Chapter Text
Baseball fucking sucks. And Dean’s not just saying that because he’s a Cubs fan.
“This fucking sucks,” he complains loudly, pulling his baseball hat low over his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at the screen anymore. Not that he’s too invested in baseball, it’s just the only sport on when your career ends suddenly and abruptly towards the end of May. Plus, his high def, seventy-five inch TV screen makes it much harder to ignore the mess that is the Cubs’ bullpen.
“Hey, you were the one who wanted to watch,” his buddy Victor says from next to him on the couch, and Dean shoots him a dirty look.
“It’s called the Crosstown Classic, Vic. You’re supposed to watch when you live in this damn city.”
Victor shrugs. “I’m from New York.”
“Yeah, and you’re a Sox fan.” Dean makes a face.
“Maybe if you’d scored more we could be playing the Rangers right now instead of watching this sorry excuse for a game.”
From anyone else the comment would sting, but Victor has been his teammate and left winger for so long it doesn’t even register as an insult. Dean punches him, hard, and is surprised to see Victor actually wince. His trainer would be proud.
“Hey,” Victor says, and there’s a tone to his voice so distinct, Dean can guess exactly what he’s seen before he even says anything.
God damn these small-ass decorative pillows Sam made him buy. Dean wanted big pillows in his condo, dammit.
“You reading gossip rags, Winchester?”
The magazine is yanked out from the cushion behind Dean (he curses Sam one more time for good measure) and Victor grins in delight at the bright words splashed across the front.
“‘Hunky Hockey Captain Takes Out Busty Blonde,’” he reads aloud. “Damn, Winchester, you get around.”
“It was bullshit,” Dean mutters. “I just walked her home.”
“Sure you did,” he says, squinting at the blurry picture. “Why does every pap photo of you make you look like you’re auditioning to be a GQ cover model?”
“Hey, don’t make fun of my dreams,” Dean tells him, snatching the magazine back and throwing it back onto his coffee table. Usually it makes his family room look more elegant, with its gleaming mahogany surface, but today it’s strewn with bowls of popcorn, Cheetos, and Victor’s crossed feet.
“You want another beer?”
Victor just grins cheekily at him. “Why d’you have that magazine again?”
Dean flips him off and hauls himself off the couch anyway, because he does want a beer. Victor can get his own. He hears a cheer from the TV and lets out a whoop. An unexpected home run has just been hit.
“In your face, asshole,” he says cheerfully, and ducks when his small, sissy-ass pillow is thrown at him.
“They’re losing five to two,” Victor calls after him.
“Hope you know where the closest 7-Eleven is, because you can go buy your own shitty Bud Light!” Dean calls back, entering the kitchen.
Slightly smaller than the family room, it’s still good quality, mostly because when Dean had said he’d wanted a chef’s kitchen, he’d been taken seriously.
Really though, if his money was going to be used for anything exuberant, the restaurant-style stove top was definitely the best he could have done.
He pads in sock feet to the fridge and pulls out two beers, because he’s not that much of an asshole, and stifles a yelp when he suddenly feels a cold wet something buried in his crotch area. The worst part about coming into the kitchen is that this is where Sam’s stupid dog stays. And for some reason, the damn thing seems to think Dean wants anything to do with it.
“Off,” he says sharply, nudging him away, and the retriever backs off, tail wagging widely and tongue lolling.
Sam had saved the thing from Russia last year at the Olympics when he’d heard the government was executing all strays, and then, because he sucks, he gave it to Dean to keep because his apartment doesn’t allow pets.
Dean’s probably lucky he managed to keep Sam from grabbing a hundred more flea-bitten mongrels and turning their lives into a Disney movie.
Only problem with this arrangement is, Dean doesn’t like dogs. Sam keeps encouraging him to name the damn thing and take it on walks. Dean refused, but he’s occasionally slipped up and called it Chekov, because saying, “Get off the couch you stupid mutt,” got old real fast.
Too bad the season hadn’t gone longer, or he could still have the thing in the kennel.
A couple of problems come with being a hockey player: One – between the months of June and August, your life goes from a fast-paced blur of yelling, slamming bodies, and swinging sticks to an absolute standstill. There’s nothing to do. If your team’s really bad, you can throw in an April and May of boredom as well.
Two – the only things to do when there’s nothing to do are eat and watch TV. And as a professional athlete, neither can be enjoyed on a regular basis. Summer is literally hell.
Three – to add to this wonderful barrage of boredom and workout regimens, summer is always the season of trade. Contracts are negotiated, general managers go to work, and somewhere on the team some poor assholes are getting booted. Doesn’t matter if it’s you or anyone else, you’re still losing a teammate.
Dean’s been lucky enough to have belonged to the Chicago Cavalry since he was drafted eight years ago, same team as his younger brother, Sam. He doesn’t have to worry about contract negotiations until next season, and even then it’s not much to worry about.
Dean’s a fucking good hockey player.
There are a couple people on the team this year who can be let go, but he’s not too worried. Making it to the Western Conference finals is nothing to sneeze at, so it’s not like they need any high draft picks in the immediate upcoming seasons, and with the cap being raised there’s no reason anybody needs to go. Dean loves his team; they’re more a family than anything else. He’d hate to lose any of them.
Shoving Chekov out of his crotch once again, he grabs the now-open beers and brings them back into the family room, flopping down on the couch and extending one of the Buds in Victor’s direction.
“Don’t say I never did anything for you.”
When the bottle isn’t immediately taken, Dean glances over. Victor’s got his phone out now and is frowning down at it, no longer paying attention to the game.
“Hey,” Dean says with concern. “What’s up?”
“Got a phone call,” Victor says, finally taking the bottle from Dean and pocketing his phone.
“Nancy need you home?” Dean frowns. Victor’s one of the only guys on the team who’s married, something Dean’s gotta respect. “She’s alright, right?”
“Not Nancy,” he says, shaking his head. “It was Edlund.”
“Oh,” Dean says, because their general manager calling is nothing new, or exactly worthy of a freakout. His eyes go back to the screen and he shakes his head at the easy double play unfolding on the screen. “What’d he need?”
Victor’s next words are ones Dean will remember for the rest of his life, spoken in the defeated voice of a player who’s just discovered he’s more expendable than he thought and has had his entire life altered because of it.
“He traded me.”