Title: After You

Summary: This time, Dean... I'll go first.

Genre: Angst / Tragedy

Beta'd: Nu-uh!

Warnings: Spoilers for season 3, character death, blood, crazy!Sam.

Disclaimer: Supernatural has never and will never belong to me. A depressing thought indeed, but nonetheless true!

After You

This is it.

This would be the thing.

Definitely, it had to be this that would end it all.

That would end all those damn Tuesdays, the damn cycle.

Standing on the edge of the clock tower, overlooking that no name town, Sam wondered how the hell it had taken him so long to come to this point.

It had been... God knows how many Tuesdays since the first time. On the first Tuesday, Dean Winchester died. And on the second, he had died again. And the third. And the fourth. And every Tuesday since then.

And every time Dean died, Sam would wake up to 'Heat of the Moment' and to his brother's cheerful tone, unaware that today he would die.

Every time.

Every damn time.

So today, on this seemingly normal Tuesday evening, Sam Winchester was going to take the initiative. Before Dean's death triggered another Tuesday, Sam's death was going to stop it.

Which was why he was looking out over the town from the ledge at the top of the clock tower, the highest damn point in the pokey little town where a twisted fall would mean his end.

Maybe this would be the thing to break the chain. If not, who cares? He'd be waking up to Asia soon and then he could try again.

Try again... oh God, he really didn't want to try again... he had lost count of the number of times he had "tried again" and he just couldn't do it anymore...

"Sammy!"

Sam cursed and tilted his head over his shoulder to where Dean now stood, panting slightly from the rushed climb up the tower and Sam wondered how the hell he had managed to make his way up there without killing himself first.

"Sammy, what the hell are you doing up here? Come down, man!"

The younger Winchester stared at the disbelief in Dean's face and he narrowed his eyes and shuffled closer to the edge.

Dean's breath caught audibly in shock at Sam's sudden movement.

"Dude, I don't know what this is about but just... come down and we can talk about it." Dean was struggling to keep any sarcastic remark out of his voice in favour of calming his clearly insane brother down and away from a perilous drop.

"No talking Dean. Too much talking. It never ends, never stops. But maybe I can stop it. Yes... Yes this will stop it. Finally stop it. No dying... Probably. I hope not. But it happens. Keeps happening. But not if it stops. If it stops it won't happen."

"Look, Sam. If this is about the deal-"

"The Tuesdays will stop!"

That made big brother stop in place. It made no sense whatsoever to Dean and far too much sense to Sam. But then again his mind was more than a little frayed by this damn time loop. Now he fully realised why Bill Murray had plunged off that cliff in that movie, and also why he dropped that toaster in the bath and also why he back flipped off that clock towe-

Oh. Huh! Didn't think of that one before.

Sam giggled a little.

He really, really hadn't even thought about that before.

"You think this is funny, Sam?"

He seemed to remember exactly where he was again at that moment. Dean was still trying to talk him down from the ledge, giving his best shiny-eyed plea as he pushed one hand towards Sam.

Sam looked at him bleakly. Knowing their luck, Dean would end up falling first and finding himself going splat on the ground.

He stared at that hand, seeing it coated in blood, in glass, in burns, in bits of contaminated food, in every conceivable death march Sam could ever think of and then some.

"Sammy, please... Whatever this is about, we'll deal with it together. Just come down from there!"

Whatever this is about? Sam laughed; a full blown, idiotic, insane roar of laughter. He didn't care at this point how he sounded, although the look on his brother's face as he did so made his insides flutter with guilt.

He could practically see Dean's heart drop at that laugh. Poor, poor Dean. To him, his brother had simply gone to sleep normal enough and woken up with a clear case of the crazies. His heart must be breaking. Oh... Could you actually die of a broken heart? In their crazy world, it didn't seem so insane. In this town it was more than possible. That wouldn't be good. Better be quick about this then.

"Don't worry, Dean." Ahh, his voice was breaking slightly in emotion. "This time, I'll go first."

"Don't do this, Sammy." Dean was crying, not even caring that huge globs of tears were disappearing from the corners of his eyes and down his cheeks. "Please... not after everything, not after all the crap we've been through... You can't do this!"

Poor, poor Dean. Trying to talk down his crazy brother from leaping off the edge, wondering what switch had flipped on that seemingly normal Tuesday to make Sam finally snap. No idea, none at all. Maybe a hundred Tuesdays ago it would be easy to understand but not to the Dean of this Tuesday, he couldn't understand why Sam just didn't have the strength anymore.

But it would all be worth it... it would all be worth it if the cycle would break.

"It'll be okay, Dean. It will. I promise."

Sam could feel his very soul shake at the scream Dean let out the moment his feet left solid ground but it was too late.

Dean's hand grasped air.

Sam felt his body become heavy and light all at once as he fell from that distance, his body rolling around in the air to feel Dean's piercing gaze begging him why, begging him to come back.

But Dean wasn't falling, he wasn't having a heart attack, he wasn't doing anything... just watching with a breaking heart as his brother leapt to his death.

"It's okay... it'll all be okay..."

The pain of the rushing ground never came to him, just the darkness.

"Rise and shine, Sammy!"

Sam lay back down on the bed, eyes linked with Dean's and he gave his brother a weak smile.

Oh... Maybe you could die from a broken heart, after all.

A/N: Just an idea that came to me when I was rewatching the episode and yes the clocktower bit was inspired from the movie "Groundhog Day" which I adore. This idea has probably been done before but I hope you enjoyed :)