Ben had the strangest sensation, like waking up from a dream about waking up from a dream--but he had woke up ten minutes ago. He felt a strange tingling pain at the back of his skull, but after a few moments it subsided.
"Are you sure you packed everything?" Vic asked before yawning mightily, closing the driver's side door with a heavy enough slam to shake the snow off the window, "Your laptop? Your wallet? Your toothbrush"
Ben blinked a few times, then nodded to himself. That was one question answered. For the third time now, he was sitting in Vic's car, Tammy, at three fifty AM on Saturday morning. It was cold outside, and Vic was about to turn the key in the ignition, which would make the AC vents start blowing cold air because Vic had forgotten to turn the fan off the last time she had driven.
"Yeah," Ben said, reaching over to turn the nob that would turn down the fan before Vic started the engine, "but..."
Ben turned to look at Vic. There she was, gorgeous as ever, her hair in a misshapen storm cloud of black curls, her big, deep blue eyes watching him from underneath long-lashed, drowsy lids. She was perfect. She was also cheating on him, and if things were going how they seemed to be going, he was going to keep seeing her, here, now, again, no matter how he tried to stay away. He had broken up with her yesterday, and here she was again, his accusations, their argument, erased, back to living a lie she thought he didn't know.
"You okay babe? You look like you're about to cry!" Vic said, her brows wrinkling with concern as she reached over to brush his cheek with her hand; Ben recoiled.
"I...I..." Ben stuttered, "I don't think I can do this today."
He grabbed his bag and flung the car door open, looking away from Vic as he walked around the car and back towards their apartment. He couldn't do it again. He couldn't breakup with her again, not so soon, it was too much; but he couldn't just pretend everything was fine either. He didn't want to do anything—and, given the fact that it didn't seem like it mattered what he was doing anyway, he decided that he was going to spend this time around doing nothing at all.
"Babe? Babe! What's going on?" Vic yelled after him, concern in her voice as she got out of the car too, sprinting to catch up to him as he made it to their apartment door.
"I just...it's too much," Ben said, resisting the urge to shrink away from her touch as she put a hand on her shoulder; he didn't want to fight, he just wanted to sleep.
"What is?"
Ben looked at Vic again. Whatever she had done, however many times she had betrayed him or would betray him, some part of her really cared, he could see it in her eyes. Despite the fact that she was cheating, he couldn't help but feel a strange pang as he realized that he had fucked Sam, and now Vic didn't even remember him breaking it off. It was almost like he had cheated too, although he quickly told himself that that didn't make any sense.
"I...I just can't," Ben said, closing his eyes, repressing the sudden urge to start sobbing.
What was coming over him? Fear? Guilt? Exhaustion? He turned away from Vic before opening his eyes again and unlocking the door to the apartment, stepping in quickly, letting Vic shut the door behind her. The apartment was dark. It occurred briefly to Ben that, for him, it had been nearly two whole days since he had been home, rather than the five minutes that Vic must have just witnessed. Nonetheless, Ben knew his apartment well enough to feel his way towards the bedroom in the dark.
After only a couple of steps, Vic's phone chimed out loud and clear—the snap from Juliet's boyfriend Harry. The sound reminded Ben of everything all over again, and he realized that if he just crawled back into his own bed, Vic would crawl in next to him—and he didn't want that. Ben turned around, deciding to head to the couch, and almost ran in to Vic behind him, who had stopped briefly to check the snap. The light of her phone lit up her face as her eyes widened for a brief moment before she tapped the screen once and slid her phone back into her purse.
"That was—" she started trying to explain without provocation, a hint of guilt in her tone.
Ben grunted, pushing past her into the living room, "I'm going to sleep on the couch."
Vic stepped out of his way, watching him lumber over to the couch and crumple onto it. As soon as he was down, he realized how cold it was in the apartment, and how, unlike the bed, the couch didn't have any blankets or comforters or anything—but he was far too miserable to get up—however, after only a few moments of lying there, face tucked into the corner between armrest and back cushion, hiding from the world, he felt Vic spread their down comforter over him before bending down to kiss his cheek.
"Feel better, babe. I'll be in bed, but if you need anything, just let me know, ok?"
Ben didn't answer, pretending to be asleep until Vic walked away.
Once he heard the bedroom door close, Ben pulled out his phone. Sure enough the same folder was there that he had found the last time around. He opened it, and saw not one, but two more folders inside, one labelled L0001 and one Labelled L0002. He opened the second, and as he suspected, all of the texts from his second time through the day were there—everything between Sam, Tomm, Juliet, and himself, as well as a couple of dozen texts and snaps and voicemails from Vic which he had never read, but were nonetheless still saved on his phone.
Whatever was going on, it didn't look like it was going to stop any time soon. Ben decided that if he was going to be forced to live through this day again and again, he should try and figure out why, and how. He checked the news, but nothing caught his attention—locally there were winter storm warnings and a new amber alert, nationally there was the constant deluge of idiocy from the fascist-in-chief and a story about the most recent school shooting, and internationally there were economic problems in Europe and violence in the Middle East—nothing out of the ordinary, as depressing as that was. No clues there.
Starting to feel warm under the comforter, and still wearing all of his winter clothes Ben took a break from his musing to strip down to his boxer-briefs under the covers before pulling out his phone once again.
He briefly toyed with the idea of exploring his particular circumstances by booking last-minute flights to visit far off countries, but he didn't have the money for that if this looping suddenly stopped for some reason—and besides, by the time he got to some other country he would probably only have a couple of hours before the loop reset anyway. Domestically, he fantasized about doing something drastic like assassinating the president or robbing a bank, but he wasn't a violent person, and besides, he didn't know all the rules of the loop; what if he died and it never reset?
He realized, as he thought about this, that he was thinking about his life like a video game. It made sense—he had played enough of them, and it was hard to think of a time loop without thinking of science fiction out of some game or show or movie, and since he wasn't some genius physicist he didn't usually think about the finer points of time travel in a strictly scientific sense—but games had rules, as whatever was happening to him must, and along with those rules came boundaries that could be pressed, exploits, glitches, and...loading screens? Maybe the analogy wasn't perfect, but it seemed to him like there must be something interesting he could do.
Money was the first obvious step, it would make everything easier. Assuming he was going to be living this day over and over, making some quick money off of his ability to remember the future seemed both plausible, and unlikely to hurt him even if the loop suddenly stopped. The only problem was, Ben had never really gambled much, and hadn't ever put anything into stocks. He did some cursory research on sports gambling, but since it was technically illegal to do it online it looked like at the very least there was a lag time getting the money in the bank after you won anything—and any significant lag time made the money virtually useless since he only had one day to spend it in.
Cash in hand would be ideal—but also hard to actually get. He would need to find a place where he could bet on something in person, and collect his winnings fast enough that he could make use of them for the rest of the day, but where could he make large cash bets that paid out quickly on a frigid Saturday morning in January?
Stumped, and beginning to feel the weight of his own eyelids dragging down, Ben put his phone away, closed his eyes, and fell asleep on the couch.
Ben felt fingers tracing along his arm and up his shoulder; gentle caresses that just hinted at tickling him. He smiled and let out a sleepy, pleased sound, still only partially conscious, and rolled over on his back, eyes still closed, opening up more of his body to the wandering fingers, which first traced up his neck and around his ears before they began mussing his hair, massaging his scalp. They wandered south again, tracing over his lips—pulling them apart for just a moment—and down his neck to his chest.
His mind still groggy, his eyes still closed, he felt his cock—hard already with morning wood—pulse eagerly. The fingers continued to explore his body, caressing through the curls of his chest hair, circling and teasing his nipples, and occasionally drifting down over his abdomen to trace just above the elastic of his boxer-briefs before coasting back up to his chest, sending ripples of pleasure across his skin.
As the tickling caresses continued, Ben began to react more and more to their wandering: his abs tightening as they traced across them, his erection pulsing against his boxer briefs each time the fingers teased closer to his groin. He let out another pleased moan, smiling, as the tickling fingers swooped down and started caressing his cock through the soft, thin material of his boxer briefs. Instinctively his buttocks tightened, lifting his cock into the teasing hands as they explored every inch of it, fluttering across the head, sliding down the shaft, and tickling at his balls.
"Good morning, babe," Vic's voice whispered into Ben's ear, "I hope you're feeling better?"
