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last01standingTitle: Five For Fighting (3/12)
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean, Sam centered with an epic supporting cast
Notes: Will be updated sporatically due to nano.
Summary: For the Winchester brothers hockey was always something apart from hunting until one season it suddenly wasn’t.
For those of you not familiar with hockey, you can read a quick primer on game basics here
one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten | eleven | twelve | epilogue
Five For Fighting
CHAPTER 3: The Devil’s Down in Philly
It was during the first game of the Rage-Flyers series that Dean realized that the world was completely and utterly fucked.
The game itself was brutal. Games against Philly were always hard. Dean remembered that much from his time in Boston. The Flyers played hard and hit even harder. There had been a fight in almost every game Dean had ever played against them. But even early in the first period, Dean could tell that this was something different. Something bigger. Gordon had dropped the gloves just three minutes into the game and the usually competent fighter had been dropped easy amidst the roars from the home Philly crowd.
“Bunch of freaking vultures,” Dean commented to Sam from his perch on the bench. “I hate this town.”
“Are there any away cities you don’t hate?”
“I don’t hate Boston,” Dean said.
“You know that doesn’t count.”
“Everyone hates playing in Philly,” Chuck said from somewhere on his left. “Did you hear about the football game where they threw rocks at Santa Claus.”
“There’s a battle cry for you,” Adam muttered. “Let’s win this one for Santa.”
Dean grinned and then all of a sudden, there was a big mass of white sweater sailing over the raining of the Rage’s bench and Ben Braeden pushed himself to his skates looking woozy and bloody as the referee came up with a penalty.
“You all right, kid?” Dean asked. Braeden’s helmet as cock-eyed and he had an oddly distant look in his eyes. “What city are we in?”
“Somewhere orange,” Ben muttered.
“Braeden,” Ellen barked from the end of the bench. “You concussed, kid?”
Ben struggled to right himself, wobbling a little on his skates even as he was moving to sit down. He gave Ellen a shake thumbs up and then put his head between his legs, like he was trying not to puke. “I want the first power play unit on the ice,” Ellen barked to the rest of the team as she signaled Jess over to take a look at Ben.
“I don’t remember these guys hitting like this,” Ash said as he slid back into the bench and watched the power play until take the ice. “I mean we only played them twice a year but I remember bruises like this.”
Jess was slowly performing the routine diagnostic tests for concussions on Ben. There was a trickle of blood running down his forehead. “Doesn’t look like a concussion to me, Ben,” she said with a grin. “But the cut needs stitches. Come on. We’ll have you back before the next period.”
“Chicks dig the scars,” Dean said absently as he watch Sam slid a pass over to Bobby and get rocked by the Philly defenseman. The check knocked him clear off his skates. And Sam was a big guy. Dean knew from experience that knocking him down with a check was damn near impossible to do.
His brother lumbered back off to his feet, raising his stick to signal he needed a swap. “Shit,” Ellen cursed and tapped Adam on the back as Sam stumbled into the bench area. “Winchester, you all right?”
“I feel like I got run over by a train,” Sam moaned. “Just give me a minute. Nothing’s broken.”
Andy looked pale. He’d been taken off his usual second run power play unit for the game because of the problems with the size match-up. It was only the first period but his line had already proved to be the one getting the least playing time. Andy was lightning fast and could handle the puck better then anyone he’d ever seen but he and Chuck were two of the smallest players in the league and the way Philly was playing it was pretty well guaranteed that no one was getting out of here without some battle wounds.
The crowd erupted into moans as Victor Hendriksen slid the puck past the stunned goaltender on a one-two pass from Bobby. There was a small but empathic situation around the goal, the tangle of arms and back pats. Ellen sent out Braeden’s usual line substituting Jake from the Gallagher line for the missing winger along with Dean and Lucas at the defense. He cast a look at Sam who was still trying to catch his breath before turning to Lucas. “Kid, I feel like something weird is going on here.”
“Yeah us with a first period lead. Weird, right?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Shut up and play, you idjits,” Bobby grumbled.
Dean flashed him a smile as Bobby shook his head in annoyance. “Real leadership,” Dean joked, “That’s why they gave you the captain’s C, Singer.” They slid back over the boards and onto the ice as the Rage went up for wholesale line cages but it was a bad. Dean saw the puck sailing past the blue line and onto the stick of Danny Briere.
“Shit,” he mumbled and put his head down, digging to pick up ground as Briere made a beeline to Rubesen and the goal. He sprawled out on the ice face first, extending his stick out toward the puck. He hit Briere’s skates first knocking the puck afterward and skidded into Rubesen, almost taking down the big goalie before stopping completely. From his vantage point on the ice, he could see the referee with his hand outstretched signaling the hooking call. The crowd roared its disapproval, asking for a penalty shot. “Good play,” Rubesen mumbled to him as he pushed his way back up to his feet. The referee escorted him over to the penalty box where the Flyers fan on the other side of the glass pounded incessantly behind him. Dean sat down, face front as he watched the penalty killers took the ice.
But it wasn’t the kind of line you wanted to see. Sam was still reeling from the last hit and Ben Braeden had left the ice to get stitched up. He glanced at the game clock. Only fifty-four seconds until intermission. If they could kill fifty-four seconds of the power play, the might be able to start the second with their real penalty killers out front.
Ellen had Hendriksen and Ash alongside Lucas and Ed Zeddmore on the ice and Dean knew putting Zeddmore on kill was just about the last thing Ellen wanted to do, but being the only thing she could do. Adam had been coming off a double shift, Sam was still shaky from the hit and Dean was the one serving the penalty.
It was a crappy view from the box, the glass distorting the game but he can see enough to tell where it was going to go bad. The Flyers won the face of and the puck just stayed in the zone, sliding easily from stick to stick despite the defense’s efforts to get it out.
Hendriksen hit the ice to stop a slap shot with his side as Zeddmore darted after the puck only to get rocked by a hit that made Dean wince even off the ice. There was a scrum in front of the net, a series of deflections and then the red light lit up and the crowd was on its feet. Dean glanced up at the clock. Two seconds left in the period. He skated over to the bench only to have Ellen signal for him to stay on the ice. Andy won the face off clean, and Dean wound up and sent a hard slap shot into the zone that missed the goal by a mile. But the buzzer rang out loud and clear signaling the period’s end and the Rage made their way off the ice.
***
The second period wasn’t any better. They got both Ben Braeden and Sam back onto the ice but the Flyers just kept hitting at every turn. Every time Dean finished a shift, his knee was singing its protests and his body just ached.
But the crazy thing about it was they were ahead. The third line, the one with both Andy and Chuck on the ice together, the line with the two smallest guys in the league, was picking Philly apart. Dean knew that Andy was a magician with the puck, he seen some stick handling showcased in practice and been judge on the competitions between him and Tricks as they saw who could juggle the puck on their stick the longest but he hadn’t seen it in a game before know.
Andy had the Flyers lunging clumsily at him trying to get the puck off his stick as he danced through him, his tiny stature actually an advantage in a game that had kept Jess busy in the locker room stitching up cuts all night long. He scored two goals in the second, the Gallagher line suddenly on the ice every other shift when it had barely played at all in the first period. Looking at the row of faces on the bench, though, Dean would have thought they were on the other end of an ass whooping. Ben Braeden had a thing row of eight black stitches just above the eye and Hendriksen was sitting just a little too upright and Sam missing half of his shifts, Ellen still fearing a concussion even though his brother insisted he was fine. They look like a team that’s been through a war. A team that had lost the freaking war even though they were up three to one. There was something wrong in this arena, an edge of violence to this game that wasn’t normally present even in the usual hard-hitting games with family.
He figured it own pinned to the board with the puck between his skates and an orange jersey slamming him repeatedly against the glass. What is strong and faster then a hockey player but not half as skilled?
“Christo,” he said, choking out the word even as his face was pressed against the cool glass. The were was hissing sound and Dean turned just in time to see black eyes against light skin and he felt the connections tumbling into place.
Demons. All of them.
Their dad always had one rule. The mantra that had been burned into their heads since their dad swept them into his arms after the fire. Hockey is not hunting.
The rule broke with Dean’s punch. His reaction instant, violent and so completely ingrained to his being that he couldn’t have stopped himself if he wanted to. He was as much a hunter as he was a hockey player and he couldn’t separate the two of them right now. The demon grinned at him from behind the snarling face of some first year call up he didn’t know.
“Dean Winchester,” the demon hissed at him.
“You messed up,” Dean snapped back. “You’re in the NHL, people are going to notice.”
The demon didn’t say anything else. He had one hand on Dean’s shoulders holding his right hook at bay as Dean attempted to pummel him with his left, wishing he’d memorized the damn exorcism.
The fight was quick and dirty and it ended with the two of them toppled over on the ice, Dean still in hunter mode, trying to kill the guy when the linesmen drag him off of them and back into the penalty box for the second time of the game. He can see Ellen bitching at the refs from the bench, can see the demon wearing the kid’s face looking at him from the other penalty box and heard the roars of the crowd as the penalty times went up. Dean Winchester, five minutes for fighting. Eric McGee, two for roughing.
Dean sat there listening to the crow swell all around him, watching the demon in the penalty box, all the demons down in Philly and realized that somehow, when he wasn’t paying attention, his world had gotten completely and utterly fucked.
***
They won the game. They won it by the skin of their teeth and the virtue of Carl Rubesen’s glove but they won. Dean didn’t set foot on the ice again after the penalty and judging by the smoke spurting out of her ears.
She let the team head into the locker room, cornering him on the outside. “What the hell did he say to you?” she snapped.
Dean blinked. “What?”
“What did he say to you? I’ve been watching the league since before you were born and I know what kind of player can be goaded into a fight and Winchester unless I sorely misjudged you, you ain’t one of them. Let me hear it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I want to know what would make an otherwise smart, levelheaded defensemen turn and take a swing at someone.” Ellen folded her arms over her chest.
He hated lying. Even though it was a skill that had been ingrained in him since the fire, it was not something Dean particularly liked. “I’d rather not repeat it,” Dean said, purposely avoiding her eyes.
“Damn it, Winchester, I ain’t your mother. Language is just about the last thing that’s going to offend me.”
Dean set his jaw, stared straight ahead and didn’t say a word. Ellen narrowed her eyes. “Fine don’t tell me. But if it happens again, I will bust your ass back to the AHL so fast your head will spin. You damn near cost us the game.”
She stepped back and let him into the locker room. Most of the team was still huddled around Andy and Rubesen, still chattering happily about the win. Sam was sitting next to his locker next to Ben Braeden both of them looking tired and beaten up. There was a bruise blossoming on Sam’s cheek. Remnant of the hit from earlier.
“So not looking forward to playing those guys again,” Ben muttered, prodding gently at the row of stitches on his temple.
“I feel like they weren’t this bad last season,” Sam said. “We only played them twice last year but today—“
“Today they were playing like they were possessed,” Dean said.
“Possessed?” Sam repeated and then looked over to meet his brother’s eyes. “Oh. Shit.”
***
...Next time on Five for Fighting: The Rage have some goaltending issues, Dean calls the Stall brothers and the Winchesters deal with the curse on the Maple Leafs
| four |
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Dean, Sam centered with an epic supporting cast
Notes: Will be updated sporatically due to nano.
Summary: For the Winchester brothers hockey was always something apart from hunting until one season it suddenly wasn’t.
For those of you not familiar with hockey, you can read a quick primer on game basics here
CHAPTER 3: The Devil’s Down in Philly
It was during the first game of the Rage-Flyers series that Dean realized that the world was completely and utterly fucked.
The game itself was brutal. Games against Philly were always hard. Dean remembered that much from his time in Boston. The Flyers played hard and hit even harder. There had been a fight in almost every game Dean had ever played against them. But even early in the first period, Dean could tell that this was something different. Something bigger. Gordon had dropped the gloves just three minutes into the game and the usually competent fighter had been dropped easy amidst the roars from the home Philly crowd.
“Bunch of freaking vultures,” Dean commented to Sam from his perch on the bench. “I hate this town.”
“Are there any away cities you don’t hate?”
“I don’t hate Boston,” Dean said.
“You know that doesn’t count.”
“Everyone hates playing in Philly,” Chuck said from somewhere on his left. “Did you hear about the football game where they threw rocks at Santa Claus.”
“There’s a battle cry for you,” Adam muttered. “Let’s win this one for Santa.”
Dean grinned and then all of a sudden, there was a big mass of white sweater sailing over the raining of the Rage’s bench and Ben Braeden pushed himself to his skates looking woozy and bloody as the referee came up with a penalty.
“You all right, kid?” Dean asked. Braeden’s helmet as cock-eyed and he had an oddly distant look in his eyes. “What city are we in?”
“Somewhere orange,” Ben muttered.
“Braeden,” Ellen barked from the end of the bench. “You concussed, kid?”
Ben struggled to right himself, wobbling a little on his skates even as he was moving to sit down. He gave Ellen a shake thumbs up and then put his head between his legs, like he was trying not to puke. “I want the first power play unit on the ice,” Ellen barked to the rest of the team as she signaled Jess over to take a look at Ben.
“I don’t remember these guys hitting like this,” Ash said as he slid back into the bench and watched the power play until take the ice. “I mean we only played them twice a year but I remember bruises like this.”
Jess was slowly performing the routine diagnostic tests for concussions on Ben. There was a trickle of blood running down his forehead. “Doesn’t look like a concussion to me, Ben,” she said with a grin. “But the cut needs stitches. Come on. We’ll have you back before the next period.”
“Chicks dig the scars,” Dean said absently as he watch Sam slid a pass over to Bobby and get rocked by the Philly defenseman. The check knocked him clear off his skates. And Sam was a big guy. Dean knew from experience that knocking him down with a check was damn near impossible to do.
His brother lumbered back off to his feet, raising his stick to signal he needed a swap. “Shit,” Ellen cursed and tapped Adam on the back as Sam stumbled into the bench area. “Winchester, you all right?”
“I feel like I got run over by a train,” Sam moaned. “Just give me a minute. Nothing’s broken.”
Andy looked pale. He’d been taken off his usual second run power play unit for the game because of the problems with the size match-up. It was only the first period but his line had already proved to be the one getting the least playing time. Andy was lightning fast and could handle the puck better then anyone he’d ever seen but he and Chuck were two of the smallest players in the league and the way Philly was playing it was pretty well guaranteed that no one was getting out of here without some battle wounds.
The crowd erupted into moans as Victor Hendriksen slid the puck past the stunned goaltender on a one-two pass from Bobby. There was a small but empathic situation around the goal, the tangle of arms and back pats. Ellen sent out Braeden’s usual line substituting Jake from the Gallagher line for the missing winger along with Dean and Lucas at the defense. He cast a look at Sam who was still trying to catch his breath before turning to Lucas. “Kid, I feel like something weird is going on here.”
“Yeah us with a first period lead. Weird, right?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Shut up and play, you idjits,” Bobby grumbled.
Dean flashed him a smile as Bobby shook his head in annoyance. “Real leadership,” Dean joked, “That’s why they gave you the captain’s C, Singer.” They slid back over the boards and onto the ice as the Rage went up for wholesale line cages but it was a bad. Dean saw the puck sailing past the blue line and onto the stick of Danny Briere.
“Shit,” he mumbled and put his head down, digging to pick up ground as Briere made a beeline to Rubesen and the goal. He sprawled out on the ice face first, extending his stick out toward the puck. He hit Briere’s skates first knocking the puck afterward and skidded into Rubesen, almost taking down the big goalie before stopping completely. From his vantage point on the ice, he could see the referee with his hand outstretched signaling the hooking call. The crowd roared its disapproval, asking for a penalty shot. “Good play,” Rubesen mumbled to him as he pushed his way back up to his feet. The referee escorted him over to the penalty box where the Flyers fan on the other side of the glass pounded incessantly behind him. Dean sat down, face front as he watched the penalty killers took the ice.
But it wasn’t the kind of line you wanted to see. Sam was still reeling from the last hit and Ben Braeden had left the ice to get stitched up. He glanced at the game clock. Only fifty-four seconds until intermission. If they could kill fifty-four seconds of the power play, the might be able to start the second with their real penalty killers out front.
Ellen had Hendriksen and Ash alongside Lucas and Ed Zeddmore on the ice and Dean knew putting Zeddmore on kill was just about the last thing Ellen wanted to do, but being the only thing she could do. Adam had been coming off a double shift, Sam was still shaky from the hit and Dean was the one serving the penalty.
It was a crappy view from the box, the glass distorting the game but he can see enough to tell where it was going to go bad. The Flyers won the face of and the puck just stayed in the zone, sliding easily from stick to stick despite the defense’s efforts to get it out.
Hendriksen hit the ice to stop a slap shot with his side as Zeddmore darted after the puck only to get rocked by a hit that made Dean wince even off the ice. There was a scrum in front of the net, a series of deflections and then the red light lit up and the crowd was on its feet. Dean glanced up at the clock. Two seconds left in the period. He skated over to the bench only to have Ellen signal for him to stay on the ice. Andy won the face off clean, and Dean wound up and sent a hard slap shot into the zone that missed the goal by a mile. But the buzzer rang out loud and clear signaling the period’s end and the Rage made their way off the ice.
The second period wasn’t any better. They got both Ben Braeden and Sam back onto the ice but the Flyers just kept hitting at every turn. Every time Dean finished a shift, his knee was singing its protests and his body just ached.
But the crazy thing about it was they were ahead. The third line, the one with both Andy and Chuck on the ice together, the line with the two smallest guys in the league, was picking Philly apart. Dean knew that Andy was a magician with the puck, he seen some stick handling showcased in practice and been judge on the competitions between him and Tricks as they saw who could juggle the puck on their stick the longest but he hadn’t seen it in a game before know.
Andy had the Flyers lunging clumsily at him trying to get the puck off his stick as he danced through him, his tiny stature actually an advantage in a game that had kept Jess busy in the locker room stitching up cuts all night long. He scored two goals in the second, the Gallagher line suddenly on the ice every other shift when it had barely played at all in the first period. Looking at the row of faces on the bench, though, Dean would have thought they were on the other end of an ass whooping. Ben Braeden had a thing row of eight black stitches just above the eye and Hendriksen was sitting just a little too upright and Sam missing half of his shifts, Ellen still fearing a concussion even though his brother insisted he was fine. They look like a team that’s been through a war. A team that had lost the freaking war even though they were up three to one. There was something wrong in this arena, an edge of violence to this game that wasn’t normally present even in the usual hard-hitting games with family.
He figured it own pinned to the board with the puck between his skates and an orange jersey slamming him repeatedly against the glass. What is strong and faster then a hockey player but not half as skilled?
“Christo,” he said, choking out the word even as his face was pressed against the cool glass. The were was hissing sound and Dean turned just in time to see black eyes against light skin and he felt the connections tumbling into place.
Demons. All of them.
Their dad always had one rule. The mantra that had been burned into their heads since their dad swept them into his arms after the fire. Hockey is not hunting.
The rule broke with Dean’s punch. His reaction instant, violent and so completely ingrained to his being that he couldn’t have stopped himself if he wanted to. He was as much a hunter as he was a hockey player and he couldn’t separate the two of them right now. The demon grinned at him from behind the snarling face of some first year call up he didn’t know.
“Dean Winchester,” the demon hissed at him.
“You messed up,” Dean snapped back. “You’re in the NHL, people are going to notice.”
The demon didn’t say anything else. He had one hand on Dean’s shoulders holding his right hook at bay as Dean attempted to pummel him with his left, wishing he’d memorized the damn exorcism.
The fight was quick and dirty and it ended with the two of them toppled over on the ice, Dean still in hunter mode, trying to kill the guy when the linesmen drag him off of them and back into the penalty box for the second time of the game. He can see Ellen bitching at the refs from the bench, can see the demon wearing the kid’s face looking at him from the other penalty box and heard the roars of the crowd as the penalty times went up. Dean Winchester, five minutes for fighting. Eric McGee, two for roughing.
Dean sat there listening to the crow swell all around him, watching the demon in the penalty box, all the demons down in Philly and realized that somehow, when he wasn’t paying attention, his world had gotten completely and utterly fucked.
They won the game. They won it by the skin of their teeth and the virtue of Carl Rubesen’s glove but they won. Dean didn’t set foot on the ice again after the penalty and judging by the smoke spurting out of her ears.
She let the team head into the locker room, cornering him on the outside. “What the hell did he say to you?” she snapped.
Dean blinked. “What?”
“What did he say to you? I’ve been watching the league since before you were born and I know what kind of player can be goaded into a fight and Winchester unless I sorely misjudged you, you ain’t one of them. Let me hear it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I want to know what would make an otherwise smart, levelheaded defensemen turn and take a swing at someone.” Ellen folded her arms over her chest.
He hated lying. Even though it was a skill that had been ingrained in him since the fire, it was not something Dean particularly liked. “I’d rather not repeat it,” Dean said, purposely avoiding her eyes.
“Damn it, Winchester, I ain’t your mother. Language is just about the last thing that’s going to offend me.”
Dean set his jaw, stared straight ahead and didn’t say a word. Ellen narrowed her eyes. “Fine don’t tell me. But if it happens again, I will bust your ass back to the AHL so fast your head will spin. You damn near cost us the game.”
She stepped back and let him into the locker room. Most of the team was still huddled around Andy and Rubesen, still chattering happily about the win. Sam was sitting next to his locker next to Ben Braeden both of them looking tired and beaten up. There was a bruise blossoming on Sam’s cheek. Remnant of the hit from earlier.
“So not looking forward to playing those guys again,” Ben muttered, prodding gently at the row of stitches on his temple.
“I feel like they weren’t this bad last season,” Sam said. “We only played them twice last year but today—“
“Today they were playing like they were possessed,” Dean said.
“Possessed?” Sam repeated and then looked over to meet his brother’s eyes. “Oh. Shit.”
...Next time on Five for Fighting: The Rage have some goaltending issues, Dean calls the Stall brothers and the Winchesters deal with the curse on the Maple Leafs
| four |
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
25/11/09 07:18 (UTC)This part's my favorite:
“Everyone hates playing in Philly,” Chuck said from somewhere on his left. “Did you hear about the football game where they threw rocks at Santa Claus.”
“There’s a battle cry for you,” Adam muttered. “Let’s win this one for Santa.”
Aw, Adam's adorable.
This is sort of on topic, but there was this cute little tidbit at the end of the Caps/Senators recap:
"Capitals C David Steckel scooped up the puck from Beagle's goal and flipped it to the Capitals' bench. Ovechkin congratulated Beagle moments later, skating up to the boards to knock helmets with him as he sat on the bench."
(no subject)
25/11/09 14:42 (UTC)That's ADORABLE.
I was watch that game and they interviewed Beagle at the period break who was all happy and flustered at having scored his first goal. 24 year old call up. It's always nice when guys like that finally get their day in the NHL.
(no subject)
26/11/09 07:02 (UTC)It would be Philly that gets possessed by demons. XD I love how all the characters are featured and thought is given to what type of hockey player they are. (Harry & Ed constantly taking the stupid penalties is so them. I love it!)
(no subject)
29/11/09 19:14 (UTC)I've put waaaaay to much though into how all the characters would play hockey. But it's all right. I'm having a blast with this one.
(no subject)
30/11/09 00:44 (UTC)Haha, well, it shows. In a good way. ;) Now I must be off to read part 4.
(no subject)
27/11/09 06:14 (UTC)*prints fic on paper and rolls around on it*
(deleted and reposted because I left out a word)
(no subject)
29/11/09 19:14 (UTC)OMG this on real paper? You like it enough to waste ink on it? *doodles hearts around you*
(no subject)
28/1/10 01:58 (UTC)(no subject)
28/1/10 14:15 (UTC)