Work Text:
Sammie only makes it home by leaving no room in his head for anything except the car and the road and the way back. Everything else is forced out of his head and into his body and it has nowhere else to go, trembling and trembling and clutching with a grip so tight it would hurt if he could register anything beyond grief. Somehow he releases the steering wheel and limps his way inside, distantly aware he’s a wreck in more ways than one.
But the remnants of the guitar continue to dig into his palm, and Sammie cannot relax his grip even if he wants to. Even as his father orders it, pleads for his soul, pleads, in his own way, for Sammie to be alright, to be saved and safe.
Sammie cannot let the guitar fall.
It’s not a conscious thought. His thoughts are all a haze, numb; the specifics are still stuck in his trembling skin and the wounds on his face.
Sammie does not let the guitar fall.
His father knows Sammie had a brush with the devil. But Sammie can’t explain...
That guitar had been his salvation. And so he will not let it fall.