seals the surface of a lake,
submerged secrets darkened by depth.
In hell, a soul is slowly shutting down,
as the heat of his humanity drains
into a sink of absolute indifference.
Lucifer regarded him as a pretty plaything,
something nice to wear to the gala.
Lightbringer, Morningstar, a shell now, hollow,
so densely turned inward
that he's barely a blip on the event horizon--
but cold, so cold, pulling everything inside, icing it all over.
Sam is frozen there, inside the horror,
watching souls turn each other
inside out like writhing worms,
unknowingly straining toward their lord,
despairing for a glimpse of his fabled beauty,
never knowing how close they've come.
Shock upon shock sears into Sam's glazed eyes.
Lucifer doesn't gloat, shrunken so far down
Sam can hardly sense him;
all Sam feels is the biting numbness spreading out
from where the Morningstar has lodged,
a sliver in Sam's heart.
So Sam stares, unable to fight or fly,
as torturers crow and shredded souls plead,
agonies, cruelties, blasphemies unending.
No one tortures Sam.
No one asks him anything.
No one even sees him there.
The cage is the heart of hell,
Lucifer its sluggishly pounding beat,
cold fury eating away at souls all around them.
They don't know to question the source of their hatred,
misery, helpless, ravaging envy. They just feel
the cold burn, invisible sun irradiating it all.
Sam, though, he knows.
He knows who brought their Lord back to them.
He remembers slamming into the cage,
feeling himself locked home,
the cataclysmic burst, the shockwave
of twisted intent blasting outward,
spreading the sickness unstoppably.
Sam hears the sighs of all those souls,
the slither of blades and the indrawn breaths,
the pause before the shrieking resumes.
He hangs there, frozen, as Hell explodes around him.
Unceasingly, unceasingly, unceasingly,
what he has wrought presses in upon him.
His heart at last succumbs to Lucifer's icy sliver,
his eyes glaze over, his ears refuse to hear,
and Sam is sealed against the darknesses of the Pit.
Released, his memories are clear as crystal,
mind still sharp as splintered glass,
heart locked safe in a diamond sheath,
cool, collected, shattered, shards.