Summary: People don't change over night. But some days seem to last a lifetime. And they change you, deep inside. Sam has been changed in a way Dean wouldn't understand. Tag to Mystery Spot.
Rating: T, to be on the safe side. Some language and dark thoughts
Spoilers: Everything up to Season 3 "Mystery Spot" is fair game.
Author's Notes: This story works on the assumption that in "Mystery Spot", the time loop and the time afterwards lasted for roughly six months, or slightly longer. Sam mentions living through his hundredth Tuesday somewhere along the way, and during one phone call Bobby says he hasn't heard from Sam in three months. So all in all it was probably more than six months that passed before Sam woke up again in the Motel. At least that's how I interpreted it.
This one is for IsisSG1 – because she wouldn't shut up about Supernatural until I caved in and started watching it. Two full seasons and all of season 3 so far in six days. I owe her thanks for pestering me like that, I didn't know what I was missing. And it's her birthday this Monday. Happy Birthday Isis! This one is for you. I hope you like it.
Borrowed Time
People didn't change over night.
You didn't go to bed one evening and woke up a changed man the next morning. Not on a normal day.
But Sam Winchester had been through a day that had felt like a lifetime. A day that had lasted for over six months.
For more than a hundred times he had lived the same day, over and over again. The same Tuesday. The Tuesday his brother had died a hundred times.
Dean had died.
Again, and again.
Tuesday after Tuesday, Sam had watched Dean die, and every time the life had fled his brother's eyes, something inside of Sam had died, as well.
And if the Trickster hadn't broken the time loop, Sam would still be watching Dean die day after day. And he'd still be trying to stop it, no matter if the whole universe was against him. He'd struggle to keep his brother alive even if all forces of hell were trying to stop him.
But those hundred Tuesdays had only been the first half of the longest day in Sam Winchester's life.
The second half had been so much worse, and so much more cruel.
Sam should have known that there were no guarantees in life. Especially he should know. He was living a life in which every day could be his last. A life in which he purposefully put himself in situations could get him killed. He should have known that nothing was ever safe for him.
But the relief had simply been too great, the relief of finally waking up to another song on the radio. Sam didn't think he'd ever be able to listen to Asia again without feeling the desire to smash the radio into a myriad of pieces. But the radio had played another song that Wednesday morning. Not Asia.
And Dean had been there, alive and joking. Dean had lived to see this Wednesday, and for a few glorious minutes Sam had been able to believe that the world was back on its axis.
For a few minutes he had thought that they had beaten fate. Or in this case, that they had beaten the Trickster.
And then life had thrown all his hopes right back at him and had laughed him in the face.
Dean had died again.
Died in a way Sam had never thought his brother would go.
Shot in the parking lot during a mugging. Sam had been convinced that this was nothing but another joke by the Trickster, another loop he was caught in. Another sick joke. Another dream.
But he hadn't woken up.
Sam had knelt there in that parking lot for long minutes that had felt like hours, clutching his brother's lifeless body in his arms, whispering I'm supposed to wake up again and again like a mantra. But he hadn't woken up. And Dean hadn't woken up again, either.
Sam had still knelt in that parking lot when the police and the ambulance had pulled up.
Sam remembered most of what had happened in the time loop and in the months to follow with brutal clarity, but those minutes had passed in a daze. He hadn't heard the sirens, hadn't heard the words the paramedics and police officers had directed at him. He only remembered the feeling of his brother's lifeless body in his arms.
Of that he remembered every vivid, brutal detail.
Dean had been so pale. So still. So horribly, cruelly lifeless. His skin had been warm, but that had been nothing but another deception, a lingering reminder of the life that had fled his brother's body. And then somebody had tried to take Dean's body out of his arms. There had been hands pulling at him, voices talking to him. There were people around him, faceless voices who were trying to take Dean's body out of his arms.
At that moment, Sam had lost it.
He didn't remember what exactly had happened. He only remembered punching the first unlucky soul who tried to separate him from his brother, punching the man as hard as he could because it was unfair that he should be the only one hurting. There was only so much pain a single person was able to endure, and that morning in the parking lot Sam had been well beyond that limit. Far beyond the point where the pain had still been bearable.
The pain had been blinding, the loss numbing all his senses. The next thing Sam remembered was a paramedic checking him out, shining a light into his eyes while in the background his brother's body was put into a body bag.
And then the real horror had begun.
Living the same Tuesday over and over again had been a nightmare. And seeing his brother die in a hundred different way had hurt Sam to his innermost core.
But living without Dean had been hell on earth.
It was as if he was no longer living, merely existing to make it from one day to the next. There had been no joy, nothing that brought pleasure. He ate because his body needed food to keep going. He slept because his body needed rest to make it through another day. He hunted things because that was what he did.
But there was only one purpose to getting through the days. Only one reason why he bothered to get up in the mornings, why he ate when he was hungry and slept when he was tired. There was only one reason why he didn't put the barrel of his gun in his mouth and blew his brains out.
He needed to find the Trickster.
He needed to find him and make him pay. That was all Sam was living for.
Revenge.
Simple, pure and cleansing revenge.
He forgot everything else. During those months, all that counted was his hunt for the Trickster. Sam took on jobs and went on hunts when the situation demanded it because that was what the Winchesters did – and he was the last of them still around to do it.
But he no longer cared.
He no longer cared about the lives he helped save, or about the evil he defeated. He no longer cared about anything, much less himself. If he got hurt, he got hurt. If he got shot, so be it. And if he was careless enough to get himself killed, then at least the pain would end. He didn't care.
For three months, Sam Winchester was a machine that functioned for a single purpose: survive until he found the Trickster. For three months, Sam had planned what he would do the moment he found him. He had come up with plan after plan of how to make that bastard pay, how to make him suffer as long as possible before he finished it, so that the man…no, the thing, would suffer at least a small degree of the pain he had put Sam through.
Then he had finally found him.
And all his plans had gone out the window. No more thoughts about revenge. No more hatred, no more will to inflict the utmost pain and suffering.
Instead, Sam Winchester had begged.
He hadn't cared about dignity or pride, and neither had he cared about revenge. All he had cared about was that the Trickster had the power to make it all undone. He had the power to bring Dean back. Sam didn't care if he had to beg, cry or go down on his knees. He wanted Dean back, and he was willing to pay any price to get him back.
And the Trickster was right – Dean was his weakness. His one weakness that allowed others to play him like a fiddle. But Sam didn't care.
The Trickster had said it had been a lesson, a joke on Sam to show him that no matter what he did, he couldn't save his brother. And he had been right. Sam hadn't been able to save Dean. He had tried, desperately, but whatever he had done had not been enough.
He understood that. But it didn't matter anymore.
He only wanted Dean back.
If there was one wish he had, one thing he needed to keep his sanity intact, one reason to go on with this madness that was his life, then it was that. He needed Dean back.
And then he woke up again. On that Wednesday. Back in time, just like the song on the radio announced. Sam didn't know if he had learned the lesson the Trickster had tried to teach him. He didn't think he had. And it didn't matter – because he had woken up again and Dean was there. Alive. Brushing his teeth. Joking about the radio station.
Dean had been alive, and Sam hadn't known whether to laugh or to cry. He had done neither. He hadn't said anything, either, nothing except the statement that it was Wednesday. Other words had failed him completely, but those two words had held more meaning to him than any other words over the past months. Unable to tear his eyes away from his brother's living – breathing – form Sam had climbed out of bed and hugged him. Tightly.
Dean hadn't understood.
Still clutching his toothbrush in one hand, Dean had simply stood there like a statue, without hugging Sam back. Dean didn't hug. He wasn't one for open displays of emotion. But he must have felt how much Sam needed this, how much he needed to touch Dean and hold him to make sure that he was truly alive and well, because Dean hadn't withdrawn from the embrace. He had allowed Sam to hug him even though he didn't understand.
He couldn't understand.
Dean might know nightmares, but Sam was sure that his brother had no clue what it was like to live your worst nightmare, and then be allowed to wake up again when you already thought you were caught in it forever.
Dean couldn't understand.
But Dean was alive, and they were back on the road. Things were back to normal, or as normal as they could ever get for Sam and Dean Winchester. The Impala's engine was roaring beneath the hood as Dean was steering them down the Interstate towards the next hunt. Dean had his eyes on the road and was muttering under his breath about overbearing little brothers, that he was old enough to enter a parking lot on his own and that it was a violation of human rights to force somebody out on the road without breakfast.
But Sam didn't listen.
If he was honest, his mind was still a jumble of emotions that he hadn't yet dealt with. He had lived through six months that hadn't really happened, yet he remembered them in detail. He remembered driving across the country in the Impala – alone. He remembered going on hunts – alone. He remembered what loneliness felt like. What life felt like without Dean.
By all rights, he should be happy now. After all, he had Dean back. His brother was alive.
But Sam couldn't be happy. He was living on borrowed time. Dean was living on borrowed time. In a few months, the demon who held the contract on his brother's soul was going to collect his pay. Dean would die and his soul would go straight to hell. And Sam would be alone again.
Dean is dead and like it or not, that's how life is going to be without him.
Merely thinking about it made an unbearable anger rise inside Sam's chest. Anger at Dean. At the deal his brother had made.
Over the years of hunting down evil, Dean had more than once risked his own life to save his brother's. And Sam had done the same. They would both put their own life on the line to save the other's, at any time, without conscious thought. Selflessly.
But this was different.
This time, Sam had been supposed to die. He had been dead.
And then Dean had acted purely on selfish instinct for the first time in his life. After a lifetime of living for the sake of others, for the sake of John Winchester and his quest, for the sake of his little brother and for the sake of unknown strangers, Dean had been entitled to a little selfishness. It was a trait Sam hadn't even been sure his brother possessed. Obviously he did.
But of all the selfish decisions in the world, why did Dean have to make this one? Sam had died and Dean hadn't been able to live with it. So he had turned the tables. He had selfishly decided that he'd rather die and have his soul rot in hell for all eternity than live without his brother.
It was as close to saying I love you as Dean Winchester would ever come.
And Sam hated him for it.
He'd much rater have Dean tell him those words every single day, male dignity and the refusal of chick-flick moments be damned, than force this upon him.
Dean's decision forced Sam to return to his nightmare in only a few months time. Dean would be gone, and Sam would be alone again. For good this time. No return ticket to Wednesday. No more Back in Time.
Sam wanted to hate Dean for this decision, but found that he couldn't. No matter what, he couldn't hate his brother for thinking about himself and his own feelings for the first time in years. Dean was a battered soul already, a man with uncountable unhealed wounds beneath the wisecracking façade. If anybody had earned a selfish decision that would grant him a year of life without pain instead of a lifetime full of it, then it was Dean.
Those three months of living without Dean made Sam feel closer to what was going on inside his brother's head than he had ever been before. He had walked down the same road for a while, had lived a life that was close to the life his brother had been leading for the past years – a lonely life. A life revolving around things most people didn't know about and wouldn't believe, a life with a job that could get him killed every time he set out on a hunt, a life without thanks. Without a home. Without a purpose except for the hunt. A lonely life.
He understood Dean better than before now because he had gotten a glimpse of what his brother had to feel like. For those past months that hadn't really happened, Sam had acted like his brother – reckless, impulsive, without a backup plan. All or nothing, gambling at high stakes because even if he lost, nobody else got hurt.
That was what Dean's life as a hunter must have been like before their father had gone missing and Sam had learned that a normal life simply wasn't meant for him. For three months Sam had walked in his brother's shoes and had found that they were far too big for him to fill.
Sam understood now what made his brother tick. Why he acted the way he did.
But that didn't mean Sam had to accept his brother's decision. Not by a long shot.
If there was a way to get Dean out of his deal with the crossroad demon, then Sam Winchester was going to find it. Because those nightmarish six months had taught him a lesson. It wasn't the lesson that the Trickster had wanted to teach him, but that didn't matter.
Sam had learned that he couldn't live without Dean. Not anymore. Not like this.
And he was going to find a way to stop it from happening.
That was as close to saying I love you as Dean was ever going to let him get. And Sam was going to say it, in the only way that his brother would allow.
"You all right, Sammy?"
Sammy. It was always Sammy when Dean was worried, never Sam. It was part of Dean's way to make sure that their roles remained the same they had always been – big brother and little brother. Protector and the one who needed protection. But this time Sam was not going to accept their roles just like that. This time, he was going to reverse them and was going to protect his brother.
"Sam?"
Sam turned his head to the left to find a pair of hazel eyes look at him worriedly in between cursory glances at the road ahead.
"Yeah?"
"Are you all right?"
Sam nodded and forced a smile. "Yeah. I am."
For now he was. And he was going to do his damned best to make sure that this remained so. He was going to make sure that Dean stayed alive. Whatever it took.