SPN Fic: The Ball Is Round (So that the Game Can Change Direction) | Part 2/2
Continued from here.
Sam’s bed was big and warm and just about the best bed Dean had ever slept in. It sure beat motel beds, though one or two ladies had taken Dean to beds that could compare. There was a sad lack of porn hidden underneath it, but then Dean remembered that Sam lived alone and there was no need for him to hide his guilty pleasures. When he looked around in daylight after waking up, well rested and smug, the next morning, he still didn’t find any porn. It was slightly disappointing.
Sam’s place was a three room apartment on the top floor of a four storey building at the edge of the city. The building looked clean and nice enough, and there was obviously someone in charge of the garden surrounding it, but it was not the kind of place Dean would have expected a rich guy to live in. It was another source of random disappointment.
The blinds were half-closed, which was nice since it spared Dean having to stay away from the windows in order not to be seen and arrested for breaking in and shipped off to the States before he even saw his brother in person. Or maybe nobody would care, or pay attention to random windows, but he wasn’t going to take the risk. He didn’t even turn on the tv (that was big and flat and much better than motel television). All the shows were in German anyway.
But the shower he did use. It was great. Great bathrooms always went a long way to making Dean happy.
Afterwards he had breakfast with stuff he found in the kitchen and made sure to leave crumbled wrappings and bread crumbs everywhere just to piss Sam off.
Once he was done eating, he had a closer look around the place. There was the bedroom, the living room with a sofa and a couch long enough for even his ginormous brother to sleep on, the television and a couch table and a rather small dinner table with only two chairs though there was room for at least four. Separated from it through a half-wall was the kitchen, which was as obsessively clean (or had been, before Dean) as could be expected from a place Sam had sole reign over. Everything was neat and clean. (The covers of the bed were a mess as an unmistakable sign that Dean had slept in it.)
The last room was an office, containing a lot of shelves full of books, a closet and a desk with a computer on it. The desk was the only place in the apartment that was remotely messy even without Dean’s help. There were books stacked in uneven piles around the computer screen and one was sitting open beside a note block and a collection of pens.
Most of the books were on law. Huh. Dean had thought his brother had quit studying when he’d decided to become an international soccer star instead. Apparently, he hadn’t.
Or maybe he was doing it as a hobby? It didn’t seem, after all, like Sam had an awful lot of time on his hands, if the plants were anything to go by. There were very few plants on the windowsills, and they were all cacti or bamboo, both of which didn’t mind much if they were left alone for days or weeks on end. Even Dean knew that.
There were no pictures on the walls except for a calendar in the office. All the objects on the shelves had a practical purpose. Combined with how neat and clean everything was, the apartments almost felt like a hotel room. Like Sam didn’t really live here.
Dean’s lips pressed to a thin line as the old anger reared its ugly head again. Sam had left them because he wanted a normal life, but he couldn’t even make a place his own and was constantly away. Maybe he really hadn’t wanted to get away from the life but only from them.
So Dean’s mood dropped some. And it dropped some more when morning turned into noon and afternoon without any little bother to snarl at showing up. The sun was already beginning to set when finally the door opened and Sam limped into the apartment.
“Limped” being the operative word. He actually limped in on crutches, and Dean momentarily forgot his anger. It had suffered considerably from the long wait anyway, which had eaten away at it until only a small stump of annoyance was left. For the moment.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” Dean greeted his brother, his eyes fixed on the foot Sam was not putting any weight on. “That fucker! I’m gonna kill him!”
“I’m happy to see you, too.” Sam sounded long-suffering, but also vaguely amused. And wary. A salad of emotions. Appropriate. “And just so you know, he didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Oh, so he just happened to be running into you?”
“He stopped me on purpose,” Sam explained patiently. “As a defensive player, that’s his job. He didn’t hurt me on purpose. Actually called after the game and asked if I was okay.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.”
Sam shrugged. “It happens. You’re not supposed to foul players in a way that gets them hurt, or at all, but it happens and we all know that, so…” He shrugged again.
“How do you even get hurt in a pansy-ass game like soccer?” Dean marveled. “It’s like cricket. Or chess. Actually, I think chess is more dangerous because the players are all psychos.” Or at least they had been in that movie Dean had watched as a kid. It had shaped his view on the world.
Sam rolled his eyes and didn’t dignify that with an answer. Instead, he limped into the room and looked around. “I see you made yourself at home,” he said sourly.
“Well, somebody had to. But seriously, what’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing much. I twisted my leg some, nothing I didn’t do three dozen times since I was eight. But the doctor told me to take it easy for a few days so it can heal right. Which I will do, since I earn my money with these legs.”
“You sound like a supermodel.”
Sam grimaced as he lowered himself onto the couch and Dean finally, after frigging years, took a good long look at his face. Sam was a little pale, with that pinched twist of the corners of his mouth that told Dean he was in pain. His eyes never left his older brother, though, as if waiting for him to do or say something in particular. Maybe “I missed you,” or “I’ve come to punch you in the face and drag your struggling ass back home to Dad”, or “You’re a disgrace to our family”, or any of the choice things that may have been mentioned when they last spoke. (Since their last conversation ended with Sam slamming the door and them not speaking for years, Dean should probably try to avoid those.)
Altogether, Sam looked like he didn’t know whether to expect a hug or a punch, which meant they were still in synch, since Dean didn’t know whether to hug or to punch him.
So instead of doing either, he crossed his arms and asked, “What took you so long? You said you’d be back by noon.”
“I also told you not to come here while I wasn’t home and you didn’t care about that either,” Sam pointed out.
“So your revenge was letting me wait?” Dean snorted. “You used to have more style than that, little bother. Not much, but some.”
Sam screwed his face into a grimace. “My coach insisted on me getting checked over again after coming back. Since I cost them a lot of money even if I can’t play, they are kind of paranoid about that kind of stuff.”
“Well, not everybody manages to get hurt tripping on grass,” Dean couldn’t help but mention again. “They must know you are particularly fragile.”
“I’ll have you know that injuries are pretty common in this sport. A lot of professional soccer players have to drop out for health reasons before they reach thirty,” Sam explained, somewhat stiffly.
So he left the family business for another thing that got him hurt, only in a more girly way. Dean scowled, but refrained from making that comment for now. “And how long till you can play again?”
“At least two months.” If he had been ten, Sam would have slumped his shoulders and hung his head, Dean could tell. He seemed genuinely upset. “I’ll miss the rest of the Champions League, not to mention the Bundesliga.”
“Aha.” Dean nodded solemnly. “And that’s bad, right?” He lifted his hand in a placating gesture when Sam glared at him. “All right, I get it. Big deal, that.” Finally tired of looking down at his brother (though that was a nice change - he had kind of forgotten just how tall Sam had gotten after hitting seventeen), Dean took a seat opposite him. “How come you ended up a soccer player anyway? And in Europe of all places.”
Sam shrugged again. “It just kind of happened. I was playing in Stanford, just as a hobby. Was good, though. One day, someone asked me if I wanted to join a professional team. Thought he was joking at first.”
“And then you ended up in Germany?”
“No, that happened only last year. The German teams don’t usually look for talent in the American university league.”
“And you dropped out of you classes?” Dean thought about the books in the study. “I can’t imagine you having time for both.”
“No, I keep them up. This is just slowing me down a bit. Professional soccer player is not something I can do for the rest of my life, not would I want to. One day I’m gonna need a normal job.”
“What for?” Dean asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Because I don’t want to live off credit card fraud ever again.” Sam’s voice was sharper than expected, and Dean was more than a little taken aback. That wasn’t even what he had been going at.
“No, I mean, you’re rich, right? You probably won’t have to work another day in your life if you play it well.”
“I’m not that rich. Most of my money goes to the fund Bobby set up, and to you and Dad, because even if you don’t want it you’ll need it one day. And besides, I want to work, do something useful.”
“Well, you could always-”
“No,” Sam snapped. Dean wasn’t sure how the mood had deteriorated so quickly. They should have done this the normal way, the way other people handled a reunion after years: Some hugging, some crying, a lot of talking about unimportant personal stuff, and only then, after being settled with each other, they should have touched the things that drove them apart in the first place.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“You wanted to tell me I could always come back to the family business.” Sam pressed his lips together and glared at Dean, daring him to claim otherwise.
“Well, it is more useful than kicking a ball around a meadow.”
“Did you come here to say that? A call would have sufficed, you know,” Sam snapped, and Dean nearly smiled. If Sam got defensive, that meant he knew he was in the wrong, right?
“By the way, without my playing soccer, you would have lost your arm last month,” Sam added, making Dean unconsciously reach for his shoulder where it still hurt.
“If you’d been there, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place,” he retorted, feeling a surge of smug satisfaction when his brother flinched and glared at him.
“I’m not coming back, Dean,” Sam said none the less. “Not now, not after I’m done with sports. I have other plans on what to do with my life.”
“And your plans are all that matters, right?”
“As opposed to yours? It’s my life, Dean.” Sam stopped for a second, then shook his head, and got back to his feet with a wince. “Listen, it’s been great to see you, and I’m glad you’re not dead or crippled for life, but if that’s all you came here to say, there’s really no point in you staying.”
What?
“What?” Dean asked. How exactly was this happening now? Why did Sam always have to be so difficult?
“I can organize a flight to the States for you for this evening, probably. You should call Dad and tell him you’re coming back. He’ll appreciate it.”
“Hey, wait a moment.” Dean jumped into Sam’s path and blocked him from going wherever he wanted to go. “If you think I’m going back onto a plane after only just escaping the last one, you’re so, so wrong. I’m gonna call Dad, all right, and let him know that I’ll be a week or so.” He slung his arm around Sam’s shoulders and forced him to sit back down. “Let’s forget the past for the moment, okay? If you’re not coming back, I want to spend some quality time with my little brother before we part ways forever.” Not that they would. Not that Dean would drop the topic for good. And it wasn’t like Sam was fooled, judging by the wary look on his face. But for now Dean was willing to play, and Sam, it seemed, was willing to play along.
Maybe he had missed Dean a little, after all.
-
Dean got to sleep on the couch the next night because Sam had no heart (and somehow kept winning at Rock, Paper, Scissors). He had a very comfy couch though, so Dean was willing to forgive him.
That evening, they ordered pizza that had nothing on American pizza and was just kind of weird. Sam was on the phone a lot, making calls or accepting them in three different languages, sometimes all at once because apparently some of his friends from his team were Polish or Dutch or Whatever and only just knew enough German or English to make it through a conversation with their hands and feet, neither of which were available on a phone call. Dean didn’t care much what they were talking about. By the fourth time the phone rang, he got annoyed, but Sam pointed out that he had to be available even if injured since he made his money with this job, and Dean shut up so there wouldn’t be another fight.
Sam’s touchiness continued to lead the conversation. Dean tied to entertain him with stories about how awesome this or that hunt had been, but Sam wasn’t impressed and got bitchy when Dean lingered on the Day Job for too long; and so Dean dropped it for the sake of world peace.
Instead, he made Sam tell him more about his life as a soccer star, if only because Sammy looked so endearingly disgruntled every time Dean called him that. Apparently, Sam was pretty much the only American among all the players the German top teams got from foreign countries. He’d still made friends quickly (because he was Sam), and it was a lot of work, and he tried to avoid interviews and press conferences (because he was Sam) and in his free time he tried to not fall too far behind on his studies (because he was Sam).
The next day, Dean called John from Sam’s phone, but the call went straight to voicemail. Dean was actually relieved; he’d been dreading talking to his father after taking off like that, but John needed to know his one son remaining in the business would not be back for another week.
Afterwards, Sam showed him the area. It was nice enough a town, Dean supposed, but very European. The food wasn’t right, he didn’t understand anything being said, and it was almost November, which meant it was ass cold. Back home, November in an ass cold area meant they would go for a hunt in Florida or California and stay there until they no longer needed the winter coats they never bothered getting.
Altogether, Dean didn’t quite get the appeal.
Even the being a star part of Sam’s new life kind of sucked, since no one seemed to particularly care. A lot of people greeted him and were greeted in return, but no one snapped photos or asked for a signature. When Dean mentioned this, Sam just shrugged.
“I’ve been living here for a while,” he said. “The people in the area know me. I’m just another neighbor to them.” And judging by the content expression on his face, he quite liked it that way.
Dean shook his head, marveled. “You suck at being famous,” he told him.
That evening they had Chinese take-out, which comfortingly enough tasted just like Chinese take-out anywhere in the world (or so Dean assumed), and they ate it side by side on Sam’s ridiculously comfortable couch and everything felt a little like before (except the couch, which actually felt like money). That was, at least, until Dean had to screw it up again.
He blamed the tv program. It had been responsible for bringing him here in the first place, so his placement of the blame seemed accurate enough.
Although, to be fair, it was him who had insisted on watching some “real sports” on ESPN, because a 0:0 after 90 minutes was hardly satisfying in the long run. They caught a football game and had a nice time until all the players were lying on top of each other on the field and Dean couldn’t help being reminded of the pictures he’d seen on the internet, with all the players from Sam’s team throwing themselves at him after he scored a goal. “Admit it, the only reason you went into sports is the chance to cuddle up to a lot of sweaty guys without shame,” he teased, nudging his brother with his elbow. “I bet showering together is the highlight of you day.”
“Actually, showering with anyone was something I tried to avoid, in the first days,” Sam informed him dryly. “Until I had to accept that it’s not something I could manage in the long run.”
“Aw, Sammy was shy.” Dean grinned. “Didn’t want the other boys to see his hard-on.”
“Didn’t want the other boys to see his scars, actually,” Sam informed him, sounding much less amused than he should have. “Because every time some new guy sees them, they think I used to be in a gang. Way to fight the clichéd idea of Americans, by the way.”
That sobered Dean up a little, if only because he didn’t like the reminder of Sam having scars. (Ever scar on Sam’s body marked a time Dean had failed him.) “You said injuries are common with soccer players.”
“Yeah. Torn muscles, Dean. Sprained knees. Not bullet wounds or frigging bite marks.” Now Sam’s tone was cutting, and Dean knew whatever moment they might have had was lost.
Might as well go with it, then. “You see, this is the reason why you shouldn’t be here,” he pointed out. “You spent a couple of weeks around ‘normal’ people, among people who have no idea what’s going on in the world, and suddenly you’re convinced that there is something wrong with the way we grew up.”
“There is something wrong with the way we grew up!” Sam snapped. “And I didn’t need any other people to tell me so. I knew there was something wrong with it before I ever figured out where John disappeared to when he left us alone for days on end, and you know how? Because no one else lived the way we do. Because I wasn’t allowed to tell my kindergarten teacher that there was no one around to take care of me but my eight-year-old brother. Or was it because everyone seemed to assume we actually lived somewhere, rather than sleeping in the car three nights out of ten?” Sam screwed up his face and pretended to think hard. “I can’t quite remember what was it in the end. The tv programs we watched as kids, maybe? ‘Oh, look, none of these shows are about kids fighting werewolves after school. I wonder how they could ignore such an obvious plot device!’”
It was the most Sam had talked since Dean had come here, and every word was designed to piss Dean off.
“There was nothing wrong with the way Dad raised us.” He had to pull himself together to keep from yelling. “He kept us safe! And he prepared us for the way the world really is. After knowing what’s out there, what was he supposed to do? Let us live in ignorance? Pretend there were no monsters?”
“Not throwing us at the monsters would have been a start!”
“Don’t be so melodramatic! We were saving people. Saving lives!”
“And taking them.”
“We’re killing monsters, for God’s sake!” Dean threw up his hands in frustration - every now and then Sam would get doubts about killing something, especially if it looked human. Always a source of good fun on long drives. “They’re not people. If we didn’t take them out, they’d keep killing.”
“How do you know? Did you ever actually ask them?”
“Don’t be naïve, Sam. You know I’m right. You ran away because you were too selfish to stick with your family. With me! Because you think your own life is more important. Don’t claim any other reason.”
“You’re right.” The admission was a little surprising, but then, Sam always reached the point where he just tackled an issue straight on eventually. “I did it so I could live my own life, the one I wanted. And no, I never wanted to have to leave you for it. I wasn’t the one who said it had to be all or nothing. And I would have loved, loved for you to come with me. To know you’re safe, getting a normal, apple-pie life like Mom and Dad when they were our age. You know why I never asked you?” Sam looked Dean straight in the eyes, dead serious but no longer yelling. “Because it’s your life, your choice, and I have no right to make you live a particular way just because I like it better.”
“You’re just-” Dean had to stop himself because he had no idea how to finish that sentence. He was almost seething with anger now, while Sam had gone quiet and cold and whatever he said next had the potential of ending whatever relationship they had with each other forever.
He might just as well have walked out of that door and never looked back.
“I’m what, Dean?” Sam asked, his voice dangerously calm.
“You’re a bitch,” Dean finished dropping back against the couch and folding his hands behind his head. Sam glared at him, but ever so slowly, the some of the tension left his body, and in the end, he rolled his eyes.
“Jerk.”
-
The next morning, Dean called John again, and then again in the afternoon, after Sam had brought his attention to the time difference and the fact that their father might actually be sleeping at night every once in a while. A part of him was glad he only reached voicemail with each try. It was the part that was not keen on getting to the point where they would be yelling at each other.
Another part wanted it over with, and most of all that part didn’t want the conflicting feeling of anger and guilt Dean currently had for his father to be complicated by worry. Not that he worried about John being in trouble - he was the best hunter there had ever been, after all - but he worried his father was so angry at Dean that he was now punishing him with silence. Which was pretty damn angry. There was an agreement as old as the cell phone, that no matter how they stood with each other, they would always pick up each other’s calls, because it might be a call for help (or, though they never acknowledged it, a call to say goodbye). Even after Sam had left them, he would have picked up, had any of them ever actually called him.
Sam was mostly free to do his own stuff, now he was excused from training for his injury. He still had to go see a doctor about it, visibly annoyed, and Dean fell asleep on the couch watching tv (turned out American movies could be seen with the original sound) while he was gone. When he woke up, it was dark, the only light falling through the half-open door to Sam’s office, where he sat brooding over his law books.
Dean tried calling John one more time before going to annoy his brother into paying attention to him.
The next day, there was a soccer game in the evening, and Sam insisted on going to watch. He’d been supposed to participate in this one, and while he tried to hide it, Dean knew him too well not to see how much it upset him that he couldn’t. It was only then that Dean understood how important all this actually was to his little brother.
Dean wasn’t interested in the game, but he came along just so he could tease Sam about it. To his disappointment they didn’t have a special lounge for players but sat in the audience along with everyone else, like any other spectator. Sam hoppled down on his crutches to chat with a dark skinned guy in his team’s tricot just before the game started, but other than that, Dean would never have guessed he was one of them if he hadn’t known.
He cheered just like all the others as well, and cursed, and shifted uneasily on his seat whenever it looked like the other team might score against them, and really, the only one who stood out in the crowd was Dean for his lack of enthusiasm.
During the first half, anyway. By the second half, he had to admit he was hooked.
Their team won. It would still have been a better game had Sam been in it.
-
“I left him a message,” Dean said, pacing up and down the living room. “Last night. How long can it take him to check his damn messages?”
“What did you say?” Sam asked.
“Told him to drop a message, let me know he’s all right.”
Sam didn’t look very worried. “Maybe he didn’t get it. Might be somewhere without signal.”
“Yeah.” Dean nodded. It was likely. “I’m calling Bobby.”
-
Bobby hadn’t heard from John. Of course he hadn’t; their last conversation had involved a lot of angry words and a shotgun. But he had heard of John, from the hunter John had been teaming up with while Dean was out of commission.
“Far as I know,” Bobby said into his phone several thousand miles away, “your old man’s been off to some town called Jericho. A ghost thing, by the look of it. I thought he’d be back by now.”
And with that, Dean knew his vacation was over. If a hunter needed longer for a job than expected, it meant there had been trouble. And if the hunter in question was Dean’s father, Dean would drop everything and go help him, even if they were not currently talking to each other.
Dean could throw salt and iron without saying anything, after all.
“Dad’s on a hunting trip, he told Sam that day. “And he hasn’t been heard of in a few days.”
Sam wasn’t impressed, coming up with plenty of reasons why Dad hadn’t reported back. But Dean was worried and eventually he got Sam worried too. (He could tell, even if Sam wouldn’t openly show it.)
“We need to look for him,” Dean said eventually. “We know where he’s been headed so it shouldn't’t take too long.”
“’We’?” Sam asked, and then there was another long discussion about what Sam could and could not be expected to do. The fact that he could barely walk without crutches was brought up, followed by the kind of valid argument that Dad would hardly appreciate his youngest coming to his rescue and that, in fact, Sam and John Winchester being in the same place at the same time would be unpretty for everyone involved.
“Dad might be in trouble,” Dean said at the end of it. “And I can’t do this alone.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Yeah, maybe. But I don’t want to.”
And that settled it, then.
-
Having money at hand came in handy when it came to booking a flight on short notice. A few calls had Sam explain to his employers that he had to go back to the States for a few days due to a family emergency, and since he couldn’t play anyway, no one complained. Dean pulled a face at the “a few days“ part but wisely refrained from commenting.
“Well, it's not like I wasn't going to come to the States in a few weeks anyway,“ Sam sighed when they were waiting for the plane to lift oft, as it he had to have an excuse for coming along.
“Yeah? What were you planning on doing?” Dean asked, trying not to get his hopes up while at the same time desperate for something to distract him from the hell-in-a-tincan waiting for him just minutes away.
Sam hadn’t been planning on coming back to them. There was no point even thinking it.
“I was going to visit someone.”
Oh?
“I need to call her once you’re back with Dad,” Sam added, more talking to himself than to his brother, and Dean didn’t feel disappointed at all. “Let her know I’m around.”
Still, as good a topic for distration as any. “Sammy’s got a girlfriend,” Dean teased. “Is she hot?”
Sam didn’t say anything in return. He didn’t even look at Dean, didn’t deny it, nothing. He did, however, blush a little behind the curtain of hair hanging into his face.
Huh. Looked like the internet had lied when it said Sam was single.
“How does that even work?” Dean mused, even as his fingers clawed at the armrests of his seat. “What with you living on different continets and all?”
“Jess is gonna come live in Germany once she’s done with school,” Sam said, somewhat reluctantly. “Or I’ll move in with her after I’m done here. Whatever happens first.”
“Wow, you’re actually serious about her.” Dean didn’t even know how to feel about that. (Mostly he felt like he should have gotten drunk before boarding the plane.) “When did that happen?”
“Just before I left. A friend introduced us on my farewell party, and, well.” Sam shrugged, and his lips twitched into a smile at the memory, and hey, sappy much? It was nice that Sam could drift through his rose-tinted flashback while his brother was trying not to die of fear. Awesome.
“That’s never gonna work,” Dean told him. “Long distance relationships are alwayys doomed once the distance is removed. Who knows what she’s up to while you’re not around? You really think she wants you wtching her all the time?”
Sam glanced at him, the smile gone, and amazingly enough, he almost looked hurt. Like he had expected Dean to be happy for him or something. Like Dean was being an ass right now.
Oh well. “But, hey, not that I know her,” Dean ammended. “Know what? Once we found Dad you totally have to introduce me to her, so I can tell you just how out of your league she is.”
Sam’s expression softened and he gave a little smile as he accepted the apology. Dean’s stomach lurched, but that was mostly because the plane started moving. “Yeah,” Sam said. “I’ll do that. After we found Dad.”
.
.
February 3rd, 2013
Sam’s bed was big and warm and just about the best bed Dean had ever slept in. It sure beat motel beds, though one or two ladies had taken Dean to beds that could compare. There was a sad lack of porn hidden underneath it, but then Dean remembered that Sam lived alone and there was no need for him to hide his guilty pleasures. When he looked around in daylight after waking up, well rested and smug, the next morning, he still didn’t find any porn. It was slightly disappointing.
Sam’s place was a three room apartment on the top floor of a four storey building at the edge of the city. The building looked clean and nice enough, and there was obviously someone in charge of the garden surrounding it, but it was not the kind of place Dean would have expected a rich guy to live in. It was another source of random disappointment.
The blinds were half-closed, which was nice since it spared Dean having to stay away from the windows in order not to be seen and arrested for breaking in and shipped off to the States before he even saw his brother in person. Or maybe nobody would care, or pay attention to random windows, but he wasn’t going to take the risk. He didn’t even turn on the tv (that was big and flat and much better than motel television). All the shows were in German anyway.
But the shower he did use. It was great. Great bathrooms always went a long way to making Dean happy.
Afterwards he had breakfast with stuff he found in the kitchen and made sure to leave crumbled wrappings and bread crumbs everywhere just to piss Sam off.
Once he was done eating, he had a closer look around the place. There was the bedroom, the living room with a sofa and a couch long enough for even his ginormous brother to sleep on, the television and a couch table and a rather small dinner table with only two chairs though there was room for at least four. Separated from it through a half-wall was the kitchen, which was as obsessively clean (or had been, before Dean) as could be expected from a place Sam had sole reign over. Everything was neat and clean. (The covers of the bed were a mess as an unmistakable sign that Dean had slept in it.)
The last room was an office, containing a lot of shelves full of books, a closet and a desk with a computer on it. The desk was the only place in the apartment that was remotely messy even without Dean’s help. There were books stacked in uneven piles around the computer screen and one was sitting open beside a note block and a collection of pens.
Most of the books were on law. Huh. Dean had thought his brother had quit studying when he’d decided to become an international soccer star instead. Apparently, he hadn’t.
Or maybe he was doing it as a hobby? It didn’t seem, after all, like Sam had an awful lot of time on his hands, if the plants were anything to go by. There were very few plants on the windowsills, and they were all cacti or bamboo, both of which didn’t mind much if they were left alone for days or weeks on end. Even Dean knew that.
There were no pictures on the walls except for a calendar in the office. All the objects on the shelves had a practical purpose. Combined with how neat and clean everything was, the apartments almost felt like a hotel room. Like Sam didn’t really live here.
Dean’s lips pressed to a thin line as the old anger reared its ugly head again. Sam had left them because he wanted a normal life, but he couldn’t even make a place his own and was constantly away. Maybe he really hadn’t wanted to get away from the life but only from them.
So Dean’s mood dropped some. And it dropped some more when morning turned into noon and afternoon without any little bother to snarl at showing up. The sun was already beginning to set when finally the door opened and Sam limped into the apartment.
“Limped” being the operative word. He actually limped in on crutches, and Dean momentarily forgot his anger. It had suffered considerably from the long wait anyway, which had eaten away at it until only a small stump of annoyance was left. For the moment.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” Dean greeted his brother, his eyes fixed on the foot Sam was not putting any weight on. “That fucker! I’m gonna kill him!”
“I’m happy to see you, too.” Sam sounded long-suffering, but also vaguely amused. And wary. A salad of emotions. Appropriate. “And just so you know, he didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Oh, so he just happened to be running into you?”
“He stopped me on purpose,” Sam explained patiently. “As a defensive player, that’s his job. He didn’t hurt me on purpose. Actually called after the game and asked if I was okay.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.”
Sam shrugged. “It happens. You’re not supposed to foul players in a way that gets them hurt, or at all, but it happens and we all know that, so…” He shrugged again.
“How do you even get hurt in a pansy-ass game like soccer?” Dean marveled. “It’s like cricket. Or chess. Actually, I think chess is more dangerous because the players are all psychos.” Or at least they had been in that movie Dean had watched as a kid. It had shaped his view on the world.
Sam rolled his eyes and didn’t dignify that with an answer. Instead, he limped into the room and looked around. “I see you made yourself at home,” he said sourly.
“Well, somebody had to. But seriously, what’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing much. I twisted my leg some, nothing I didn’t do three dozen times since I was eight. But the doctor told me to take it easy for a few days so it can heal right. Which I will do, since I earn my money with these legs.”
“You sound like a supermodel.”
Sam grimaced as he lowered himself onto the couch and Dean finally, after frigging years, took a good long look at his face. Sam was a little pale, with that pinched twist of the corners of his mouth that told Dean he was in pain. His eyes never left his older brother, though, as if waiting for him to do or say something in particular. Maybe “I missed you,” or “I’ve come to punch you in the face and drag your struggling ass back home to Dad”, or “You’re a disgrace to our family”, or any of the choice things that may have been mentioned when they last spoke. (Since their last conversation ended with Sam slamming the door and them not speaking for years, Dean should probably try to avoid those.)
Altogether, Sam looked like he didn’t know whether to expect a hug or a punch, which meant they were still in synch, since Dean didn’t know whether to hug or to punch him.
So instead of doing either, he crossed his arms and asked, “What took you so long? You said you’d be back by noon.”
“I also told you not to come here while I wasn’t home and you didn’t care about that either,” Sam pointed out.
“So your revenge was letting me wait?” Dean snorted. “You used to have more style than that, little bother. Not much, but some.”
Sam screwed his face into a grimace. “My coach insisted on me getting checked over again after coming back. Since I cost them a lot of money even if I can’t play, they are kind of paranoid about that kind of stuff.”
“Well, not everybody manages to get hurt tripping on grass,” Dean couldn’t help but mention again. “They must know you are particularly fragile.”
“I’ll have you know that injuries are pretty common in this sport. A lot of professional soccer players have to drop out for health reasons before they reach thirty,” Sam explained, somewhat stiffly.
So he left the family business for another thing that got him hurt, only in a more girly way. Dean scowled, but refrained from making that comment for now. “And how long till you can play again?”
“At least two months.” If he had been ten, Sam would have slumped his shoulders and hung his head, Dean could tell. He seemed genuinely upset. “I’ll miss the rest of the Champions League, not to mention the Bundesliga.”
“Aha.” Dean nodded solemnly. “And that’s bad, right?” He lifted his hand in a placating gesture when Sam glared at him. “All right, I get it. Big deal, that.” Finally tired of looking down at his brother (though that was a nice change - he had kind of forgotten just how tall Sam had gotten after hitting seventeen), Dean took a seat opposite him. “How come you ended up a soccer player anyway? And in Europe of all places.”
Sam shrugged again. “It just kind of happened. I was playing in Stanford, just as a hobby. Was good, though. One day, someone asked me if I wanted to join a professional team. Thought he was joking at first.”
“And then you ended up in Germany?”
“No, that happened only last year. The German teams don’t usually look for talent in the American university league.”
“And you dropped out of you classes?” Dean thought about the books in the study. “I can’t imagine you having time for both.”
“No, I keep them up. This is just slowing me down a bit. Professional soccer player is not something I can do for the rest of my life, not would I want to. One day I’m gonna need a normal job.”
“What for?” Dean asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Because I don’t want to live off credit card fraud ever again.” Sam’s voice was sharper than expected, and Dean was more than a little taken aback. That wasn’t even what he had been going at.
“No, I mean, you’re rich, right? You probably won’t have to work another day in your life if you play it well.”
“I’m not that rich. Most of my money goes to the fund Bobby set up, and to you and Dad, because even if you don’t want it you’ll need it one day. And besides, I want to work, do something useful.”
“Well, you could always-”
“No,” Sam snapped. Dean wasn’t sure how the mood had deteriorated so quickly. They should have done this the normal way, the way other people handled a reunion after years: Some hugging, some crying, a lot of talking about unimportant personal stuff, and only then, after being settled with each other, they should have touched the things that drove them apart in the first place.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“You wanted to tell me I could always come back to the family business.” Sam pressed his lips together and glared at Dean, daring him to claim otherwise.
“Well, it is more useful than kicking a ball around a meadow.”
“Did you come here to say that? A call would have sufficed, you know,” Sam snapped, and Dean nearly smiled. If Sam got defensive, that meant he knew he was in the wrong, right?
“By the way, without my playing soccer, you would have lost your arm last month,” Sam added, making Dean unconsciously reach for his shoulder where it still hurt.
“If you’d been there, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place,” he retorted, feeling a surge of smug satisfaction when his brother flinched and glared at him.
“I’m not coming back, Dean,” Sam said none the less. “Not now, not after I’m done with sports. I have other plans on what to do with my life.”
“And your plans are all that matters, right?”
“As opposed to yours? It’s my life, Dean.” Sam stopped for a second, then shook his head, and got back to his feet with a wince. “Listen, it’s been great to see you, and I’m glad you’re not dead or crippled for life, but if that’s all you came here to say, there’s really no point in you staying.”
What?
“What?” Dean asked. How exactly was this happening now? Why did Sam always have to be so difficult?
“I can organize a flight to the States for you for this evening, probably. You should call Dad and tell him you’re coming back. He’ll appreciate it.”
“Hey, wait a moment.” Dean jumped into Sam’s path and blocked him from going wherever he wanted to go. “If you think I’m going back onto a plane after only just escaping the last one, you’re so, so wrong. I’m gonna call Dad, all right, and let him know that I’ll be a week or so.” He slung his arm around Sam’s shoulders and forced him to sit back down. “Let’s forget the past for the moment, okay? If you’re not coming back, I want to spend some quality time with my little brother before we part ways forever.” Not that they would. Not that Dean would drop the topic for good. And it wasn’t like Sam was fooled, judging by the wary look on his face. But for now Dean was willing to play, and Sam, it seemed, was willing to play along.
Maybe he had missed Dean a little, after all.
-
Dean got to sleep on the couch the next night because Sam had no heart (and somehow kept winning at Rock, Paper, Scissors). He had a very comfy couch though, so Dean was willing to forgive him.
That evening, they ordered pizza that had nothing on American pizza and was just kind of weird. Sam was on the phone a lot, making calls or accepting them in three different languages, sometimes all at once because apparently some of his friends from his team were Polish or Dutch or Whatever and only just knew enough German or English to make it through a conversation with their hands and feet, neither of which were available on a phone call. Dean didn’t care much what they were talking about. By the fourth time the phone rang, he got annoyed, but Sam pointed out that he had to be available even if injured since he made his money with this job, and Dean shut up so there wouldn’t be another fight.
Sam’s touchiness continued to lead the conversation. Dean tied to entertain him with stories about how awesome this or that hunt had been, but Sam wasn’t impressed and got bitchy when Dean lingered on the Day Job for too long; and so Dean dropped it for the sake of world peace.
Instead, he made Sam tell him more about his life as a soccer star, if only because Sammy looked so endearingly disgruntled every time Dean called him that. Apparently, Sam was pretty much the only American among all the players the German top teams got from foreign countries. He’d still made friends quickly (because he was Sam), and it was a lot of work, and he tried to avoid interviews and press conferences (because he was Sam) and in his free time he tried to not fall too far behind on his studies (because he was Sam).
The next day, Dean called John from Sam’s phone, but the call went straight to voicemail. Dean was actually relieved; he’d been dreading talking to his father after taking off like that, but John needed to know his one son remaining in the business would not be back for another week.
Afterwards, Sam showed him the area. It was nice enough a town, Dean supposed, but very European. The food wasn’t right, he didn’t understand anything being said, and it was almost November, which meant it was ass cold. Back home, November in an ass cold area meant they would go for a hunt in Florida or California and stay there until they no longer needed the winter coats they never bothered getting.
Altogether, Dean didn’t quite get the appeal.
Even the being a star part of Sam’s new life kind of sucked, since no one seemed to particularly care. A lot of people greeted him and were greeted in return, but no one snapped photos or asked for a signature. When Dean mentioned this, Sam just shrugged.
“I’ve been living here for a while,” he said. “The people in the area know me. I’m just another neighbor to them.” And judging by the content expression on his face, he quite liked it that way.
Dean shook his head, marveled. “You suck at being famous,” he told him.
That evening they had Chinese take-out, which comfortingly enough tasted just like Chinese take-out anywhere in the world (or so Dean assumed), and they ate it side by side on Sam’s ridiculously comfortable couch and everything felt a little like before (except the couch, which actually felt like money). That was, at least, until Dean had to screw it up again.
He blamed the tv program. It had been responsible for bringing him here in the first place, so his placement of the blame seemed accurate enough.
Although, to be fair, it was him who had insisted on watching some “real sports” on ESPN, because a 0:0 after 90 minutes was hardly satisfying in the long run. They caught a football game and had a nice time until all the players were lying on top of each other on the field and Dean couldn’t help being reminded of the pictures he’d seen on the internet, with all the players from Sam’s team throwing themselves at him after he scored a goal. “Admit it, the only reason you went into sports is the chance to cuddle up to a lot of sweaty guys without shame,” he teased, nudging his brother with his elbow. “I bet showering together is the highlight of you day.”
“Actually, showering with anyone was something I tried to avoid, in the first days,” Sam informed him dryly. “Until I had to accept that it’s not something I could manage in the long run.”
“Aw, Sammy was shy.” Dean grinned. “Didn’t want the other boys to see his hard-on.”
“Didn’t want the other boys to see his scars, actually,” Sam informed him, sounding much less amused than he should have. “Because every time some new guy sees them, they think I used to be in a gang. Way to fight the clichéd idea of Americans, by the way.”
That sobered Dean up a little, if only because he didn’t like the reminder of Sam having scars. (Ever scar on Sam’s body marked a time Dean had failed him.) “You said injuries are common with soccer players.”
“Yeah. Torn muscles, Dean. Sprained knees. Not bullet wounds or frigging bite marks.” Now Sam’s tone was cutting, and Dean knew whatever moment they might have had was lost.
Might as well go with it, then. “You see, this is the reason why you shouldn’t be here,” he pointed out. “You spent a couple of weeks around ‘normal’ people, among people who have no idea what’s going on in the world, and suddenly you’re convinced that there is something wrong with the way we grew up.”
“There is something wrong with the way we grew up!” Sam snapped. “And I didn’t need any other people to tell me so. I knew there was something wrong with it before I ever figured out where John disappeared to when he left us alone for days on end, and you know how? Because no one else lived the way we do. Because I wasn’t allowed to tell my kindergarten teacher that there was no one around to take care of me but my eight-year-old brother. Or was it because everyone seemed to assume we actually lived somewhere, rather than sleeping in the car three nights out of ten?” Sam screwed up his face and pretended to think hard. “I can’t quite remember what was it in the end. The tv programs we watched as kids, maybe? ‘Oh, look, none of these shows are about kids fighting werewolves after school. I wonder how they could ignore such an obvious plot device!’”
It was the most Sam had talked since Dean had come here, and every word was designed to piss Dean off.
“There was nothing wrong with the way Dad raised us.” He had to pull himself together to keep from yelling. “He kept us safe! And he prepared us for the way the world really is. After knowing what’s out there, what was he supposed to do? Let us live in ignorance? Pretend there were no monsters?”
“Not throwing us at the monsters would have been a start!”
“Don’t be so melodramatic! We were saving people. Saving lives!”
“And taking them.”
“We’re killing monsters, for God’s sake!” Dean threw up his hands in frustration - every now and then Sam would get doubts about killing something, especially if it looked human. Always a source of good fun on long drives. “They’re not people. If we didn’t take them out, they’d keep killing.”
“How do you know? Did you ever actually ask them?”
“Don’t be naïve, Sam. You know I’m right. You ran away because you were too selfish to stick with your family. With me! Because you think your own life is more important. Don’t claim any other reason.”
“You’re right.” The admission was a little surprising, but then, Sam always reached the point where he just tackled an issue straight on eventually. “I did it so I could live my own life, the one I wanted. And no, I never wanted to have to leave you for it. I wasn’t the one who said it had to be all or nothing. And I would have loved, loved for you to come with me. To know you’re safe, getting a normal, apple-pie life like Mom and Dad when they were our age. You know why I never asked you?” Sam looked Dean straight in the eyes, dead serious but no longer yelling. “Because it’s your life, your choice, and I have no right to make you live a particular way just because I like it better.”
“You’re just-” Dean had to stop himself because he had no idea how to finish that sentence. He was almost seething with anger now, while Sam had gone quiet and cold and whatever he said next had the potential of ending whatever relationship they had with each other forever.
He might just as well have walked out of that door and never looked back.
“I’m what, Dean?” Sam asked, his voice dangerously calm.
“You’re a bitch,” Dean finished dropping back against the couch and folding his hands behind his head. Sam glared at him, but ever so slowly, the some of the tension left his body, and in the end, he rolled his eyes.
“Jerk.”
-
The next morning, Dean called John again, and then again in the afternoon, after Sam had brought his attention to the time difference and the fact that their father might actually be sleeping at night every once in a while. A part of him was glad he only reached voicemail with each try. It was the part that was not keen on getting to the point where they would be yelling at each other.
Another part wanted it over with, and most of all that part didn’t want the conflicting feeling of anger and guilt Dean currently had for his father to be complicated by worry. Not that he worried about John being in trouble - he was the best hunter there had ever been, after all - but he worried his father was so angry at Dean that he was now punishing him with silence. Which was pretty damn angry. There was an agreement as old as the cell phone, that no matter how they stood with each other, they would always pick up each other’s calls, because it might be a call for help (or, though they never acknowledged it, a call to say goodbye). Even after Sam had left them, he would have picked up, had any of them ever actually called him.
Sam was mostly free to do his own stuff, now he was excused from training for his injury. He still had to go see a doctor about it, visibly annoyed, and Dean fell asleep on the couch watching tv (turned out American movies could be seen with the original sound) while he was gone. When he woke up, it was dark, the only light falling through the half-open door to Sam’s office, where he sat brooding over his law books.
Dean tried calling John one more time before going to annoy his brother into paying attention to him.
The next day, there was a soccer game in the evening, and Sam insisted on going to watch. He’d been supposed to participate in this one, and while he tried to hide it, Dean knew him too well not to see how much it upset him that he couldn’t. It was only then that Dean understood how important all this actually was to his little brother.
Dean wasn’t interested in the game, but he came along just so he could tease Sam about it. To his disappointment they didn’t have a special lounge for players but sat in the audience along with everyone else, like any other spectator. Sam hoppled down on his crutches to chat with a dark skinned guy in his team’s tricot just before the game started, but other than that, Dean would never have guessed he was one of them if he hadn’t known.
He cheered just like all the others as well, and cursed, and shifted uneasily on his seat whenever it looked like the other team might score against them, and really, the only one who stood out in the crowd was Dean for his lack of enthusiasm.
During the first half, anyway. By the second half, he had to admit he was hooked.
Their team won. It would still have been a better game had Sam been in it.
-
“I left him a message,” Dean said, pacing up and down the living room. “Last night. How long can it take him to check his damn messages?”
“What did you say?” Sam asked.
“Told him to drop a message, let me know he’s all right.”
Sam didn’t look very worried. “Maybe he didn’t get it. Might be somewhere without signal.”
“Yeah.” Dean nodded. It was likely. “I’m calling Bobby.”
-
Bobby hadn’t heard from John. Of course he hadn’t; their last conversation had involved a lot of angry words and a shotgun. But he had heard of John, from the hunter John had been teaming up with while Dean was out of commission.
“Far as I know,” Bobby said into his phone several thousand miles away, “your old man’s been off to some town called Jericho. A ghost thing, by the look of it. I thought he’d be back by now.”
And with that, Dean knew his vacation was over. If a hunter needed longer for a job than expected, it meant there had been trouble. And if the hunter in question was Dean’s father, Dean would drop everything and go help him, even if they were not currently talking to each other.
Dean could throw salt and iron without saying anything, after all.
“Dad’s on a hunting trip, he told Sam that day. “And he hasn’t been heard of in a few days.”
Sam wasn’t impressed, coming up with plenty of reasons why Dad hadn’t reported back. But Dean was worried and eventually he got Sam worried too. (He could tell, even if Sam wouldn’t openly show it.)
“We need to look for him,” Dean said eventually. “We know where he’s been headed so it shouldn't’t take too long.”
“’We’?” Sam asked, and then there was another long discussion about what Sam could and could not be expected to do. The fact that he could barely walk without crutches was brought up, followed by the kind of valid argument that Dad would hardly appreciate his youngest coming to his rescue and that, in fact, Sam and John Winchester being in the same place at the same time would be unpretty for everyone involved.
“Dad might be in trouble,” Dean said at the end of it. “And I can’t do this alone.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Yeah, maybe. But I don’t want to.”
And that settled it, then.
-
Having money at hand came in handy when it came to booking a flight on short notice. A few calls had Sam explain to his employers that he had to go back to the States for a few days due to a family emergency, and since he couldn’t play anyway, no one complained. Dean pulled a face at the “a few days“ part but wisely refrained from commenting.
“Well, it's not like I wasn't going to come to the States in a few weeks anyway,“ Sam sighed when they were waiting for the plane to lift oft, as it he had to have an excuse for coming along.
“Yeah? What were you planning on doing?” Dean asked, trying not to get his hopes up while at the same time desperate for something to distract him from the hell-in-a-tincan waiting for him just minutes away.
Sam hadn’t been planning on coming back to them. There was no point even thinking it.
“I was going to visit someone.”
Oh?
“I need to call her once you’re back with Dad,” Sam added, more talking to himself than to his brother, and Dean didn’t feel disappointed at all. “Let her know I’m around.”
Still, as good a topic for distration as any. “Sammy’s got a girlfriend,” Dean teased. “Is she hot?”
Sam didn’t say anything in return. He didn’t even look at Dean, didn’t deny it, nothing. He did, however, blush a little behind the curtain of hair hanging into his face.
Huh. Looked like the internet had lied when it said Sam was single.
“How does that even work?” Dean mused, even as his fingers clawed at the armrests of his seat. “What with you living on different continets and all?”
“Jess is gonna come live in Germany once she’s done with school,” Sam said, somewhat reluctantly. “Or I’ll move in with her after I’m done here. Whatever happens first.”
“Wow, you’re actually serious about her.” Dean didn’t even know how to feel about that. (Mostly he felt like he should have gotten drunk before boarding the plane.) “When did that happen?”
“Just before I left. A friend introduced us on my farewell party, and, well.” Sam shrugged, and his lips twitched into a smile at the memory, and hey, sappy much? It was nice that Sam could drift through his rose-tinted flashback while his brother was trying not to die of fear. Awesome.
“That’s never gonna work,” Dean told him. “Long distance relationships are alwayys doomed once the distance is removed. Who knows what she’s up to while you’re not around? You really think she wants you wtching her all the time?”
Sam glanced at him, the smile gone, and amazingly enough, he almost looked hurt. Like he had expected Dean to be happy for him or something. Like Dean was being an ass right now.
Oh well. “But, hey, not that I know her,” Dean ammended. “Know what? Once we found Dad you totally have to introduce me to her, so I can tell you just how out of your league she is.”
Sam’s expression softened and he gave a little smile as he accepted the apology. Dean’s stomach lurched, but that was mostly because the plane started moving. “Yeah,” Sam said. “I’ll do that. After we found Dad.”
.
.
February 3rd, 2013