Chapter Text
Riff felt the knife slide inside of his chest. He felt his eyes sliding closed against his will. He fell asleep, and then he woke up.
It took a moment for him to realize that he was awake, and then his hands went straight to his chest, where he felt had felt the knife go in just a few moments before, but there was no wound there, no blood. There was no knife, nothing.
Maybe it was a dream. Well if it was a dream, it wasn't like any dream Riff had ever had before. It felt real. It felt too real. Riff jumped out of bed and before even putting a shirt on he ran out of the dingy apartment and down the stairs and outside to look at the street. It felt too normal to be the day after a big rumble. Really, it looked just like yesterday.
Riff let his eyes scan down the street, and he saw Tony. He saw Tony climbing out of the subway stop with his hand in Maria’s. Just like he saw them the day before. How could it be? They were wearing the same clothes. Riff rushed up to them, and he saw Ton’s face fall the same way that he had seen Tony's face fall yesterday.
“Riff. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Where were you coming from?”
“We’re gonna be together. We’re gonna get married.”
Riff didn’t have time for this. For Tony’s bullshit. For his idiocy. He thought about the knife sliding into his chest. He thought about the look on Bernardo's face when he did it.
“Okay. Well, I'm going,” Riff mumbled.
Tony grabbed his wrist.
“Riff, don’t go to the rumble tonight.”
Riff laughed.
“The rumble was yesterday, lover boy.”
Tony's eyebrows furrowed.
“No, the rumble is tonight, and I know you want to fight Bernardo and I know he wants to fight with you. Just don't do it. Please, for me.”
Riff shook his head. Something must be wrong. Something must be wrong with his head.
He started walking down the street as fast as he could. He was suddenly very aware about not wearing a shirt. As he rushed past a couple of old guys sitting on the curb with the radio, he heard a bit of the game. It was the Mets playing, just like it was yesterday.
--
After a week of waking up the same day, waking up moments after being stabbed by the leader of the Sharks, Riff is just about done with all of this. He's ready for it to stop. He decides to stay the entire day in bed. He watches the sunset. He watches the sky get dark. He goes to bed hoping that when he wakes up, it'll be a different day when he wakes up.
It isn’t a different day.
--
This time, Riff decides to go through the motions, to try to pick at the little details that might change the outcome of the day. He goes to the rumble. He starts fighting with Bernardo. But when he meets Bernardo's eyes this time, he notices something different. There’s an unfamiliar look there, an uncertain confused look that he’s never seen, not in years of knowing Bernardo, on his face. And he realizes that he’s not alone.
Whatever this is, Bernardo’s stuck in it too.
And he can tell, when Bernardo looks back at him, that he knows that Riff knows.
But it doesn’t change anything. Riff’s still the leader of the Jets, and Bernardo is still the leader of the Sharks. And Riff feels again that weirdly familiar feeling of a knife sinking into his chest.