Chapter 1 of Looping
bloodwritesChapter 1
They don't get a whole lot of down time with this job, especially since Chuck went vengeful god on their asses, so Dean takes the opportunity when it presents itself and sleeps in till ten.
When he does get up, he finds Sam in the library, looking like he's been up for hours, surrounded by stacks of books.
"Morning," Dean says, slumping into a chair. "What are you doing?"
"I dug into the archives. I'm trying to find something–anything–useful. You?"
Dean lifts his coffee cup. "Caffeinating."
"And the rest of your day?" Sam asks. "What's left of it, anyway." He smirks.
"Bacon. Then Netflix. More Netflix. Finish the day with a couple of beers. Crash."
"We're out of bacon," Sam says, turning the page of some ancient tome that reeks of mildew and dust.
"Goddammit," Dean says, and gets up and heads to the kitchen in search of toast.
Sam spends the day in the library, surrounded by books. Dean only sees him when he goes out on a run for beer and bacon, and when he passes the library for bathroom breaks.
Throughout the day, Sam looks increasingly frustrated. Surely, after all these years, between the two of them they've read everything in the bunker. They'd already know if they had something they could use against Chuck.
Dean shakes his head and heads back to his room and his laptop.
Late afternoon, Sam appears in Dean's doorway. "Jody called," he says. "Vetala."
"Did you tell her–?"
"They hunt in pairs," Sam says. "Yep."
"She need help?"
Sam shakes his head. "She's got Donna with her. And the girls. Says they're good."
Dean shrugs. Jody and Donna are two of the most capable hunters Dean knows. "Okay then."
"Find anything?" Dean asks, when Sam joins him in his room later. He's brought beer, so Dean scoots over to give Sam room to stretch out.
"Nothing," Sam says. "What are we watching?"
"Big Bang Theory," Dean says. "Bunch of nerds doing nerd stuff. You'll like it."
Sam huffs and pops the cap off a bottle, passes it to Dean, then takes one for himself. "You like it. I could hear you laughing."
"Laughing at nerds," Dean says, offended. "Fuck you."
Sam chuckles.
Dean sleeps through his alarm the next morning.
He's pretty sure he slept through it. He definitely set the damn thing to wake him at seven, but it's past nine when Dean opens his eyes and picks up his phone.
He's barely hauled himself out of bed when Sam appears in the open doorway. "We've got a problem," he says, wide-eyed and staring. "It's yesterday."
Dean shoves his toothbrush into his mouth. "What was yesterday?" he mumbles. "Jody okay? Something go south with the vetala thing?"
"Not was, Dean," Sam says. "Is. Present tense. It's yesterday. Today. Is yesterday. We're looping."
Sam drags Dean into the library. He left a mess in here last night, books and papers and a whiskey glass on the table. Dean knows, because he came out to get more beer while they were watching TV and cursed Sam for not clearing up after himself.
"You clean up in here?" Dean asks.
Sam shakes his head. "Nope. Everything reset to the way it was the night before last. The night before last was last night."
"No," Dean says. "Last night we drank beer and watched Big Bang and you left a fucking mess in the library."
"Last night was Monday, Dean. Today is Tuesday. Again. It's Tuesday. Tuesday. I can't do this again, Dean." Sam's voice rises in panic. "I can't watch you die again, over and over and–"
Dean grabs hold of Sam by the shoulders. "Stop. Sammy, I'm not dead. I didn't die last night. This ain't a Mystery Spot thing. Is it?"
"It's Tuesday," Sam says, still freaked. "What else could it be?"
"Gabriel's dead," Dean says. "Like, really dead, this time. I didn't die. And I remember. I remember yesterday–got up late, drank beer, watched TV. You were doing research, then we sat on my bed and we got drunk and laughed at nerds doing nerd stuff. You fell asleep on my bed and I kicked you out. I went to sleep, Sammy. I didn't die."
"It's Tuesday," Sam breathes.
Dean sighs. The PTSD kicks Sam's ass, every time. "One repeat doesn't make it Groundhog Day, okay? How 'bout we save the panic till we know it's not just a weird glitch in the time-space continuum, huh? I'm hungry. Let's get something to eat."
Dean opens the fridge and swears. "I bought bacon," he says. "I fucking bought bacon so I could have bacon this morning and there's no fucking bacon here. Where's my fucking bacon?"
"Reset," Sam says, tossing yesterday's–Monday's–coffee filter and replacing it. "Nothing we did yesterday happened."
"Bullshit," Dean says. "I watched two seasons of Big Bang. I remember that."
"And I remember combing the archives for anything we could use against Chuck. There's nothing. We remember. We keep our memories, but nothing else. Nothing physical, and as far as we know, we're the only ones who know yesterday is repeating."
Dean looks up from the toaster. "Call Jody."
It's just them. They spent most of the morning on the phone, calling anyone and everyone in their contacts. The rest of the day on the internet, searching for evidence anyone else in the world is experiencing the reset of a single day.
Nothing. For everyone else in the world, it's Tuesday, and yesterday was Monday, and Jody wanted to know how Sam and Dean knew they were hunting vetala when she hadn't even figured it out herself yet.
There are books piled up in the library again, and this time, they're both researching, for anything related to time, days repeating, full on Groundhog situations.
"Angels," Sam says, after they've been at it for hours. "It's all angels. The only evidence of time travel or time rewinding is angels."
"What about Henry?" Dean asks. "That travel through time and burst out of the closet thing?"
"The spell was Enochian," Sam says. "Still Angels."
"But someone who knew what they were doing?" Dean says. "The right Enochian spell and zip, we're back to Tuesday."
"There's nothing here." Sam slams a book closed in frustration. "It's gotta be Chuck. One more way to mess with us."
Dean reaches for the whiskey bottle on the table. It's the same bottle Sam inched his way through yesterday, but today it's almost empty. Dean drains it. "Fuck," he says.
It's late. "I'm going to bed." Dean pushes himself to his feet and collects their glasses from the table.
Sam stops him. "Leave it. If it's still here in the morning–"
Dean sighs and puts the glasses back where they were. "Here's hoping for Wednesday."
Sam appears before Dean's even hauled himself out of bed the next morning. "It's still Tuesday," he says, obviously stricken.
He's showered, though. His hair is still damp. He waited to shower before letting Dean know it was still happening, and it strikes Dean as weird, but there are more pressing things to take care of.
Dean climbs out of bed and follows Sam to the library. It's as clean and tidy as they left it on Monday night, no evidence of the research or drinking they did yesterday. "Fuck this," he says. "I'm calling Cas." He starts dialing.
"We couldn't get him yesterday," Sam says. "What makes you think he'll answer today?"
Cas's phone rings and rings. Doesn't even go to the message, and that's weird. Dean pulls back his arm and throws his phone across the room without bothering to end the call. It hits the wall hard, tiny slivers of glass catching the light as it breaks. "Shit," Dean says.
Sam looks terrified.
Dean sighs. "It's not Mystery Spot," he says. "Yeah, we're looping, but I'm not dead. That's not what's triggering the loop. If this is Chuck fucking with us, there's gotta be something he wants, something we're not giving him."
"You know what he wants," Sam says.
"Yeah," Dean says. He doesn't need to say it out loud. Chuck wants Cain and Abel. Brother killing brother. "That's not gonna happen. Ever. If that's what he wants, he's gonna have to keep us here for eternity." Dean's stomach growls. "Which I'm not doing without bacon." Dean gropes for his keys, but he's still wearing the t-shirt and pants he slept in. He turns on one bare foot and heads for the door. "I'm doing a run."
"I'm coming," Sam says, and it's not hard to guess that he doesn't want to let Dean out of his sight.
Ten minutes later, they're in the car and driving up and out of the garage, but the moment they cross out of the bunker, everything goes white.
"It was a glitch," Dean says, back in his t-shirt and sleep pants, but this time he's got his keys. He found Sam in the corridor, still towel-drying his hair on the way back to his room from the showers, because apparently it's more important to Sam to be clean than to figure out what the fuck is going on. "We're going again."
This time, Dean takes it slow as he drives the Impala out of the garage, instead of tearing out like he usually would.
As they break into the morning sun, everything goes white again, and Dean wakes up, again, in his own bed.
Dean dives out of bed, grabbing his keys on the way out the door. Forget Sam, let him enjoy his shower on repeat, because maybe at least one of them has to remain in the bunker at all times.
It's worth a try.
Dean rips out of the bunker as though if he goes fast enough, he can break the barrier.
It doesn't make a difference.
"Dean."
Dean opens his eyes. He's been awake for a while, but refused to acknowledge the fact, because what the hell else is he supposed to do?
Sam's standing in the doorway. His hair is damp. "You left without me," he accuses.
"Just trying something different." Dean throws his arm over his face. "We're fucking prisoners," he mumbles. "We can't leave the bunker." He drops his arm and clambers out of bed. "We gotta fix this, Sam. I can't go eternity without bacon."
Sam looks helpless. He shrugs. "I don't know what to do."
Dean pushes past him and heads for the library. "Pull all the books with Enochian shit in them," he says. "We're gonna figure this out if it kills us."
Neither of them read Enochian, so it's long, and slow, cross-referencing translations, making notes that'll disappear overnight.
They get through half the bottle of whiskey. It's the same bottle they've drunk twice already, and Dean figures it doesn't matter how much or how often he drinks, because every day, his liver gets reset to the same state it was in on Monday night.
Nothing he does on Tuesday is gonna matter until they fix this.
Sam's phone rings, and Dean glances at his watch. 3.45pm.
Sam looks tired when he answers. "Hey Jody," he says, and without a pause to let her speak, "You're hunting a vetala, but they hunt in pairs. There's two of them." This time he's silent for a few moments. "Lucky guess... Yeah... We're fine... Okay, bye." He shoots a quick, resigned glance at Dean as he puts down the phone, and lets out a heavy breath.
Dean fills both their glasses, then looks back down at his books.
This moment is all too familiar.
Dean spends most of his time in his room now. He makes one trip every morning, grabs a bottle of whiskey from the library, and then sits on his bed, legs stretched out, back propped against his pillows, and he works his way through it.
He's watched all of Netflix, and rewatched most of it. He's watched all the porn the internet has to offer. Even some of the freaky stuff. He hasn't showered in weeks, which isn't as bad as it sounds, considering he showered Monday night, even though Monday night feels like a million years ago.
He looks at his watch. "Three," he says. "Two. One." He looks up at the door.
Sam appears.
"Jody called," Dean says. "Vetala. I know. You're getting very predictable, Sammy."
Sam shrugs. He leans against the door frame, and he looks tired. "In case you've forgotten what's happening here. There are better ways to spend the time other than getting blind drunk every day."
Dean leans forward. "You think I don't know we're looping? You think I've forgotten?" He waves the bottle in his hand. "Same goddamn shit, every fucking day, Sammy. Same bottle of booze–" He throws it, and it hits the doorframe, smashing into a thousand shining shards of glass and a spray of whiskey.
Sam leans out of the way with perfect timing, because it's happened before, like everything else here. "Come out, Dean. Eat something."
He hasn't eaten in a while. Days, probably.
Dean's too drunk to fry, and he waits in the library while Sam makes grilled cheese. He accepts the sandwich with a nod of thanks when his brother returns from the kitchen.
Sam gives Dean a pinched look when he sees the new bottle of whiskey in his hand.
"Doesn't matter how much I drink," Dean says. "Liver gets reset every day and I never wake up with a hangover. What the hell is this shit?"
He's looking at pages of notes, and these aren't old notes, made by the Men of Letters decades ago. These are fresh, on crisp lined paper, and the ballpoint Sam used is lying on top where Sam carelessly dropped it, probably when the phone rang.
"Cuneiform," Sam says.
"Looks like tablet talk and chicken scratch."
"Yeah," Sam says. "There's books here we had no chance of reading before. I figured I've got the time, I might as well learn this stuff. Some of it talks about angels, and it might point me in the right direction."
"And?"
"I'm getting there."
Dean eats the sandwich and empties the bottle and watches Sam as he scribbles down page after page of weird symbols and tiny sets of lines like he's marking off days and wonders why Sam bothers, because those meticulous notes won't exist after today.
Tuesday doesn't reset at midnight. This isn't the first time they've tried to see it through till (hopefully) Wednesday, it's happened before.
Sometimes they sit up in the library, reading, learning, researching. Sometimes they watch TV on Dean's laptop, sitting on his bed and drinking beer.
This time, because they've watched everything already and Dean's room is covered in broken glass and sticky alcohol, they spend the night in Sam's room, passing a bottle of whiskey between them and watching the time tick away in silence.
Most of the time they pass out before it happens. Every single time, Dean hopes he's going to wake up where he fell asleep, with Sam beside him, head slumped on the table, or stretched out on a bed.
It's not often they make it till dawn, but when they do, it's the white light they saw when they tried to leave the bunker, and then they each wake up in their own beds.
This time, they watch the seconds tick away until dawn, because why not.
"I hate waking up," Sam says, drunk and unprompted.
30 seconds. 29. 28. "Why?" Dean asks. "Every morning I wake up thinking I've slept through my alarm, wasted the day. Then I remember and wish I could sleep longer."
"If I'd known," Sam says, maudlin and drunk. "I'd have made different choices Monday night. I'm sick of the mess."
5. 4. 3.
"Mess?" Dean's confused. Their messes always clean themselves up, and it must drive Sam mad to have to retrieve the same resources from deep in the archives every single day.
Everything goes white.
Dean wakes up clear-headed, but still with that same question in his mind–what mess?
He climbs out of bed and heads for Sam's room, but when he gets there, Sam's gone, and his bed is neatly made, like he never slept in there at all.
"I wake up before you," Sam says, from behind Dean. He's showered, and he's towel-drying his hair.
"You didn't go to bed Monday night," Dean accuses. "What, you didn't make it? Did you get drunk and pass out in the hall? Chuck all over yourself? God, you're a lightweight."
Sam rolls his eyes and pushes past Dean and into his room. He drops the towel on the floor, and that drives Dean nuts, even now, even knowing that it'll sit there for a day and then disappear.
Dean turns on the ball of his foot and leaves, heading straight for the library, because that's the first place he goes every morning, to grab the same bottle of whiskey and drink until he doesn't care anymore.