Author: Elle Adrel
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Words: 829
Notes: Tuesdays at the Mystery Spot
Disclaimer: Not my boys. All ownership belongs to Kripke and CW.
Summary: Sam and Dean are each desperate, drowning, and alone in their own ways. It just takes Sam a couple hundred Tuesdays to realize it.
Fifty times dean has died, and Sam remembers all of them in vivid detail. They tick through his mind to the beats of Asian and Dean's off-key humming. Sam rolls over, face to the wall and back to Dean so Dean doesn't see the tears when they silently start to flow. He counts them, and each tear is one more last breath. Dean jovially announces he's headed out for coffee, because clearly Sam needs a cup of girlie flavored joe to get his bitch ass up and moving.
When Sam gets to 51, his eyes pop open, dry. Dean is bopping his head as he ties his shoes, and instead of heat in that moment, Sam feels like he's been doused in ice.
Fifty-one, and Sam doesn't know how it happened. He doesn't have a visual burning in his retinas or a scream ringing in his ears or the phantom feeling of warm, sticky blood coating his hands. Dean died, and Sam will never know how it happened, if it hurt, if he was all alone or held gasping in some good Samaritan's arms. Sam swears then no matter how much the personal toll, he won't miss another one. And he doesn't.
One hundred. It feels like it should be significant, but it's just one more accumulated step deeper into hell. He explains to Dean for the 99th time what's been happening, cites it like the script it has become - a script written on Sam's skin in Dean's blood. On the way to breakfast, Dean trips over a crack in the sidewalk and doesn't get back up.
It's the one hundred and seventy seventh Tuesday when Sam jumps up and wraps himself around Dean and sobs. A tree falls through the bathroom while a confused Dean is fetching tissues to mop up his puddle of a brother.
On Tuesday one hundred and eighty five, Sam opens his eyes and stares until Dean's movements falter. Dean can't look away from the abyss of Sam's gaze, and Sam is lost in the green sea of growing concern and alarm. He asks if Sam's ok. Sam shakes his head and slowly sits up, crosses the gap between them, and kneels at the side of Dean's bed between his thighs. He doesn't know what he's doing as his hands frame Dean's question-filled face, but Dean was never one to deny Sam what he obviously desperately needs. An eternity passes as neither one looks away, and then Sam says in a graveled whisper, “Dean, you die today.” And Dean believes him. “Dean, you die today, and every day is today, and I can't stop it, and tomorrow will be 186 Tuesdays here...watching you die in so many ways. Let's just….can we just stay here...for a little while. Can you just...be here...with me? And forget...forget the mystery spot and the Tuesday breakfast special and electric razors and just...be here...in whatever time we have?”
Sam doesn't have a plan but he can feel his face closing the gap to Dean's face because he just needs to be closer. He sees Dean's startled eyes and the fear that has nothing to do with Sam's proximity. And then they're sharing breath as Dean sits on the edge of the bed with Sam on his knees between Dean's thighs. It's a desperate thing, a life raft taking on water and the precious seconds pounding in Sam's ears as their lips brush and part and press. To Sam's shock, Dean doesn't end the kiss.
The aneurysm does.
Day 186 and Sam wakes for the first time with the taste of Dean on his lips.
Day 198, and Sam presses Dean against the alley wall to shelter-hide-protect-claim, and he covers Dean's face with tears and kisses. It's desperation, it's worship, while Dean just takes it with an expression like a man drowning, and Sam doesn't understand because Sam is the only one drowning here when Dean is just a ghost who haunts an endless sea of Tuesdays.
Day 203. Sam is starting to put the pieces together. He wakes up, sits up, and stretches, letting his shirt ride up and his muscles bunch and tense. He senses Dean still his movements, feels Dean's eyes rake over his exposed skin and more. He meets Dean's eyes with heat of his own, and predictably Dean looks away blushing, but then Sam is there, sinking onto Dean's bed before Dean realizes Sam is moving. He makes a startled cry that Sam swallows, and the Sam knows he has him, that Dean won't put up a fight, that Dean is just as lost in this thing as Sam is, only for Dean it is a much older wasteland, and Sam apologizes with worshipful lips and tongue and hands for never noticing before. If Sam can't rescue him from Tuesdays, he can rescue him from more than dying alone. He can make sure Dean never loves alone again.