(This is a sample of The Chicago Verse, from AO3. If you'd like to start from the beginning or read other works, look me up under the same handle over there. :D)
Office hours are from eight to five, Monday through Friday.
Somehow, Sam finds himself at the office on a Saturday, from noon to four. Two days later, when he looks up from his desk to see if it's time to go home, the clock on the wall of his office tells him that it's seven thirty—shit. He solemnly vows to himself that it won't happen again. Not at least for another three days. He'll leave early tomorrow, he promises himself as he jumps onto a pink line train thirty seconds before it pulls out of the station. Yes, that's exactly what he's going to do. And tonight, when he's in bed, he will not sit up with his laptop working on processing grant applications and tax-exempt forms.
At five in the morning on Tuesday, he peels his face off of the keyboard of his laptop and rolls over from his bed to the bathroom for a cold shower. As he's standing in the tub, about to turn on the water, he notices that some part of him is clearly awake, like it's fifteen years old and sleeping next to Dean in a queen sized motel bed again. Sam closes his eyes and turns the water to extra cold. He does not let out a tiny yelp of shock when the water starts.
By six, he's at the office, unlocking the main doors to their floor and then the door to his office. Not another soul appears until seven thirty and he knows it's Anita, who comes in half an hour early to use company phones to call her family in California and the wi-fi. Sam doesn't say anything about it to the higher-ups. What does he care? He doesn't have family in California and the wi-fi at home is his responsibility. If the internet goes missing for a day, Comcast gets angry phone calls from one Dean Winchester. Recently, they sent Sam a letter requesting that his spouse please stop calling customer service and yelling when there are blackouts no one can do anything about. Please. A fifty dollar credit was given to their account when Sam called Comcast himself and assured them that he took their number off of Dean's phone. He wondered if the staff in the call center cheered that day.
Before the phones start ringing and the office comes to life at eight, Sam has already gotten two hours of solid work done. He's making great progress by lunch time, interrupted by the necessity of eating. He tried skipping meals to be more efficient, but he ended up crashing by three and threatening to maim coworkers by four. Nino, the new summer intern, was the unfortunate victim of a day two weeks ago when Sam didn't eat breakfast, forgot his lunch, and didn't pack an umbrella in his briefcase on a day Chicago decided to have monsoon weather. If Nino can survive Sam's moods and the president's bouts of hysteria over meeting deadlines and holding fundraisers, then he is clearly, truly blessed.
One o'clock rolls around and Sam is finishing stuffing his face with lunch—turkey sandwich on wheat, olive oil mayo, spicy horseradish mustard—when the president barges into his office. She's a shrewd, resourceful woman, who buys Chanel suits on the cheap from outlets in the northwest suburbs and tailors them herself. Sometimes she'll flip the suits and sell them to girls in the office; once, she bought a men's suit and did one for Sam, for free because he saved them from an audit from the state. It's a dark gray suit with fine stitching that she replicated perfectly, and it fits his shoulders and the inseam. When she presented it to him, she chirped that it originally cost three thousand dollars. She bought it for eight hundred, having haggled the clerk down fifty. The guy even threw in a shoe polish kit, which she also presented to Sam. He's only worn the suit once, mostly because Dean declared that it's the finest suit Sam will ever own, and it's the kind of nice suit that people get buried in. Asshole.
Juana declares that a sister nonprofit is floundering with their legal department. Providing legal services to underserved communities throughout Chicago, the organization is swamped. Their top lawyer is on medical leave for another two weeks and the interns are two seconds away from nervous breakdowns. Could Sam maybe, possibly, please stay a little later this week and take on two itty-bitty cases and train the senior intern at the same time?
He hesitates and starts to say no…
"There's an extra three days of vacation in it for you," Juana relents, leaning on the edge of his desk.
"A solid week," he counters from his chair. "Five days or I become mysteriously ill in thirty minutes."
"Charles could do it. He would do it for three."
"Repeat that to yourself. Charles could do it." Charles can do jack shit. The fancy set of law encyclopedias in his office are garage sale finds he bought for a dollar. They are as untouched as the bald spot on his head. Juana bites her bottom lip, thrumming her nails.
"Fine," she sighs dramatically and hangs her head. "You are so selfish, Sam. You'll let this office burn to the ground for your vacation. What will we do for another week without you?"
Sam gets two weeks of vacation every year automatically, plus sick time and holidays. Now he's up to three with this deal and he'll get another three days in August when he also gets his raise. Before Juana leaves, he reminds her that they have fire extinguishers throughout the floor. If they need help operating them, Juana can always talk to the ladies in HR.
Five p.m. sees a pizza delivery and seven thirty p.m. sees the senior intern's first nervous breakdown. How the kid graduated from DePaul top of his class, Sam has no idea. They must be handing out law degrees like candy based on what this kid knows. Over and over again, Sam has to fix Julian's mistakes, snapping towards the end that if he continues using incorrect language, not only will he be sued, he'll be prosecuted and put in jail. Does he want to spend his time behind bars at Cook County? Then the tears start and Sam becomes a babysitter. Shit. He should have asked for two weeks.
One case is easy; the other is trickier with a few felonies attached to the client's background. Anyway, nothing can be completely finished in one evening with a crying intern and a ton of files to go through. Sam shoves a mound of files into Julian's arms and commands him to get back to the basics and start reading and highlighting things of import. When Julian asks him out for a drink, Sam's mouth hangs open in shock. This dude—this twenty-seven year old, fresh out of college intern—has kept him at work three hours past normal office time, and half of it has been spent cleaning up stupid mistakes. This dude has started sobbing right in front of Sam, wailing that he is so in over his head. This dude has the nerve to wear a bright red bowtie and Converse sneakers and still call himself a professional on the business card he drew up for himself and smugly gave to Sam. And still, he has found himself capable of asking Sam out on a date.
Sam shoves Julian out the door and snaps at him that another question like that to his superior will get him fired.
Sighing, Sam leans against the door, closing his eyes for a moment, relaxing a fraction.
Home. It's time to go home. He gathers up his shit, waters the plant in his office, and turns off the lights. He takes the elevator down, walks out of the building, and drags himself three blocks to the nearest Pink Line stop. At eight forty-five, someone throws up in the car he's in. At eight-fifty, someone else starts yelling and banging against the window near his seat. At nine, the conductor stops the train and announces that emergency work is being done on the tracks ahead of them—there will be a ten to fifteen minute delay. At nine-thirty, Sam learns for the hundredth time that all CTA conductors are liars.
It isn't until ten that he hauls his ass in the front door of their home.
There's a plate of food in the microwave for him and a note on top of it.
"Fuck you, gone to bed," Sam reads. He huffs and crumples up the eloquent note. Too tired to press the buttons on the microwave, he grabs the plate, a beer, and a fork.
He eats cold pasta and meatballs alone, standing over the sink.
Wednesday turns into Thursday. Friday rears its ugly head, starting at five and ending at eight again.
The college aged girl with the purple streak in her hair who makes his lattes at the Starbucks on State Street, becomes concerned for him, pulling him aside and reminding him that she's going to school at Adler for Clinical Psychology. She doesn't have a degree yet, but if he needs to talk, she's there for him.
Saturday, Juana orders everyone to show up at the office and put in overtime. Sam manages to roll in at eight, but by noon, after working with Julian two hours, he has had enough.
"Sleeping with me will not help you keep your job," Sam bellows, standing to his full six foot five. "I want you packed up and out of here in ten minutes or I'll do it myself." He leans in towards Julian and narrows his eyes. "And trust me, buddy, I won't toss you out by the collar of your shirt. I'll go for your balls."
One of the gals from HR comes by with a sexual harassment form for Sam to fill out against Julian but he declines. The guy left whimpering and hunched over; that's more than enough for Sam. He apologizes to Juana and to their sister nonprofit. He agrees to work on the cases by himself, which will take longer, but he can manage. Juana treats him to lunch, which gets delivered to his desk by one thirty.
With rolled up sleeves, Sam plows through the rest of the afternoon. He wraps up research for the difficult case and sends out a few emails asking for advice from his network of nonprofit lawyers. Papers are filed, documents are highlighted and neat, careful notes are taken. An email comes through on his phone through one of his personal accounts. He scans it and replies that the hunter should try the blood of a dead man, not the blood of a lamb. It has to be fresh blood, Sam adds at the last minute.
By five, Sam has had three triple-shot lattes and five bottles of water. He runs to the men's room, comes back, and settles in for more work. Louis pops in and asks what Sam would like from the Chinese place two blocks over. Sam thinks he muttered chicken, but he isn't entirely sure.
At six, loud banging on the main door to their floor signals the arrival of Chinese food. Sam hopes Louis remembered to get him an eggroll.
"You're not the delivery dude," Louis exclaims, answering the door.
"Very good kid, for that observation, I should tip you." The door is pushed open. Louis starts to argue but he's silenced by the six foot one wall of determination that walks past him. From his desk, Sam looks up.
Dean.
There is his brother, walking with his cane because humidity has been fucking ridiculous lately and it's probably going to rain tonight if those clouds over State Street have a say in it. But he's not leaning too heavily on it, which means that the pain isn't so bad. The stairs going up and down the CTA platform probably necessitated the cane. Why didn't he just drive, Sam wonders.
Dressed in dark jeans and a black shirt, Dean scowls at anyone in his way. But it's more than just being in a bad mood that makes him snarl and snap. Standing in the doorway of Sam's office, Dean huffs.
He holds out a bouquet of flowers.
"Come home," Dean commands, resting against the doorframe. "Now, please."
Shocked, Sam stands up and points to his desk, at a loss for words. It's a bouquet of purple snapdragons, wrapped in paper, cut fresh. Breathing in and out, Dean steadies himself. He keeps holding out the flowers. "Sam," he tries again, with a tone of voice usually only heard late at night or early in the morning. "Come home."
No one can say the word home better than Dean can.
Fuck.
Sam leaves his office the way it is, pushing a few paperweights onto stacks, watering his plant, and turning off the lights. He ditches everything, stepping forward and accepting the bouquet, holding it awkwardly until he places it under his arm.
On their way out, everyone stares. Dean could care less. He leads; Sam lets him. He holds the door open; Sam lets him. Not even Juana makes a fuss of Sam leaving, though she does text him two minutes later, while they're walking out of the building: "Your husband is hot. Good for him. Have a good night." Relieved that he hasn't lost his job, Sam breathes a sigh of relief. He looks over at the man next to him.
"So?"
"What," Dean snips, rubbing the back of his neck.
A smile curls on Sam's face. "You bought me flowers."
The reply given has thought to it, like he was mulling it over on the way here. "No, fucker, I bought you bait. Wasn't any other way I was gonna get you out of there."
Outside, it's cool. The humidity that has plagued the rest of the week has taken a pause for the evening. A breeze from the lake pushes through easily. People walk around them on either side. The lights change. From around the corner, Sam can smell dinnertime at the Greek place that makes the best gyros outside of Greektown, two for five on Wednesdays from one to three in the afternoon. Through all of this, he can still pick up the scent of sandalwood and car grease and sweat.
Stepping over to the curb, Sam flags down a cab.
This time, he holds the door open for Dean; Dean lets him. The address home is given to the driver.
Sam climbs in after Dean, careful with his flowers.