Fic: Let's Play Two (Supernatural)
Title: Let's Play Two
Rating: PG-13 for language
Characters: Sam and Dean (gen)
Summary: Sam is rapidly going from "concerned" to "fucking freaked out," because Dean quiet and motionless for so long is just wrong, Dean without a snappy comeback, Dean uninterested in drowning his sorrows in a fight or a drink or a woman whose name ends in "i," and Sam isn't sure what to do.
Spoilers: Set sometime late S1-whenever July happens in the vague timeline of this show-but no spoilers past the Pilot.
Disclaimer: Dude. This show owns me, not the other way around.
A/N: First fic in a new fandom-meep! Much gratitude to danceswithwords and anonymous_sibyl for beta-ing.
Let's Play Two
Castle Rock, CO
Sam comes a lot closer than he'd like to getting his face chewed off by the lili before he manages to wrap the amulet around her neck. She explodes, shrieking, and the concussion knocks him backwards off his feet. He hits the ground hard, the amulet clattering down next to him.
"Dean?" he calls, gulping for breath. "You OK?"
No answer. He lurches to his feet on a surge of panicked adrenaline. "Dean!"
He picks his brother out of the dimness almost immediately, crouched several feet away, unmoving. As he stumbles closer, he sees that Dean has something cradled in his lap: something that used to be someone, the lifeless body of a girl maybe eight years old, her face deathly pale under her freckles and blood matted in her brown curly hair. And Dean looks up at him, and for once he's hiding absolutely nothing, no mask between Sam and the complete devastation in his brother's eyes. It's enough to bring Sam to his knees.
"Oh." The word rushes out of him, taking most of his breath with it. There's a stunned, silent moment where he and Dean just look at each other, helpless, and then Sam's brain keys in to the faint sound of sirens in the distance.
"Shit," he gasps. "Cops."
Dean doesn't move.
"Dean, we have to go, now." He reaches out, slow and careful. For an instant he expects Dean to fight him, but his brother just watches as he gently takes hold of the girl and arranges her as peacefully as possible on the floor of the cave. His hands are shaking.
Dean still hasn't moved, and the way his hands dangle empty at his sides makes it hard for Sam to talk. "Come on," he manages, shoving a shoulder underneath Dean's arm, and they stumble together out into the dark.
*****
Neither one of them feels much like chatting on the drive back to the motel. Sam lets his brother shower first, and when Dean emerges, his eyes standing out like bruises in his pale face, Sam expects him to throw on clothes and head for the nearest hole-in-the-wall. It's Dean's usual M.O. after a job that goes bad, just like Sam likes to bury his head in the nearest cheap paperback or get lost in Wikipedia.
But Dean just collapses facedown on his bed, tucks a knife under his pillow, mumbles, "Get some sleep, Sammy," and that's it from him for the night.
*****
The next morning is more of the same. Sam wakes early, worry nagging at him, watches Dean grimace and flinch in his sleep.
"Sam," Dean finally says around eight o'clock.
"Yeah?"
"Quit it."
Sam frowns. Should have been I know I'm pretty, but quit fuckin' staring at me, or Don't make me get a restraining order, dude. "I'm going for coffee," he says; Dean just grunts in reply.
A few hours later, Dean's still in bed, and Sam can count the number of words he's said that morning on one hand. The crappy motel coffee is cold and untouched on the nightstand next to him. Sam is rapidly going from "concerned" to "fucking freaked out," because Dean quiet and motionless for so long is just wrong, Dean without a snappy comeback, Dean uninterested in drowning his sorrows in a fight or a drink or a woman whose name ends in "i," and Sam isn't sure what to do. He wonders if his father's ever seen Dean like this, and what he'd done about it if he had; probably gave Dean a bottle of Jack Daniels and a gruff speech filled with military metaphors and told him to get back on the horse. Sam grits his teeth.
Finally, as he's trolling the Rocky Mountain News online for potential gigs, hoping that maybe the next job will take Dean's mind off things, something catches his eye: Rockies Hope for Fireworks Against Giants. He raises an eyebrow, clicks a few more times, and smiles. Quickly, he scribbles down some directions on the motel notepad, shoves them in his back pocket as he gets to his feet.
"I'm going out for a while," he tells his brother, grabbing the keys off the table.
"Put some gas in the car, and call in," Dean says automatically, muffled in the pillow, not even bothering to open his eyes. Ever since that thing in Minnesota, he and Sam had agreed to contact each other every two hours when they were separated. It felt uncomfortably like something their dad would have forced them to do, but it had saved them both a lot of worry. Of course, there was one exception to the rule-after the first call from Dean that consisted mostly of heavy breathing and female giggling, Sam had hastily agreed that a quick "don't wait up" call before the festivities started was more than sufficient.
"Yes, sir," Sam answers, hoping for a smile or at least a middle finger, but Dean doesn't respond, and Sam finds himself gunning the engine all the way to Denver.
*****
As far as Sam knows, baseball is the only thing Dean's ever shown an enduring interest in that doesn't involve sex, cars, music, or hunting. Well, Dean's mentioned a few theories about a possible demonic connection involving George Steinbrenner, but other than that, it's completely outside his usual realm. Even now, it's about the only thing that can convince him to give the mullet rock a rest, the local broadcast turned on low as the countryside rolls past them, Dean rooting for whoever hasn't pissed him off recently.
Sam can remember when it started. One rainy summer day Dean had found a book about baseball history in Pastor Jim's library and started leafing restlessly through it, and within about an hour, his bitching about the weather had faded into silent absorption. And from then on, it was box scores and statistics and random factoids from spring training through October, until John and Sam were both ready to tape his mouth shut. Even more so than usual.
Sam had asked him once what the big deal was about baseball, since Dean was determinedly not interested in anything else that his little brother deemed normal. "A hundred years of history, six months out of the year, game almost every night," Dean had answered. "That's my kinda long-term relationship, man."
Dean had been twelve.
At some point, Dean had become obsessed with the idea of visiting every Major League ballpark, since they were traveling constantly anyway. So when they had a free night and the home team was in town, he'd do his best to drag them all to the park and finagle them tickets. Actually, watching his brother con the scalpers had always been a spectator sport in itself for Sam. Sometimes Dean gave the guys a sob story about Sam only having six months to live-with Sam looking appropriately pathetic in the background-or casually let it slip that his dad was a cop and a few tickets along the first-base line might convince him to look the other way, and sometimes he just grinned and chatted and somehow ended up with the tickets through no method Sam could perceive. Of course, there'd been a time or two when he came up empty and they had to shell out a few bucks for bleacher seats, but most of the time, Dean's seemingly endless supply of bullshit carried them through.
Sam had tried it once, at Fenway Park-which, he realized later, was like the Mecca of scalpers, and Dean had probably known it, too. He'd panicked and ended up paying forty dollars each for fifteen dollar bleacher seats in right field, and Dean had laughed himself nearly sick. But it had been worth it for the energy crackling through the packed ballpark-positive energy, a rarity for them-and the air warm on his skin even in the late innings, Dean chattering in his ear about the Pesky Pole and the Yawkeys' initials in Morse Code until Sam thought he'd go deaf, even though Dean was seventeen at the time and starting to talk less and less, making Sam work to hear what he wasn't saying. Even their dad had been smiling, watching them bicker over the last couple of bites of hot dog, and on their way out he tossed down Ahmed Gupta's credit card to get them each a Red Sox pennant.
They'd ended up using the pennants as tourniquets a few months later, but Sam wasn't much on souvenirs anyway.
*****
The transaction goes easily, and when Sam gets back to their room, Dean is exactly where he left him, face buried in his pillow and pretending to sleep. Sam slaps his boot.
"Hey. Get up."
"Fuck off." Dean's voice is a low growl. "I'm sleeping."
"C'mon," Sam insists. "You've been sleeping all day. I've got something I want you to check out."
Dean rolls his head enough to look at him with red-tinged eyes. "I'm not kidding, Sam. Back off."
He doesn't flinch. "It's important, Dean."
Dean just looks at him, then turns his head and swears into his pillow for a while, then eventually, sounding resigned, "Can I kill something?"
"Maybe," Sam answers smoothly. It's not technically a lie; for all he knows, they might find something to kill at some point on this excursion. Seems to happen often enough.
His brother holds out for a few more seconds, but then he rubs his eyes and rolls to his feet, grabbing his jacket off the chair. "Fine. You're driving," is all he says, yanking the door open.
Sam doesn't know whether to be touched or worried that he doesn't even ask where they're going.
*****
Dean is silent on the drive into the city, staring out the window with his eyes hidden beneath his sunglasses. He doesn't even seem to register where they're going when Sam pulls into a parking lot a couple of blocks away from the gigantic purple "Coors Field" sign, which Sam figures will tip him off eventually.
"Let's go," Sam says, getting out of the car, and he watches Dean stand, pull off his sunglasses, and trace the slow straggle of pedestrians making their way toward the park. His eyes widen when he sees their destination. He shifts his gaze to Sam, then, and Sam just grins in what he hopes is an endearing way and brandishes two tickets.
Not endearing enough, apparently; Dean gives him a warning look. "That ballpark had better be haunted, Sam, or I swear to God I will kick your ass."
"Oh," Sam snorts, "because lying there inhaling whatever is on that pillow back at the motel is so much more enjoyable."
"Dude." Dean grimaces, disgusted. "I have to sleep there tonight, thanks."
"Come on, Dean. When's the last time you went to an actual baseball game?"
"I don't know if you've noticed this, Mr. 'I Don't Approve of Credit Card Scams,'" Dean sneers, rounding the car, "but keeping this little business of ours afloat ain't easy, and we can't afford to be wasting our-"
"It's not our money," Sam interrupts. "It's mine. I started a savings account in California."
Dean blinks at him, momentarily speechless. "All this time," he says finally, slowly, "you had a savings account, and you never told me?"
"I was saving it for emergencies! Pool sharking doesn't exactly come with a 401(k), y'know."
But Dean's building up a new head of steam already. "And, say, I don't know, facing a tree demon without ammo isn't an emergency, but a baseball game is?"
"They don't have ATMs in Cascade National Forest," Sam points out reasonably. "And besides, it gave you an excuse to light something new on fire."
Dean grits his teeth, swings away from him. "Dammit. I'm not really in the mood for crowds and seven-dollar beers, Sam, and you shouldn't be spending your damn savings account on this."
Sam shrugs. "The money's spent, Dean. We're here. Now come on. Please?"
Dean turns to look at him, his mouth tight with frustration, then reels back a little. "Aw, shit. Not the eyes, dude, come on."
Sam lets the hint of a smile creep onto his face. "Dean." He knows the power he has over his brother, and he does his best not to use it intentionally, but in this case, it's for Dean's own good.
"Fuck," Dean hisses under his breath, but he grabs the ticket out of Sam's hand. "Just please tell me you didn't pay face value for these."
Sam wrinkles his nose guiltily.
"Oh, God," Dean groans, and stalks off into the crowd without looking back.
*****
When they come out of the entrance tunnel into the evening sunlight, the field opening wide and green in front of them, Sam hears Dean inhale next to him and he's pretty sure this was a good idea. He risks a covert glance to the side; for half a second, Dean's eyes are just as wide and green.
Then he sees Sam looking at him, and the shutters go down again. "I'm gonna go get food," he says, short and abrupt. Sam starts to dig in his pocket, but Dean smacks his hand away, something like a wince crossing his face. "Save your money, Sammy."
He starts off toward the nearest concession booth before Sam can protest further. Sighing, Sam calls after him, "Ketchup and mustard and-"
"No relish, dude, I know," Dean shouts back irritably, waving a dismissive hand, and Sam sighs again and goes to find their seats.
*****
Finally, with no score in the bottom of the second, Dean actually says something.
Well, mumbles something, really, and Sam doesn't quite catch it. "Huh?" he says, keeping his eyes on the game; he's careful not to sound too eager.
"I said I'd hit .340, too, if I played half my games up here in zero-g," Dean mutters, his arms sullenly crossed over his chest, jerking his head at where Matt Holliday's stats are displayed on the Jumbotron.
"Actually, I hear they're keeping the balls in a humidor now," Sam offers. "It's supposed to help counteract the effect of the thinner air."
Dean looks at him like he just announced he thinks zombies are kind of hot. "Since when do you give a rat's ass about baseball?"
Sam hesitates. Jess had asked him the same question-though with slightly different wording-when his channel-surfing had started leading him to the Giants or A's game more often than not, summer evenings in their crappy apartment. "Don't tell me you're smart and a secret jock," she'd teased him. He hadn't really known how to answer then, either, because he couldn't very well tell her that baseball was about as close as he could get to Dean without doing something unthinkable and un-Winchesterly, like picking up the phone. He'd even thought he'd caught a flash of his brother's leather jacket once at a Giants-Cardinals game, with his dad's Army Surplus canvas close behind, but the camera had panned away too quickly for him to see clearly; he didn't move from the couch for the rest of the game, shaking, hardly daring to blink. He'd still been there when Jess had come home, hours later, the game long over.
Dean is still watching him.
"What?" Sam shrugs. "All those years of you talking my ear off, I can't pick up something?"
Dean stares at him for another few seconds, then, "Humidor?" he repeats, shaking his head. "Jesus. Leave it to you to geek up baseball."
Sam struggles to keep from rolling his eyes, trying to keep his expression even as he asks, "Hey, Dean. Who won the 1991 World Series?"
"Twins in 7," Dean replies instantly, automatically, and then his eyes light a little. His arms loosen slightly across his chest, and he angles his body toward Sam's. "Jack Morris pitched 10 innings in Game 7, a complete game shutout, one of the greatest-" He stops, and Sam just keeps looking at him, eyebrow raised, smirking. Dean's mouth opens and closes a couple of times, until he grumbles, "Shut up," and snatches Sam's Cracker Jacks.
*****
"Hey!" Dean leaps out of his seat in the bottom of the sixth, abandoning all pretense of disinterest, his shout mixing with the chorus of boos cascading down the stands. "Joyce! Must be pretty hard to see the game with your head up your ass!"
There's a boy sitting in front of them, maybe about ten years old. He stares up at Dean, his eyes wide and his face streaked with mustard.
"Did you see that?" Dean demands of him, outraged. "He was safe!" The kid gives him a gap-toothed grin.
The kid's mother turns around now, glaring disapprovingly; Dean gives her his most charming smile. She rolls her eyes and turns away, unimpressed.
Dean Winchester: bad influence on children across America since 1992.
Sam just shakes his head. "Smooth," he whispers as Dean settles back into his seat.
"I didn't even swear! Much!" Dean hisses back defensively, somehow managing to look sheepish and rebellious at the same time. "Besides, someone's gotta teach the kid how to cuss out an umpire."
"So it's, like, a noble thing, then," Sam says solemnly.
Dean narrows his eyes. "Sam…"
Sam holds his hands up in front of him. "Just checking."
*****
It's pretty much downhill from there. During the seventh-inning stretch, Dean keeps up his years-old tradition of singing as loud and off-key as possible, and hitting Sam wherever he can reach on the "one, two, three strikes you're out" part. Sam just halfheartedly blocks the blows and then, with a quick prayer of thanks to whatever had decreed that he'd be taller than his big brother, grabs Dean in a headlock.
Dean struggles and growls something incoherent, his face smashed against Sam's ribs.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" Sam asks innocently.
"I said," Dean manages, squirming, "I'll put your freaking balls in a humidor," and Sam laughs so hard he loses his grip.
*****
Humidor or not, it turns into a slugfest, and the Rockies end up losing 9-6 but no one seems too broken up about it. As the players file off the field, Dean stands, stretches, gives the kid in front of them a surreptitious high-five when his mother's back is turned.
"Gotta give you credit, Sam-not a bad way to spend an evening," he says, and Sam grins.
"It's not over yet."
"Oh, really?" Dean raises an eyebrow. "Please tell me there's a bar in this story somewhere. And maybe twins?"
"Jesus, Dean." Sam rolls his eyes. "Upstairs brain, man, seriously."
Dean sighs. "Dude, are you sure we're related?"
"What I was going to say," Sam continues, ignoring him, "is that there's a fireworks show." Dean looks at him quizzically, and he explains, "Tomorrow's Fourth of July."
"It is?" His brother looks surprised. "Huh. Well, that's cute, Sam, but honestly, I'm thinking I'll take my chances with the twins." He gives Sam his best I'm-so-gonna-get-laid-tonight grin.
Sam lifts a shoulder. "OK, I guess if you don't want to go down on the field…"
"Wait." Dean stops dead. "What?"
"They do the fireworks up there," Sam explains, twisting around to point at the sky above the last row of seats in their section. "So for safety reasons, everyone up here has to watch from down on the field."
Since Sam actually knew Dean when he was twelve years old, it's not hard to recognize the look in his eyes, even though he tries to cover it with fifteen years of I'm way too cool for that. "Really?" Dean asks, trying for casual, and Sam has to bite his lip to keep from laughing.
"Yeah. But if you'd rather…"
"Nah, dude, let's check it out."
Sam politely waits for Dean to turn his back before he cracks up.
The infield is roped off, but the entire rest of the park is at their disposal, and even Sam can't help grinning like an idiot as they shuffle with the crowd onto the field, the flutter of I am walking on the grass of a major-league ballpark. Dean is thrilled beyond belief, and utterly failing to hide it despite his best attempts; his eyes are shining and he's got a goofy grin to match Sam's and he hasn't looked this purely happy since Sam can remember. And this is all Sam wants, everyday stuff like this, Dean coming over a couple of nights a week to watch the game, drinking all Sam's beer because it's his right as the oldest, getting plastered and burning themselves on fireworks on the Fourth of July, dragging their girlfriends to agonizing family dinners on Sundays. He can feel it start to simmer in him, his hatred of the thing that did this to his family, that drove them to this life, blood and fear and death and his brother's eyes over the body of another victim they couldn't save.
"Hey," Dean says, and he's watching him carefully.
Sam shrugs. "Nothing."
"OK," but he gets a look that says we'll be talking about this later, and Sam takes a deep breath to calm himself down.
They stake out a spot in right field and flop down. Sam ditches his shoes and socks, enjoying the cool grass between his toes. The warm desert air has dried out most of the rain from the thunderstorm earlier in the day, but when he lies back he can smell the earth underneath him, and he inhales the clean scent gratefully.
Dean leaves his boots on-possibly because he's got weapons in them-but he lies down on his back, too, his fingers tracing idly and unconsciously through the blades of grass. The rest of the crowd buzzes around them, parents trying vainly to control kids hopped up on Cracker Jacks and Red Ropes and summer and baseball. A lot of the kids have brought gloves and balls, and after a few minutes Sam realizes that Dean is watching a couple of them, a brother and sister. They're shrieking with laughter as they toss the ball back and forth, and Dean has that look on his face again.
"It wasn't your fault," Sam says, as quietly as he can with the noise surrounding them. Dean's jaw tightens, but he meets Sam's eyes directly.
"I'll believe that when you believe that Jessica wasn't your fault."
He can't breathe for a second, and Dean just looks at him, rueful, and Sam snorts out a laugh because it's either that or scream. "There's just not enough therapy in the world, is there?"
"Therapy," Dean scoffs, folding his arms beneath his head and looking up at the sky. "You know, I could swear Dad always said you were a boy."
Oh, dude, bad move, because Sam has ammunition against this for the rest of his life. "Dean. You watch Oprah."
"Yeah, well, you… watch… shut up."
"Uh-huh." Sam snickers, licks a finger and chalks up a point for himself in the air in front of him.
Then they're quiet, letting the happy sounds wash over them while they wait for the fireworks to start. Sam can feel the ever-present tension in his shoulders slowly unwinding, and he breathes deep, trying to make out the few stars bright enough not to be buried in the stadium lights.
"Sam." Dean's voice is low.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
He looks over at his brother, who's staring resolutely up at the night sky, like if he's not looking at Sam while he says it, it doesn't really count. Something tightens in Sam's chest. "We're in this together, you know," he says, knowing it's useless and that Dean has you're the oldest and your responsibility tattooed on his heart and that will never change no matter how old they get. But he wants to try anyway. "When we screw up, it's not all on you."
Dean sighs. "Just couldn't let it rest, could you?"
"I'm serious, Dean. We're supposed to be a team, right? That means me having your back, not just you having mine. You said you didn't want to do this alone-so don't."
Dean doesn't reply, but he sits up a little, making a big show of looking around for something. It's Sam's turn to sigh. "OK, I'll bite. What the hell are you doing?" Though he's pretty sure he doesn't want to know.
"Looking for the Lifetime TV cameras."
Sam shakes his head. "You're such an asshole."
"I know." But Dean's smile looks real, now, in the flickering light of the first few explosions in the sky, and that's why Sam says these things, even knowing he might as well paint a target on his chest. Because sometimes, even though he'd never admit it, he knows Dean needs to hear them.
*****
As they're leaving, Sam loses Dean in the crush for a few minutes, and with them the other shoe is always waiting to drop, so he calls out, "Dean! Dean!" with more panic than he probably should.
"Oh, unbunch your panties, Samantha, I'm right here." Dean appears out of the crowd, shoving something into his jacket pocket.
"What were you doing?" Sam asks, worry fading into suspicion. He doesn't want to get arrested now, not after they've had such a good night.
Dean claps him on the shoulder. "Trying to find the bastards who took your testicles. No luck, by the way. Now move your ass, I want to beat traffic."
And as he follows Dean toward the exit, Sam has to keep reminding himself that his brother's silence had been a bad thing.
*****
Dean's obnoxiousness is turned up to eleven the next morning; Sam's wake-up call comes at 7:30 a.m., by way of a threat to pour hot coffee on his head.
"Some of us didn't sleep all fuckin' day yesterday," Sam mutters viciously into his pillow, grabbing blindly for the coffee.
"Bitch, bitch, bitch. You're just pissed 'cause you need more beauty sleep than I do."
Sam considers mentioning that getting Dean out of bed in the morning usually requires nothing short of miracles and/or crowbars, but he's too tired and it's weirdly comforting to see his brother bouncing off the walls, even if it's at an ungodly hour. So he just groans himself vertical and slurps coffee while Dean runs down their list of potential next gigs.
Eventually, they decide to head south; there's been a drowning death in a Louisiana swamp that corresponds with a pattern their dad has laid out in his journal. They stop to fill up on the way out of town. While Dean's in the convenience store, in search of his usual assortment of crap with no nutritional value whatsoever, Sam sorts through the box of battered cassette tapes, hoping for something that won't give him a headache. He secretly sort of likes Dean's music-which is something he might possibly admit on his deathbed-but AC/DC at ten billion decibels isn't his favorite way to start the morning.
There's nothing new in the box; he opens the glove compartment, more out of boredom than any real hope of finding anything. But buried underneath their tangle of fake IDs, he discovers a plastic container, a 35mm film canister. They use digital now, of course, but the canisters are handy for carrying herbs and holy water and other assorted tools of their weird-ass trade, and this one is marked in what looks like fresh ink: 7-3-06. Curious, he pops open the top. The smell of thyme hits him, but all that's left of it is a little green dust clinging to the sides of the container. The rest is filled with small orange granules.
Dirt, he realizes. From the warning track at the ballpark. He can still see some of it on the much-abused mat under his feet, mingling with years of blood and muck and he doesn't want to think about what else.
He hears Dean's boots crunching across the parking lot, and he has barely enough time to chuck the container back in the glove compartment before his brother is opening the door.
"Here." Dean tosses him a package of chocolate-covered mini-doughnuts. "Breakfast of champions. What are you grinnin' about?"
"Nothing," Sam answers, and he knows he should stop smiling, but he can't.
Dean just watches him for a few seconds, then snorts, "Freak."
"Jerk." They're both smiling now.
"Let's hit the road," Dean says, sliding the keys into the ignition, and Sam cranks up AC/DC as loud as it will go.
END
Because I am a ginormous dork, here's the box score of the Rockies-Giants game on July 3, 2006, in case anyone is interested.
Rating: PG-13 for language
Characters: Sam and Dean (gen)
Summary: Sam is rapidly going from "concerned" to "fucking freaked out," because Dean quiet and motionless for so long is just wrong, Dean without a snappy comeback, Dean uninterested in drowning his sorrows in a fight or a drink or a woman whose name ends in "i," and Sam isn't sure what to do.
Spoilers: Set sometime late S1-whenever July happens in the vague timeline of this show-but no spoilers past the Pilot.
Disclaimer: Dude. This show owns me, not the other way around.
A/N: First fic in a new fandom-meep! Much gratitude to danceswithwords and anonymous_sibyl for beta-ing.
Let's Play Two
Castle Rock, CO
Sam comes a lot closer than he'd like to getting his face chewed off by the lili before he manages to wrap the amulet around her neck. She explodes, shrieking, and the concussion knocks him backwards off his feet. He hits the ground hard, the amulet clattering down next to him.
"Dean?" he calls, gulping for breath. "You OK?"
No answer. He lurches to his feet on a surge of panicked adrenaline. "Dean!"
He picks his brother out of the dimness almost immediately, crouched several feet away, unmoving. As he stumbles closer, he sees that Dean has something cradled in his lap: something that used to be someone, the lifeless body of a girl maybe eight years old, her face deathly pale under her freckles and blood matted in her brown curly hair. And Dean looks up at him, and for once he's hiding absolutely nothing, no mask between Sam and the complete devastation in his brother's eyes. It's enough to bring Sam to his knees.
"Oh." The word rushes out of him, taking most of his breath with it. There's a stunned, silent moment where he and Dean just look at each other, helpless, and then Sam's brain keys in to the faint sound of sirens in the distance.
"Shit," he gasps. "Cops."
Dean doesn't move.
"Dean, we have to go, now." He reaches out, slow and careful. For an instant he expects Dean to fight him, but his brother just watches as he gently takes hold of the girl and arranges her as peacefully as possible on the floor of the cave. His hands are shaking.
Dean still hasn't moved, and the way his hands dangle empty at his sides makes it hard for Sam to talk. "Come on," he manages, shoving a shoulder underneath Dean's arm, and they stumble together out into the dark.
*****
Neither one of them feels much like chatting on the drive back to the motel. Sam lets his brother shower first, and when Dean emerges, his eyes standing out like bruises in his pale face, Sam expects him to throw on clothes and head for the nearest hole-in-the-wall. It's Dean's usual M.O. after a job that goes bad, just like Sam likes to bury his head in the nearest cheap paperback or get lost in Wikipedia.
But Dean just collapses facedown on his bed, tucks a knife under his pillow, mumbles, "Get some sleep, Sammy," and that's it from him for the night.
*****
The next morning is more of the same. Sam wakes early, worry nagging at him, watches Dean grimace and flinch in his sleep.
"Sam," Dean finally says around eight o'clock.
"Yeah?"
"Quit it."
Sam frowns. Should have been I know I'm pretty, but quit fuckin' staring at me, or Don't make me get a restraining order, dude. "I'm going for coffee," he says; Dean just grunts in reply.
A few hours later, Dean's still in bed, and Sam can count the number of words he's said that morning on one hand. The crappy motel coffee is cold and untouched on the nightstand next to him. Sam is rapidly going from "concerned" to "fucking freaked out," because Dean quiet and motionless for so long is just wrong, Dean without a snappy comeback, Dean uninterested in drowning his sorrows in a fight or a drink or a woman whose name ends in "i," and Sam isn't sure what to do. He wonders if his father's ever seen Dean like this, and what he'd done about it if he had; probably gave Dean a bottle of Jack Daniels and a gruff speech filled with military metaphors and told him to get back on the horse. Sam grits his teeth.
Finally, as he's trolling the Rocky Mountain News online for potential gigs, hoping that maybe the next job will take Dean's mind off things, something catches his eye: Rockies Hope for Fireworks Against Giants. He raises an eyebrow, clicks a few more times, and smiles. Quickly, he scribbles down some directions on the motel notepad, shoves them in his back pocket as he gets to his feet.
"I'm going out for a while," he tells his brother, grabbing the keys off the table.
"Put some gas in the car, and call in," Dean says automatically, muffled in the pillow, not even bothering to open his eyes. Ever since that thing in Minnesota, he and Sam had agreed to contact each other every two hours when they were separated. It felt uncomfortably like something their dad would have forced them to do, but it had saved them both a lot of worry. Of course, there was one exception to the rule-after the first call from Dean that consisted mostly of heavy breathing and female giggling, Sam had hastily agreed that a quick "don't wait up" call before the festivities started was more than sufficient.
"Yes, sir," Sam answers, hoping for a smile or at least a middle finger, but Dean doesn't respond, and Sam finds himself gunning the engine all the way to Denver.
*****
As far as Sam knows, baseball is the only thing Dean's ever shown an enduring interest in that doesn't involve sex, cars, music, or hunting. Well, Dean's mentioned a few theories about a possible demonic connection involving George Steinbrenner, but other than that, it's completely outside his usual realm. Even now, it's about the only thing that can convince him to give the mullet rock a rest, the local broadcast turned on low as the countryside rolls past them, Dean rooting for whoever hasn't pissed him off recently.
Sam can remember when it started. One rainy summer day Dean had found a book about baseball history in Pastor Jim's library and started leafing restlessly through it, and within about an hour, his bitching about the weather had faded into silent absorption. And from then on, it was box scores and statistics and random factoids from spring training through October, until John and Sam were both ready to tape his mouth shut. Even more so than usual.
Sam had asked him once what the big deal was about baseball, since Dean was determinedly not interested in anything else that his little brother deemed normal. "A hundred years of history, six months out of the year, game almost every night," Dean had answered. "That's my kinda long-term relationship, man."
Dean had been twelve.
At some point, Dean had become obsessed with the idea of visiting every Major League ballpark, since they were traveling constantly anyway. So when they had a free night and the home team was in town, he'd do his best to drag them all to the park and finagle them tickets. Actually, watching his brother con the scalpers had always been a spectator sport in itself for Sam. Sometimes Dean gave the guys a sob story about Sam only having six months to live-with Sam looking appropriately pathetic in the background-or casually let it slip that his dad was a cop and a few tickets along the first-base line might convince him to look the other way, and sometimes he just grinned and chatted and somehow ended up with the tickets through no method Sam could perceive. Of course, there'd been a time or two when he came up empty and they had to shell out a few bucks for bleacher seats, but most of the time, Dean's seemingly endless supply of bullshit carried them through.
Sam had tried it once, at Fenway Park-which, he realized later, was like the Mecca of scalpers, and Dean had probably known it, too. He'd panicked and ended up paying forty dollars each for fifteen dollar bleacher seats in right field, and Dean had laughed himself nearly sick. But it had been worth it for the energy crackling through the packed ballpark-positive energy, a rarity for them-and the air warm on his skin even in the late innings, Dean chattering in his ear about the Pesky Pole and the Yawkeys' initials in Morse Code until Sam thought he'd go deaf, even though Dean was seventeen at the time and starting to talk less and less, making Sam work to hear what he wasn't saying. Even their dad had been smiling, watching them bicker over the last couple of bites of hot dog, and on their way out he tossed down Ahmed Gupta's credit card to get them each a Red Sox pennant.
They'd ended up using the pennants as tourniquets a few months later, but Sam wasn't much on souvenirs anyway.
*****
The transaction goes easily, and when Sam gets back to their room, Dean is exactly where he left him, face buried in his pillow and pretending to sleep. Sam slaps his boot.
"Hey. Get up."
"Fuck off." Dean's voice is a low growl. "I'm sleeping."
"C'mon," Sam insists. "You've been sleeping all day. I've got something I want you to check out."
Dean rolls his head enough to look at him with red-tinged eyes. "I'm not kidding, Sam. Back off."
He doesn't flinch. "It's important, Dean."
Dean just looks at him, then turns his head and swears into his pillow for a while, then eventually, sounding resigned, "Can I kill something?"
"Maybe," Sam answers smoothly. It's not technically a lie; for all he knows, they might find something to kill at some point on this excursion. Seems to happen often enough.
His brother holds out for a few more seconds, but then he rubs his eyes and rolls to his feet, grabbing his jacket off the chair. "Fine. You're driving," is all he says, yanking the door open.
Sam doesn't know whether to be touched or worried that he doesn't even ask where they're going.
*****
Dean is silent on the drive into the city, staring out the window with his eyes hidden beneath his sunglasses. He doesn't even seem to register where they're going when Sam pulls into a parking lot a couple of blocks away from the gigantic purple "Coors Field" sign, which Sam figures will tip him off eventually.
"Let's go," Sam says, getting out of the car, and he watches Dean stand, pull off his sunglasses, and trace the slow straggle of pedestrians making their way toward the park. His eyes widen when he sees their destination. He shifts his gaze to Sam, then, and Sam just grins in what he hopes is an endearing way and brandishes two tickets.
Not endearing enough, apparently; Dean gives him a warning look. "That ballpark had better be haunted, Sam, or I swear to God I will kick your ass."
"Oh," Sam snorts, "because lying there inhaling whatever is on that pillow back at the motel is so much more enjoyable."
"Dude." Dean grimaces, disgusted. "I have to sleep there tonight, thanks."
"Come on, Dean. When's the last time you went to an actual baseball game?"
"I don't know if you've noticed this, Mr. 'I Don't Approve of Credit Card Scams,'" Dean sneers, rounding the car, "but keeping this little business of ours afloat ain't easy, and we can't afford to be wasting our-"
"It's not our money," Sam interrupts. "It's mine. I started a savings account in California."
Dean blinks at him, momentarily speechless. "All this time," he says finally, slowly, "you had a savings account, and you never told me?"
"I was saving it for emergencies! Pool sharking doesn't exactly come with a 401(k), y'know."
But Dean's building up a new head of steam already. "And, say, I don't know, facing a tree demon without ammo isn't an emergency, but a baseball game is?"
"They don't have ATMs in Cascade National Forest," Sam points out reasonably. "And besides, it gave you an excuse to light something new on fire."
Dean grits his teeth, swings away from him. "Dammit. I'm not really in the mood for crowds and seven-dollar beers, Sam, and you shouldn't be spending your damn savings account on this."
Sam shrugs. "The money's spent, Dean. We're here. Now come on. Please?"
Dean turns to look at him, his mouth tight with frustration, then reels back a little. "Aw, shit. Not the eyes, dude, come on."
Sam lets the hint of a smile creep onto his face. "Dean." He knows the power he has over his brother, and he does his best not to use it intentionally, but in this case, it's for Dean's own good.
"Fuck," Dean hisses under his breath, but he grabs the ticket out of Sam's hand. "Just please tell me you didn't pay face value for these."
Sam wrinkles his nose guiltily.
"Oh, God," Dean groans, and stalks off into the crowd without looking back.
*****
When they come out of the entrance tunnel into the evening sunlight, the field opening wide and green in front of them, Sam hears Dean inhale next to him and he's pretty sure this was a good idea. He risks a covert glance to the side; for half a second, Dean's eyes are just as wide and green.
Then he sees Sam looking at him, and the shutters go down again. "I'm gonna go get food," he says, short and abrupt. Sam starts to dig in his pocket, but Dean smacks his hand away, something like a wince crossing his face. "Save your money, Sammy."
He starts off toward the nearest concession booth before Sam can protest further. Sighing, Sam calls after him, "Ketchup and mustard and-"
"No relish, dude, I know," Dean shouts back irritably, waving a dismissive hand, and Sam sighs again and goes to find their seats.
*****
Finally, with no score in the bottom of the second, Dean actually says something.
Well, mumbles something, really, and Sam doesn't quite catch it. "Huh?" he says, keeping his eyes on the game; he's careful not to sound too eager.
"I said I'd hit .340, too, if I played half my games up here in zero-g," Dean mutters, his arms sullenly crossed over his chest, jerking his head at where Matt Holliday's stats are displayed on the Jumbotron.
"Actually, I hear they're keeping the balls in a humidor now," Sam offers. "It's supposed to help counteract the effect of the thinner air."
Dean looks at him like he just announced he thinks zombies are kind of hot. "Since when do you give a rat's ass about baseball?"
Sam hesitates. Jess had asked him the same question-though with slightly different wording-when his channel-surfing had started leading him to the Giants or A's game more often than not, summer evenings in their crappy apartment. "Don't tell me you're smart and a secret jock," she'd teased him. He hadn't really known how to answer then, either, because he couldn't very well tell her that baseball was about as close as he could get to Dean without doing something unthinkable and un-Winchesterly, like picking up the phone. He'd even thought he'd caught a flash of his brother's leather jacket once at a Giants-Cardinals game, with his dad's Army Surplus canvas close behind, but the camera had panned away too quickly for him to see clearly; he didn't move from the couch for the rest of the game, shaking, hardly daring to blink. He'd still been there when Jess had come home, hours later, the game long over.
Dean is still watching him.
"What?" Sam shrugs. "All those years of you talking my ear off, I can't pick up something?"
Dean stares at him for another few seconds, then, "Humidor?" he repeats, shaking his head. "Jesus. Leave it to you to geek up baseball."
Sam struggles to keep from rolling his eyes, trying to keep his expression even as he asks, "Hey, Dean. Who won the 1991 World Series?"
"Twins in 7," Dean replies instantly, automatically, and then his eyes light a little. His arms loosen slightly across his chest, and he angles his body toward Sam's. "Jack Morris pitched 10 innings in Game 7, a complete game shutout, one of the greatest-" He stops, and Sam just keeps looking at him, eyebrow raised, smirking. Dean's mouth opens and closes a couple of times, until he grumbles, "Shut up," and snatches Sam's Cracker Jacks.
*****
"Hey!" Dean leaps out of his seat in the bottom of the sixth, abandoning all pretense of disinterest, his shout mixing with the chorus of boos cascading down the stands. "Joyce! Must be pretty hard to see the game with your head up your ass!"
There's a boy sitting in front of them, maybe about ten years old. He stares up at Dean, his eyes wide and his face streaked with mustard.
"Did you see that?" Dean demands of him, outraged. "He was safe!" The kid gives him a gap-toothed grin.
The kid's mother turns around now, glaring disapprovingly; Dean gives her his most charming smile. She rolls her eyes and turns away, unimpressed.
Dean Winchester: bad influence on children across America since 1992.
Sam just shakes his head. "Smooth," he whispers as Dean settles back into his seat.
"I didn't even swear! Much!" Dean hisses back defensively, somehow managing to look sheepish and rebellious at the same time. "Besides, someone's gotta teach the kid how to cuss out an umpire."
"So it's, like, a noble thing, then," Sam says solemnly.
Dean narrows his eyes. "Sam…"
Sam holds his hands up in front of him. "Just checking."
*****
It's pretty much downhill from there. During the seventh-inning stretch, Dean keeps up his years-old tradition of singing as loud and off-key as possible, and hitting Sam wherever he can reach on the "one, two, three strikes you're out" part. Sam just halfheartedly blocks the blows and then, with a quick prayer of thanks to whatever had decreed that he'd be taller than his big brother, grabs Dean in a headlock.
Dean struggles and growls something incoherent, his face smashed against Sam's ribs.
"I'm sorry, what was that?" Sam asks innocently.
"I said," Dean manages, squirming, "I'll put your freaking balls in a humidor," and Sam laughs so hard he loses his grip.
*****
Humidor or not, it turns into a slugfest, and the Rockies end up losing 9-6 but no one seems too broken up about it. As the players file off the field, Dean stands, stretches, gives the kid in front of them a surreptitious high-five when his mother's back is turned.
"Gotta give you credit, Sam-not a bad way to spend an evening," he says, and Sam grins.
"It's not over yet."
"Oh, really?" Dean raises an eyebrow. "Please tell me there's a bar in this story somewhere. And maybe twins?"
"Jesus, Dean." Sam rolls his eyes. "Upstairs brain, man, seriously."
Dean sighs. "Dude, are you sure we're related?"
"What I was going to say," Sam continues, ignoring him, "is that there's a fireworks show." Dean looks at him quizzically, and he explains, "Tomorrow's Fourth of July."
"It is?" His brother looks surprised. "Huh. Well, that's cute, Sam, but honestly, I'm thinking I'll take my chances with the twins." He gives Sam his best I'm-so-gonna-get-laid-tonight grin.
Sam lifts a shoulder. "OK, I guess if you don't want to go down on the field…"
"Wait." Dean stops dead. "What?"
"They do the fireworks up there," Sam explains, twisting around to point at the sky above the last row of seats in their section. "So for safety reasons, everyone up here has to watch from down on the field."
Since Sam actually knew Dean when he was twelve years old, it's not hard to recognize the look in his eyes, even though he tries to cover it with fifteen years of I'm way too cool for that. "Really?" Dean asks, trying for casual, and Sam has to bite his lip to keep from laughing.
"Yeah. But if you'd rather…"
"Nah, dude, let's check it out."
Sam politely waits for Dean to turn his back before he cracks up.
The infield is roped off, but the entire rest of the park is at their disposal, and even Sam can't help grinning like an idiot as they shuffle with the crowd onto the field, the flutter of I am walking on the grass of a major-league ballpark. Dean is thrilled beyond belief, and utterly failing to hide it despite his best attempts; his eyes are shining and he's got a goofy grin to match Sam's and he hasn't looked this purely happy since Sam can remember. And this is all Sam wants, everyday stuff like this, Dean coming over a couple of nights a week to watch the game, drinking all Sam's beer because it's his right as the oldest, getting plastered and burning themselves on fireworks on the Fourth of July, dragging their girlfriends to agonizing family dinners on Sundays. He can feel it start to simmer in him, his hatred of the thing that did this to his family, that drove them to this life, blood and fear and death and his brother's eyes over the body of another victim they couldn't save.
"Hey," Dean says, and he's watching him carefully.
Sam shrugs. "Nothing."
"OK," but he gets a look that says we'll be talking about this later, and Sam takes a deep breath to calm himself down.
They stake out a spot in right field and flop down. Sam ditches his shoes and socks, enjoying the cool grass between his toes. The warm desert air has dried out most of the rain from the thunderstorm earlier in the day, but when he lies back he can smell the earth underneath him, and he inhales the clean scent gratefully.
Dean leaves his boots on-possibly because he's got weapons in them-but he lies down on his back, too, his fingers tracing idly and unconsciously through the blades of grass. The rest of the crowd buzzes around them, parents trying vainly to control kids hopped up on Cracker Jacks and Red Ropes and summer and baseball. A lot of the kids have brought gloves and balls, and after a few minutes Sam realizes that Dean is watching a couple of them, a brother and sister. They're shrieking with laughter as they toss the ball back and forth, and Dean has that look on his face again.
"It wasn't your fault," Sam says, as quietly as he can with the noise surrounding them. Dean's jaw tightens, but he meets Sam's eyes directly.
"I'll believe that when you believe that Jessica wasn't your fault."
He can't breathe for a second, and Dean just looks at him, rueful, and Sam snorts out a laugh because it's either that or scream. "There's just not enough therapy in the world, is there?"
"Therapy," Dean scoffs, folding his arms beneath his head and looking up at the sky. "You know, I could swear Dad always said you were a boy."
Oh, dude, bad move, because Sam has ammunition against this for the rest of his life. "Dean. You watch Oprah."
"Yeah, well, you… watch… shut up."
"Uh-huh." Sam snickers, licks a finger and chalks up a point for himself in the air in front of him.
Then they're quiet, letting the happy sounds wash over them while they wait for the fireworks to start. Sam can feel the ever-present tension in his shoulders slowly unwinding, and he breathes deep, trying to make out the few stars bright enough not to be buried in the stadium lights.
"Sam." Dean's voice is low.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
He looks over at his brother, who's staring resolutely up at the night sky, like if he's not looking at Sam while he says it, it doesn't really count. Something tightens in Sam's chest. "We're in this together, you know," he says, knowing it's useless and that Dean has you're the oldest and your responsibility tattooed on his heart and that will never change no matter how old they get. But he wants to try anyway. "When we screw up, it's not all on you."
Dean sighs. "Just couldn't let it rest, could you?"
"I'm serious, Dean. We're supposed to be a team, right? That means me having your back, not just you having mine. You said you didn't want to do this alone-so don't."
Dean doesn't reply, but he sits up a little, making a big show of looking around for something. It's Sam's turn to sigh. "OK, I'll bite. What the hell are you doing?" Though he's pretty sure he doesn't want to know.
"Looking for the Lifetime TV cameras."
Sam shakes his head. "You're such an asshole."
"I know." But Dean's smile looks real, now, in the flickering light of the first few explosions in the sky, and that's why Sam says these things, even knowing he might as well paint a target on his chest. Because sometimes, even though he'd never admit it, he knows Dean needs to hear them.
*****
As they're leaving, Sam loses Dean in the crush for a few minutes, and with them the other shoe is always waiting to drop, so he calls out, "Dean! Dean!" with more panic than he probably should.
"Oh, unbunch your panties, Samantha, I'm right here." Dean appears out of the crowd, shoving something into his jacket pocket.
"What were you doing?" Sam asks, worry fading into suspicion. He doesn't want to get arrested now, not after they've had such a good night.
Dean claps him on the shoulder. "Trying to find the bastards who took your testicles. No luck, by the way. Now move your ass, I want to beat traffic."
And as he follows Dean toward the exit, Sam has to keep reminding himself that his brother's silence had been a bad thing.
*****
Dean's obnoxiousness is turned up to eleven the next morning; Sam's wake-up call comes at 7:30 a.m., by way of a threat to pour hot coffee on his head.
"Some of us didn't sleep all fuckin' day yesterday," Sam mutters viciously into his pillow, grabbing blindly for the coffee.
"Bitch, bitch, bitch. You're just pissed 'cause you need more beauty sleep than I do."
Sam considers mentioning that getting Dean out of bed in the morning usually requires nothing short of miracles and/or crowbars, but he's too tired and it's weirdly comforting to see his brother bouncing off the walls, even if it's at an ungodly hour. So he just groans himself vertical and slurps coffee while Dean runs down their list of potential next gigs.
Eventually, they decide to head south; there's been a drowning death in a Louisiana swamp that corresponds with a pattern their dad has laid out in his journal. They stop to fill up on the way out of town. While Dean's in the convenience store, in search of his usual assortment of crap with no nutritional value whatsoever, Sam sorts through the box of battered cassette tapes, hoping for something that won't give him a headache. He secretly sort of likes Dean's music-which is something he might possibly admit on his deathbed-but AC/DC at ten billion decibels isn't his favorite way to start the morning.
There's nothing new in the box; he opens the glove compartment, more out of boredom than any real hope of finding anything. But buried underneath their tangle of fake IDs, he discovers a plastic container, a 35mm film canister. They use digital now, of course, but the canisters are handy for carrying herbs and holy water and other assorted tools of their weird-ass trade, and this one is marked in what looks like fresh ink: 7-3-06. Curious, he pops open the top. The smell of thyme hits him, but all that's left of it is a little green dust clinging to the sides of the container. The rest is filled with small orange granules.
Dirt, he realizes. From the warning track at the ballpark. He can still see some of it on the much-abused mat under his feet, mingling with years of blood and muck and he doesn't want to think about what else.
He hears Dean's boots crunching across the parking lot, and he has barely enough time to chuck the container back in the glove compartment before his brother is opening the door.
"Here." Dean tosses him a package of chocolate-covered mini-doughnuts. "Breakfast of champions. What are you grinnin' about?"
"Nothing," Sam answers, and he knows he should stop smiling, but he can't.
Dean just watches him for a few seconds, then snorts, "Freak."
"Jerk." They're both smiling now.
"Let's hit the road," Dean says, sliding the keys into the ignition, and Sam cranks up AC/DC as loud as it will go.
END
Because I am a ginormous dork, here's the box score of the Rockies-Giants game on July 3, 2006, in case anyone is interested.