SPN Fic: The Definition of Insanity
Title: The Definition of Insanity
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Written for the episode “Mystery Spot” for summer_sam_love . This is still a quintessential Sam ep, even more so after all these years. Thanks to geminigrl11 for the beta, especially since my tenses and timing were still a little rough when she looked it over :)
Summary: Most people say insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.
-o-
Insanity.
Sam knows the definition. He knows that most people say insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.
Sam learned that definition when he was a kid, but he never knew it until now. Sam knows the definition of insanity because he is the definition of insanity.
One hundred Tuesdays watching your brother die will do that to a guy.
And even as Sam knows it, he doesn’t stop it. Can’t stop it. Doesn’t want to stop it. Because quitting feels wrong, giving in feels worse, and accepting it just makes no sense at all.
So Sam wakes up every Tuesday knowing his brother is going to die, and keeps trying to stop it.
Tries to stop it when the axe cuts Dean in half. Tries to stop it when the the steak knife gets embedded in Dean’s heart. Tries to stop it when the coffee pot electrocutes Dean right there in their motel room before Sam even has a chance to roll out of bed.
Tries, even though he knows exactly what will happen anyway. This is a joke he knows the punchline to, a story with an ending he knows by heart. Sam’s seen Dean skewered, seen Dean flattened, seen Dean decapitated. It doesn’t matter how it happens, Dean’s still dead.
This is insanity.
And then more, in the months after. When Tuesday is Wednesday is Thursday and Dean is still gone and Sam has pictures on the wall and a trail he’s piecing together. It’s been six months and it’s probably too late, but Sam doesn’t care. Can’t care. He keeps trying.
Keeps going.
Thinking each morning that is the same, but might be different.
Insanity.
And yet, there is a certain clarity in this. To wake up to the same tragedy. To make different decisions that all have the same consequences. This slow insanity, has a comfort to it. A safety in knowing that the tragedies might not be permanent, the the pain may be soul rending but he knows that it’s coming.
Sam clings to this comfort, even as day after day it slowly strips away his awareness, strips away his grip on reality, strips everything away until Sam is nothing more than raw hurt and desperate vengeance. Sam would like to blame it all on the Trickster, but it’s more than that, and he sees it so clearly now.
It’s more than that.
Because the Trickster may have put him in a time loop but the repeat of a single day only shows him how repetitively futile his life has been. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Sam makes decisions. He makes good decisions and bad decisions, right choices and wrong choices, and it doesn’t matter. It ends up the same. His mother still dies. Jessica still burns. His father is still pronounced dead at 10:41 AM. Sam still falls in Cold Oak and Dean stills makes his deal.
Dean’s still going to die. Even when Sam gets him back from the Trickster and stops the cycle, he knows that Dean’s still going to die.
It doesn’t matter what Sam does. It never has. Sam can lie (and he has lied, lied every day to Jessica, still lies to Dean about how scared he is), and Sam can tell the truth (even when it scares him, to put himself out there, to let Dean see how much of a freak he is). Sam can do the right thing (and not pull the trigger, even when he wants to he, he really wants to), and Sam can do the wrong thing (and leave Jake knocked out on the ground, a weapon within reach).
The result is the same. It always ends poorly. Each choice is a prelude to tragedy. Each decision is a foreword to disaster.
At least in the Trickster’s maze, he knows there’s still a reset.
In the real world, in his real life, it’s all a runaway train and he’s helpless to stop the impending disaster.
It’s not Tuesday anymore, and that’s a good thing, Sam knows. But when Tuesday becomes Wednesday, and Wednesday becomes Thursday, and Dean’s alive but his deal is coming due, Sam has no magic reset button. Sam has no way to fix it. Sam just has choices that will probably turn out wrong and a promise hanging over him that he doesn’t know if he can fulfill.
And if he can’t...
Well, he knows that feeling.
He knows that feeling like a hundred different (same) Tuesdays and six obsessive months and his sanity is strained and his hope is running thin. He fixed the illusion, but Sam doesn’t think he can fix the reality.
It’s funny, how many Tuesdays he woke up wishing for time to go ahead.
And now, how many Wednesdays come when he just wants Tuesday back.
Another day with his brother. Another chance to make it right.
Even though Sam worries that just like the Trickster’s game, it’s never been a chance at all. Sam doesn’t want to know.
Especially because he thinks he already does.
Insanity.
Sam knows the definition. He knows that most people say insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.
Sam learned that definition when he was a kid, but he never knew it until now. Sam knows the definition of insanity because he is the definition of insanity. But if he is foolish enough to think that it’s all the Trickster’s fault, that this started on a Tuesday, then he’s even crazier than he thought.
Because Sam can see now that it started a long time ago, started the first time he believed he could make a difference, the first time he thought he could decide his own future. It started in a nursery when he was six months old and hasn’t stopped yet.
And he could change, he thinks, but there’s nothing change to. In the end, Dean’s life is still on the line and it’s up to Sam to stop the deal from coming due, and he doesn’t know how (doesn’t know anything) and waking up each day to fight a fight he can’t win is everything (the only thing) he has left.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: Written for the episode “Mystery Spot” for summer_sam_love . This is still a quintessential Sam ep, even more so after all these years. Thanks to geminigrl11 for the beta, especially since my tenses and timing were still a little rough when she looked it over :)
Summary: Most people say insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.
-o-
Insanity.
Sam knows the definition. He knows that most people say insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.
Sam learned that definition when he was a kid, but he never knew it until now. Sam knows the definition of insanity because he is the definition of insanity.
One hundred Tuesdays watching your brother die will do that to a guy.
And even as Sam knows it, he doesn’t stop it. Can’t stop it. Doesn’t want to stop it. Because quitting feels wrong, giving in feels worse, and accepting it just makes no sense at all.
So Sam wakes up every Tuesday knowing his brother is going to die, and keeps trying to stop it.
Tries to stop it when the axe cuts Dean in half. Tries to stop it when the the steak knife gets embedded in Dean’s heart. Tries to stop it when the coffee pot electrocutes Dean right there in their motel room before Sam even has a chance to roll out of bed.
Tries, even though he knows exactly what will happen anyway. This is a joke he knows the punchline to, a story with an ending he knows by heart. Sam’s seen Dean skewered, seen Dean flattened, seen Dean decapitated. It doesn’t matter how it happens, Dean’s still dead.
This is insanity.
And then more, in the months after. When Tuesday is Wednesday is Thursday and Dean is still gone and Sam has pictures on the wall and a trail he’s piecing together. It’s been six months and it’s probably too late, but Sam doesn’t care. Can’t care. He keeps trying.
Keeps going.
Thinking each morning that is the same, but might be different.
Insanity.
And yet, there is a certain clarity in this. To wake up to the same tragedy. To make different decisions that all have the same consequences. This slow insanity, has a comfort to it. A safety in knowing that the tragedies might not be permanent, the the pain may be soul rending but he knows that it’s coming.
Sam clings to this comfort, even as day after day it slowly strips away his awareness, strips away his grip on reality, strips everything away until Sam is nothing more than raw hurt and desperate vengeance. Sam would like to blame it all on the Trickster, but it’s more than that, and he sees it so clearly now.
It’s more than that.
Because the Trickster may have put him in a time loop but the repeat of a single day only shows him how repetitively futile his life has been. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Sam makes decisions. He makes good decisions and bad decisions, right choices and wrong choices, and it doesn’t matter. It ends up the same. His mother still dies. Jessica still burns. His father is still pronounced dead at 10:41 AM. Sam still falls in Cold Oak and Dean stills makes his deal.
Dean’s still going to die. Even when Sam gets him back from the Trickster and stops the cycle, he knows that Dean’s still going to die.
It doesn’t matter what Sam does. It never has. Sam can lie (and he has lied, lied every day to Jessica, still lies to Dean about how scared he is), and Sam can tell the truth (even when it scares him, to put himself out there, to let Dean see how much of a freak he is). Sam can do the right thing (and not pull the trigger, even when he wants to he, he really wants to), and Sam can do the wrong thing (and leave Jake knocked out on the ground, a weapon within reach).
The result is the same. It always ends poorly. Each choice is a prelude to tragedy. Each decision is a foreword to disaster.
At least in the Trickster’s maze, he knows there’s still a reset.
In the real world, in his real life, it’s all a runaway train and he’s helpless to stop the impending disaster.
It’s not Tuesday anymore, and that’s a good thing, Sam knows. But when Tuesday becomes Wednesday, and Wednesday becomes Thursday, and Dean’s alive but his deal is coming due, Sam has no magic reset button. Sam has no way to fix it. Sam just has choices that will probably turn out wrong and a promise hanging over him that he doesn’t know if he can fulfill.
And if he can’t...
Well, he knows that feeling.
He knows that feeling like a hundred different (same) Tuesdays and six obsessive months and his sanity is strained and his hope is running thin. He fixed the illusion, but Sam doesn’t think he can fix the reality.
It’s funny, how many Tuesdays he woke up wishing for time to go ahead.
And now, how many Wednesdays come when he just wants Tuesday back.
Another day with his brother. Another chance to make it right.
Even though Sam worries that just like the Trickster’s game, it’s never been a chance at all. Sam doesn’t want to know.
Especially because he thinks he already does.
Insanity.
Sam knows the definition. He knows that most people say insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.
Sam learned that definition when he was a kid, but he never knew it until now. Sam knows the definition of insanity because he is the definition of insanity. But if he is foolish enough to think that it’s all the Trickster’s fault, that this started on a Tuesday, then he’s even crazier than he thought.
Because Sam can see now that it started a long time ago, started the first time he believed he could make a difference, the first time he thought he could decide his own future. It started in a nursery when he was six months old and hasn’t stopped yet.
And he could change, he thinks, but there’s nothing change to. In the end, Dean’s life is still on the line and it’s up to Sam to stop the deal from coming due, and he doesn’t know how (doesn’t know anything) and waking up each day to fight a fight he can’t win is everything (the only thing) he has left.