Fic: day springs eternal (Sam/Dean, R)
spnspringfling reveals are up! Reposting the story I wrote for the prompt "hope springs eternal," which turned out to be for inalasahl. Sam/Dean, rated R, 1376 words, usual disclaimers apply.
Notes: Set during Mystery Spot, so a warning for multiple character deaths, but ALSO warning for suicide (though that also doesn't last.) Angst, but not without a touch of hope. (I think I am constitutionally incapable of writing an actual unhappy ending.)
Summary: Tuesday after Tuesday, Dean keeps dying, and Sam keeps doing something stupid. The odds are against him, but Sam can't stop himself from hoping.
day springs eternal
For the first month of Tuesdays, Sam fights in familiar ways. He does what hunters do, what Dad drilled into them. Research. Observe. Fight.
His reflexes save Dean. Over and over. And it’s never enough. The moment always comes that he’s not quick enough, not perceptive enough, and Dean meets another unexpected death.
He realizes, soon enough, what’s going on. He tries to tell himself, with every death, that it doesn’t matter, isn’t real, that things will reboot and in ten, twenty, sixty seconds or less he’ll snap awake to the sound of Asia.
Sixty seconds of watching Dean bleed, choke, scream, seize, whimper, or stare in disbelief at the javelin through his chest. Sometimes Dean is afforded some last words, sometimes not. A few times, he murmurs, “Sammy.”
It’s real.
At the beginning of the second month, Sam simply doesn’t get out of bed. Dean’s confused, then annoyed, then worried, and then he loses his balance while trying to haul the sheets out from around Sam. Sam can’t get his arms free; he watches in close-up, freeze-frame motion as Dean crashes down full-length and his temple strikes the corner of the bedside table. He barely manages to disentangle himself from the increasingly sodden sheets in time to grab Dean’s head, pressing a hand to the wound now oozing grey matter as well as blood. He watches the light go out in Dean’s eyes for thirteen unbearable seconds before the radio starts up again and his own eyes open.
Whether coincidence, curse, or the universe displaying a twisted sense of humor, that seems to instigate a series of Tuesdays where Dean’s death is directly Sam’s fault. Sam recognizes that he’s clinically depressed, paranoid, and probably psychotic from lack of actual sleep by now, but he doesn’t realize just how bad it’s gotten until the morning after the fifty-fourth Tuesday.
On the fifty-fourth Tuesday, he’s listening to Dean humming off-key in the shower, familiar sound echoing not unpleasantly off the tiles, and reasons that, after all, he’s the one stuck in the loop. He needs to do something differently. Telling Dean - and that’s gotten so much faster and more efficient, cycle after cycle affording him the chance to refine it - hasn’t worked. He should have known it wouldn’t, shouldn’t have looked to his big brother to fix things once again. This is on him. He needs to be the one to break it.
The barrel is cool on his tongue, scent-taste of gun-oil disturbingly soothing. The muzzle nudges the roof of his mouth. He takes a deep breath and thinks of Dean’s eyes.
The bathroom door opens just as his brain sends the message to flex his finger.
Dean is yelling and lunging across the room, and Sam should have thought for more than a minute, should have known better - Dean’s face is an open book of disbelief and fear but there, already welling in his eyes, is guilt and god damn it, resignation. Because Sam was always going to leave, one way or another, and Dean was always going to blame himself.
Sam tries to short-circuit his nervous system, tries to stop it, but the message is already running down his arm, synapses firing, muscles tightening. Time slows, even more than at Dean’s deaths, and he has to watch the unbearable flowering of grief in Dean’s face as Dean fails to reach him.
There is a deafening noise, a sensation more shockwave than pain, and the radio kicks in again. It’s the morning after Sam shot himself, and Dean is grinning and mocking him.
He doesn’t get out of bed right away, just lies there and listens to Dean putter about the bathroom.
He can’t try that again. It didn’t work. And he knows what those sixty seconds are like. He should never have inflicted them on Dean - Dean, who also knows what it’s like to hold your brother as he dies; Dean, who made his stupid fucking deal to save Sam’s life, and fuck, Sam is a fucking idiot for making Dean live through those sixty seconds even if he doesn’t remember them now…
…Or maybe it didn’t reset right away. Maybe the day continued, until Dean died. Maybe Dean had to live through minutes, even hours of a dead Sam and no explanations, nothing but his own acid guilt and loneliness.
Sam can’t risk it.
The fact he didn’t even think about that until after the fact shocks him into the realization of just how crazy he’s gotten.
It’s freeing.
There’s a muffled groan from the bathroom.
Sam bursts through the door and yanks back the shower curtain - damn, damn, not this early, not today, he has to make sure Dean’s okay, that Dean isn’t carrying anything over from one day to the next, he couldn’t bear it if Dean remembered…
Dean isn’t dead. He’s jerking off. He’s close, too, judging from the harsh panted breaths and the expression on his face. His eyes widen in outrage at Sam’s intrusion but his hand keeps working, shiny purple head of his dick sliding slick and fast through the ring of his fingers.
Sam drops to his knees in shock and relief, mouth falling open on a startled gasp.
Dean makes a strangled noise and comes all over Sam’s face.
Sam snaps his eyes shut reflexively. He closes his mouth a second later. The taste on his tongue is salt like tears, bitter like despair.
Dean makes another noise, outrage or fear or disgust, Sam can’t tell, and there’s a flurry of noise and movement. Something - Dean’s knee or fist - knocks him off balance and the bathroom door slams. He reaches blindly for a towel, finds the soggy facecloth in the bottom of the tub and wipes his face. He can hear Dean scuffling, rustle of clothes, things being thrown around.
He stands, stares at the cloth in his hands. Drops it in the bathtub. Licks over his teeth.
He opens the bathroom door in time to see Dean flee. The motel room door hangs open, letting in the screech of the Impala as she peels out of the parking lot.
Sam shuts the door, lies down on the bed, stares at the ceiling, and can’t think.
A few hours later, there’s a knock on the door. Sam must look pretty scary when he answers, because housekeeping visibly flinches before informing him it’s check-out time. He stares blankly at her. When his brain finally processes the words, he shuts the door in her face and calls the office, putting another night on the card. It’s not like it’ll matter. Some things you can reset.
Some things you can’t.
It’s one of the long days: mid-afternoon comes, and Sam is still alone. It’s still the fifty-fifth Tuesday, Dean hasn’t died yet.
He hasn’t come back, either.
It occurs to Sam, shortly before sunset, that Dean must have jerked off in the shower every morning. Sam’s just never heard him before. Usually he’s pulling a shirt over his head, or a pillow over his ears. Once, listening to the click of a safety catch sliding off.
He’s still thinking about that when he wakes up on the fifty-sixth Tuesday.
He listens to the shower. He looks at the clock.
He opens the bathroom door.
Three out of four Tuesdays, Dean runs. Or punches Sam, knocks him back against the sink, shatters the mirror, breaks his nose or his jaw or his collarbone. Sam lies numbly on his bed until the day ends, staring at the ceiling, faced with an impossible choice. He has to hope Dean dies out there, alone: the alternative, that this is the Tuesday Dean remembers, is untenable. On those days, Dean never comes back, until the reset button is pressed.
Roughly every fourth Tuesday, Dean kisses him back.
One of these days, the curse will lift. It must; all things end. Sam knows the odds aren’t in his favor. Time will run out, Tuesday will shift to Wednesday, and Dean will remember. Dean won’t come back, and he won’t be looped back.
But every morning, Sam still goes in to Dean. Hoping. Because maybe, maybe, it will be the fourth Tuesday that holds their future.
Notes: Set during Mystery Spot, so a warning for multiple character deaths, but ALSO warning for suicide (though that also doesn't last.) Angst, but not without a touch of hope. (I think I am constitutionally incapable of writing an actual unhappy ending.)
Summary: Tuesday after Tuesday, Dean keeps dying, and Sam keeps doing something stupid. The odds are against him, but Sam can't stop himself from hoping.
day springs eternal
For the first month of Tuesdays, Sam fights in familiar ways. He does what hunters do, what Dad drilled into them. Research. Observe. Fight.
His reflexes save Dean. Over and over. And it’s never enough. The moment always comes that he’s not quick enough, not perceptive enough, and Dean meets another unexpected death.
He realizes, soon enough, what’s going on. He tries to tell himself, with every death, that it doesn’t matter, isn’t real, that things will reboot and in ten, twenty, sixty seconds or less he’ll snap awake to the sound of Asia.
Sixty seconds of watching Dean bleed, choke, scream, seize, whimper, or stare in disbelief at the javelin through his chest. Sometimes Dean is afforded some last words, sometimes not. A few times, he murmurs, “Sammy.”
It’s real.
At the beginning of the second month, Sam simply doesn’t get out of bed. Dean’s confused, then annoyed, then worried, and then he loses his balance while trying to haul the sheets out from around Sam. Sam can’t get his arms free; he watches in close-up, freeze-frame motion as Dean crashes down full-length and his temple strikes the corner of the bedside table. He barely manages to disentangle himself from the increasingly sodden sheets in time to grab Dean’s head, pressing a hand to the wound now oozing grey matter as well as blood. He watches the light go out in Dean’s eyes for thirteen unbearable seconds before the radio starts up again and his own eyes open.
Whether coincidence, curse, or the universe displaying a twisted sense of humor, that seems to instigate a series of Tuesdays where Dean’s death is directly Sam’s fault. Sam recognizes that he’s clinically depressed, paranoid, and probably psychotic from lack of actual sleep by now, but he doesn’t realize just how bad it’s gotten until the morning after the fifty-fourth Tuesday.
On the fifty-fourth Tuesday, he’s listening to Dean humming off-key in the shower, familiar sound echoing not unpleasantly off the tiles, and reasons that, after all, he’s the one stuck in the loop. He needs to do something differently. Telling Dean - and that’s gotten so much faster and more efficient, cycle after cycle affording him the chance to refine it - hasn’t worked. He should have known it wouldn’t, shouldn’t have looked to his big brother to fix things once again. This is on him. He needs to be the one to break it.
The barrel is cool on his tongue, scent-taste of gun-oil disturbingly soothing. The muzzle nudges the roof of his mouth. He takes a deep breath and thinks of Dean’s eyes.
The bathroom door opens just as his brain sends the message to flex his finger.
Dean is yelling and lunging across the room, and Sam should have thought for more than a minute, should have known better - Dean’s face is an open book of disbelief and fear but there, already welling in his eyes, is guilt and god damn it, resignation. Because Sam was always going to leave, one way or another, and Dean was always going to blame himself.
Sam tries to short-circuit his nervous system, tries to stop it, but the message is already running down his arm, synapses firing, muscles tightening. Time slows, even more than at Dean’s deaths, and he has to watch the unbearable flowering of grief in Dean’s face as Dean fails to reach him.
There is a deafening noise, a sensation more shockwave than pain, and the radio kicks in again. It’s the morning after Sam shot himself, and Dean is grinning and mocking him.
He doesn’t get out of bed right away, just lies there and listens to Dean putter about the bathroom.
He can’t try that again. It didn’t work. And he knows what those sixty seconds are like. He should never have inflicted them on Dean - Dean, who also knows what it’s like to hold your brother as he dies; Dean, who made his stupid fucking deal to save Sam’s life, and fuck, Sam is a fucking idiot for making Dean live through those sixty seconds even if he doesn’t remember them now…
…Or maybe it didn’t reset right away. Maybe the day continued, until Dean died. Maybe Dean had to live through minutes, even hours of a dead Sam and no explanations, nothing but his own acid guilt and loneliness.
Sam can’t risk it.
The fact he didn’t even think about that until after the fact shocks him into the realization of just how crazy he’s gotten.
It’s freeing.
There’s a muffled groan from the bathroom.
Sam bursts through the door and yanks back the shower curtain - damn, damn, not this early, not today, he has to make sure Dean’s okay, that Dean isn’t carrying anything over from one day to the next, he couldn’t bear it if Dean remembered…
Dean isn’t dead. He’s jerking off. He’s close, too, judging from the harsh panted breaths and the expression on his face. His eyes widen in outrage at Sam’s intrusion but his hand keeps working, shiny purple head of his dick sliding slick and fast through the ring of his fingers.
Sam drops to his knees in shock and relief, mouth falling open on a startled gasp.
Dean makes a strangled noise and comes all over Sam’s face.
Sam snaps his eyes shut reflexively. He closes his mouth a second later. The taste on his tongue is salt like tears, bitter like despair.
Dean makes another noise, outrage or fear or disgust, Sam can’t tell, and there’s a flurry of noise and movement. Something - Dean’s knee or fist - knocks him off balance and the bathroom door slams. He reaches blindly for a towel, finds the soggy facecloth in the bottom of the tub and wipes his face. He can hear Dean scuffling, rustle of clothes, things being thrown around.
He stands, stares at the cloth in his hands. Drops it in the bathtub. Licks over his teeth.
He opens the bathroom door in time to see Dean flee. The motel room door hangs open, letting in the screech of the Impala as she peels out of the parking lot.
Sam shuts the door, lies down on the bed, stares at the ceiling, and can’t think.
A few hours later, there’s a knock on the door. Sam must look pretty scary when he answers, because housekeeping visibly flinches before informing him it’s check-out time. He stares blankly at her. When his brain finally processes the words, he shuts the door in her face and calls the office, putting another night on the card. It’s not like it’ll matter. Some things you can reset.
Some things you can’t.
It’s one of the long days: mid-afternoon comes, and Sam is still alone. It’s still the fifty-fifth Tuesday, Dean hasn’t died yet.
He hasn’t come back, either.
It occurs to Sam, shortly before sunset, that Dean must have jerked off in the shower every morning. Sam’s just never heard him before. Usually he’s pulling a shirt over his head, or a pillow over his ears. Once, listening to the click of a safety catch sliding off.
He’s still thinking about that when he wakes up on the fifty-sixth Tuesday.
He listens to the shower. He looks at the clock.
He opens the bathroom door.
Three out of four Tuesdays, Dean runs. Or punches Sam, knocks him back against the sink, shatters the mirror, breaks his nose or his jaw or his collarbone. Sam lies numbly on his bed until the day ends, staring at the ceiling, faced with an impossible choice. He has to hope Dean dies out there, alone: the alternative, that this is the Tuesday Dean remembers, is untenable. On those days, Dean never comes back, until the reset button is pressed.
Roughly every fourth Tuesday, Dean kisses him back.
One of these days, the curse will lift. It must; all things end. Sam knows the odds aren’t in his favor. Time will run out, Tuesday will shift to Wednesday, and Dean will remember. Dean won’t come back, and he won’t be looped back.
But every morning, Sam still goes in to Dean. Hoping. Because maybe, maybe, it will be the fourth Tuesday that holds their future.