BATTLE OF THE NATIONS
Summary: The Winchesters go undercover at a Renaissance festival to investigate a strange case of murders. To Sam's dismay and Dean's delight, the best way to blend in is to fight – like men in tights! Hurt!Sam, Protective!Dean.
Author's note: While attending a medieval festival this summer, I watched a Knights' tournament that I originally thought was only a part of the entertainment. Turns out that this tournament, where armored medieval-dressed knights fought each other with shields and swords, is actually a real international sport called 'Battle of the Nations' with championships and everything! This piece of news excited me and, before long, my fingers started itching with the need to write a Supernatural story about this. So here we are. I hope you'll enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it ;) Story will probably consist of two parts.
Additional note: Despite doing some research, I don't know all the specifics about the Battle of the Nations sport and have therefore changed and invented a few things along the way. The perks of being a writer ;)
- Elisa.
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"Knighthood lies above eternity; it doesn't live off fame, but rather deeds."
- Dejan Stojanovic, "The Sun Watches the Sun."
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"I hate you." Sam muttered to Dean, offered a strained smile to the giggling maiden-dressed girls, they passed by, before he pursed his lips and scowled at his older brother.
"Oh, come on Sam." Dean grinned and winked at the girls. "We already tried the FBI approach and no one was able to tell us anything about the deaths. Hell, some of them wouldn't even talk to us! You know we're not gonna solve this case unless we blend in with the mob."
"I guess." Sam sighed. "I just wish we didn't have to wear this stuff."
"Ah, admit that you are enjoying this just a little bit." Dean said with a smirk. "You can't fool me – I know you have a thing for wearing tights!"
"Very funny." Sam said drily and wished – for not the first time, and probably not the last time, that day – that he hadn't let Dean talk him into this.
Being undercover at a Renaissance festival was one thing – but being undercover at a Renaissance festival dressed in black tights, a forest-green doublet with a belt fastened around the waist, brown leather boots, and a coat (looking more like a cape to Sam) draped around his shoulders, was a total different matter. Despite the absurdity of it though, this wasn't even the first time Sam had been dressed in an outfit like this. While investigating a string of deaths in the LARPing community where they'd run into Charlie, the brothers had also then been dressed up in a similar type of outfit. Back then, though, Sam had let Dean do most of the dressing up while Sam himself had stayed away from the medieval clothing until in the very end where he'd joined in on the live roleplaying to make Dean happy. He would never admit this if anyone asked him about it, but – despite having been out of his comfort zone big time - Sam had actually had fun with it. Mostly because watching his big brother enjoying himself like a little kid on a new playground, filled Sam with a sense of happiness he couldn't quite deny. Dignity be damned.
This time was different though. This was no LARPing community where everyone was dressed up as elves, orcs, warriors and stuff – this was a Renaissance festival where the bigger part of the attending people were actual guests and not participants; tourists and families with kids in their normal everyday clothing, which made Sam feel more than a little ridiculous in his dress-up. Sure, there were people dressed as knights and jesters and maidens too but the youngest Winchester was convinced that he would have been looking less suspicious and less out-of-place if he'd just worn his regular jeans, plaid and jacket.
Sam let out a deep sigh and glanced at his grinning big brother. At least Dean hadn't succeeded in getting Sam to put up his hair in a ponytail this time around - he'd had to draw the line somewhere.
"Do you even think they'll accept us into the battle competition?" Sam asked, frowning as a singing troubadour and a couple of joglars blocked their way for a few seconds. "I mean, we would have to join an existing team to be able to freely move around inside the battle camp to investigate, and these people have all been fighting together for years. They won't just let strangers in."
"You're forgetting that these guys are also very competitive." Dean said. "Some of them are dying to be battling in the tournament tomorrow but they might not be able to do it unless they have a full team."
"And some of the teams are missing team members because of the deaths." Sam added with a nod of his head.
"Exactly." Dean agreed. "Which is why there's a good chance that someone will be willing to let us be a part of their team just to be able to participate."
Dean stopped up for a few moments to admire some of the firearm replicas that people had displayed outside one of the many tents that'd been put up for the festival. The older Winchester brother was wearing an outfit very similar to the one Sam was wearing, although the brown leather pants, the grey shirt with the dark-brown gambeson on top, decorated with shiny metal rivets, gave him more of a Robin of Locksley kind of look that suited him better than Sam cared to admit. It was a mystery to Sam how Dean always managed to pull off and wear whatever costume he needed for a hunt with confidence, when Sam felt ridiculous wearing anything out of the ordinary himself.
"I still can't believe that this Battle of the Nations stuff is actually a real sport." Sam said with a shake of his head.
"Sam, even chess is a real sport." Dean emphasized with a pointed look. "This one's at least cool."
"You do remember we're not actually gonna be battling in the tournament, right?" Sam asked and dragged Dean away from the weapons tent so they could continue their walk towards the battle arena. "By tomorrow we'll hopefully have the information we need to find out how these people died and how we're gonna stop more deaths from happening."
"I know.. But how cool would it be to say that you'd actually competed in a real knight's tournament though, huh? Huh?" Dean asked, nudging Sam in the side with an elbow.
"Not gonna happen, Dean." Sam said.
"With armory and all!" Dean added with a big, childish grin.
"Let it go, dude." Sam snorted.
_ SPN _
When the brothers arrived by the outdoor arena where the battles took place, a couple of knights were dueling each other with swords and buckler shields – the sandy ground underneath their feet morphing into clouds of dust by every movement of their heavy boots. The sun was emitting enormous heatwaves that made it incredible hot just to be sitting in the sun, so it was no wonder that sweat was practically pouring off the medieval-dressed men as they battled each other in their weighty armors.
"I wish we had popcorn." Dean said as he and Sam sat down on the stand among the other guests - then strained his neck in an attempt to spot a popcorn stall. "Or at least something cool to drink."
Sam ignored his brother's comments - just silently observed the duel between the knights, studying their positions, their movements and the way they attacked each other and defended themselves. He and Dean had stayed up late the previous night to do research about this sport in order to maintain a believable cover, but knowledge was one thing; putting it into practice was a completely different matter. The Winchesters of course knew a whole lot about handling weapons and fighting against opponents, but they didn't have a lot of experience with swords and definitely weren't used to have to stick to certain rules while fighting. If everything went according to plan though, they wouldn't even need to use this knowledge for anything. Still, Sam liked to be prepared just in case things didn't turn out as planned. Besides, back-up plans were pretty much always needed in the hunting business – especially if your last name was Winchester.
A collective hiss went through the crowd of bystanders as one of the knights managed to place a solid hit with his sword to the other knight's helmet, making a fine little dent in the metal and shortly disorientating the guy.
"Ugh, that's got to hurt." Dean remarked over the mix of cheering and booing from the crowd, and Sam nodded in agreement.
"Makes me even happier we're not gonna participate." Sam remarked, grimacing a little in sympathy as he continued to watch the battling men struggle against each other in the burning heat.
A short while later, the battle was called to an end and one of the contestants was announced the winner.
"Hey, check it out." Dean said and gently slapped Sam's shoulder to catch his brother's attention. "Vikings, three o' clock."
Sam looked in the direction Dean had mentioned, and saw a bunch of battle-dressed men leaning against the fence that surrounded the battlefield arena from where they were watching the dueling knights. A lot of battling teams were following the duels but, judging by the crestfallen looks on these particular men's faces, Sam guessed that they probably belonged to one of the teams that had lost team members because of the suspicious deaths.
"What do you say we go check out what they've got to say?" Dean suggested, got up from his seat and headed towards the team of knights with Sam following right behind him.
The brothers stopped up a few steps away from the group of men and leaned against the fence, mimicking the men's postures, while pretending to watch the duel that was about to take place between a new set of medieval-dressed competitors. Instead of paying attention to the battle that was about to unfold though, both Winchester brothers were eavesdropping on the conversation that took place beside them.
"Two more rounds and then it's Alan's turn to compete." One of the men, a young, slender guy with light shaggy hair and no armor, announced while holding up a team banner saying 'The Brotherhood'.
"What's the point though?" Another man asked, swinging his sword back and forth for a few seconds before planting it firmly in the ground. "Ten vs. Ten is tomorrow and we're not a full team anymore. Bernard left and after what happened to Steve.."
The man hesitated for a few seconds to clear his throat in an obvious attempt to get rid of the emotion that had found its way into his voice – then continued.
"After what happened to Steve, I can't blame him. A lot of us are wondering if we should do the same thing before more people get hurt." The man said, receiving a couple of affirmative nods from some of his fellow teammates. "Some of us have wives and kids to think about too."
"You make it sound like we're competing in a real battle." A third man, a big red-haired dude with a large beard, said and glared at his team mate. "This is a sport – a team sport – and we've been training too damn long and hard for this to end before it even started. What happened to Steve was terrible, but he would have wanted us to carry on. Hell, he would have wanted us to win this shit!"
"How can you even think about winning at a time like this?" The other man asked.
"How can you not think about winning?" Redbeard fired back. "The national coach will choose his contestants for the national team this month, and we're not gonna impress him by giving up! Steve wouldn't have wanted that!"
While the argument between the team members continued, Dean turned his head to look at his brother and found Sam looking back at him with a thoughtful expression on his face.
"You think we have a chance of getting on their team?" Dean asked.
Sam sighed heavily, brushed a hand through his sweaty hair that was practically dripping because of the heat, and glanced at the arguing men before looking back at Dean.
"I think we need a great deal of persuasion for that to happen." Sam answered and wasn't at all surprised when Dean started smiling confidently.
"Then I'll do the talking." Dean grinned.
"Suit yourself." Sam responded with a shrug of his shoulders. "Just don't go waving a gun in their faces to get us on the team, please."
"Okay, so that happened one time and you're never gonna let me forget it?" Dean complained and Sam huffed.
"Dean, you threatened my gym teacher with a gun, telling him you would blow his head off for not letting me in on the basketball team." Sam said. "You're lucky we left town before he reported you to the cops. Or before Dad heard of it."
"Well, he had it coming for what he said about you." Dean stated.
"Dude, he told you I wasn't tall enough to get on the team which happened to be true." Sam said.
"Whatever man." Dean dismissed with a wave of his hand. "Let's just go talk to these fellas."
As the brothers closed the last distance to the Brotherhood team, Sam admired Dean's guts as the older brother, as always, couldn't care less about the fact that the big armor-and-weapon-carrying men, he was interrupting, were in the middle of a private and heated argument. Dean simply walked up to the men (with Sam walking a few steps behind him) and didn't wait for anyone to notice his presence before he cut off the arguing guys with a "Hi, how are you doing? I'm Dean, this is my brother Sam."
The group of men silenced and turned to look at the Winchesters with a mix of surprise and annoyance on their faces from the interruption, and Sam suddenly felt awfully self-conscious in his ridiculous outfit even though the contestants they were facing were wearing similar types of clothing themselves.
"What do you want?" Redbeard sneered at Dean while straightening up to tower over the oldest Winchester in an obvious attempt to look more intimidating. Although Redbeard was taller and bulkier than him, Dean didn't as much as move a muscle – just stared right back at the Viking-looking man with a confident look on his face.
"Rumor has it you boys are lacking team members." Dean answered, cutting straight to the chase. "My brother and I would like to offer our assistance."
"Yeah? What's in it to you?" Scrawny, banner-holding guy asked, raising his voice a bit to be heard over the constant buzzing from the stand of bystanders.
"This Battle of the Nations stuff is a hobby of ours." Dean said. "We've been following the sport for a while now and we've been searching for a team to join."
"And you think some random team are willing to let you join them in an important competition when you've got absolutely no tournament experience at all?" A dude whom Dean immediately nicknamed Scarface because of a long scar across his left eyebrow, asked – clearly not impressed by what he was hearing.
"We might not have any experience with tournaments, but we know the rules and we know how to fight." Dean said and his answer was received by a few mocking chuckles from the group of men.
"This sport is for real men, and it takes months after months of hard training to be able to understand what it takes to participate in this tournament." Scarface said. "You and your brother would be doing us all a favor if you just stayed on the right side of the fence."
Although Dean kept a wry smile on his face that most people would believe was a genuine one, Sam knew his older brother well enough to see that the smile was strained and that it would only be a matter of time before Dean lost his patience with these guys and started throwing punches.
"Look." Sam said, speaking up for the first time since approaching the group of contestants, and moving in between Dean and Scarface to avoid any scuffling between the two men. "We know that you won't be participating in the tournament tomorrow unless you've got a full team, and we're offering you our help here. If you don't wanna take it that's fine, but Steve would have wanted the team to carry on – with or without our help."
By the sound of their deceased teammate's name, the group of men all stirred and started murmuring with each other - uncertain as to how these two strangers in front of them could know of their late friend.
"What do you know about Steve?" Banner-guy asked, putting into words what everyone was thinking.
"He was a buddy of ours." Sam lied without as much as blinking an eye. "He was the one who introduced us to this sport in the first place and we originally came here to support him. Now that he's gone, we wanted to honor his memory by helping out his team."
"Yeah, but you guys obviously don't want our help, so good luck with the rest of the tournament." Dean added and didn't spare the Brotherhood team another look before he turned around and quickly patted Sam's chest. "Come on Sam, let's go."
Sam nodded his goodbye to the group of medieval-dressed men and followed behind his brother through the crowd of guests that were still watching the tournament. As Sam caught up with Dean, and the two of them had covered an appropriate distance from the team, Dean turned his head and shot Sam a wry smile.
"Dude. Wanna bet one of them will catch up with us within the next five minutes?" Dean asked and then grinned. "Nice idea bringing up the dead guy by the way."
"Yeah.." Sam agreed with reluctance and then sighed heavily, wanting to bury his hands in his pockets but then frowned with annoyance as his hands once again found no pockets in the tights he was wearing. Boy, was he missing his jeans!
"Only one problem with it though." Sam added, scolding himself for not thinking about this before he'd brought the team's dead friend into play.
"What's that?" Dean asked.
"Now we have no choice but to fight tomorrow." Sam said, darkly.
He sure as hell didn't miss being soulless, but sometimes it was a damn curse to have a conscious.
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Dean had been right. It hadn't taken Banner-guy – who had introduced himself as Ken Woods, team leader of the Brotherhood – very long to catch up with the Winchester brothers and take them up on their offer to join the team. Despite the fact that it hadn't been a consentaneous decision to let them be a part of the team, the majority had decided to give them a chance - and it was not like the brothers cared about who wanted them there, and who didn't, anyway.
Ken had led Dean and Sam to the battle camp where a small community of tents made it as habitations for the many medieval-dressed, Battle of the Nations teams. According to Ken, the atmosphere inside the camp was usually full of excitement and laughter and good-natured banters between the different teams, but the recent deaths had put a considerable damper on it all. Where everyone previously had acted like one big family, the different teams were now sticking to themselves, not trusting anyone around them – which was also the reason why people had eyed the Winchesters warily as they had followed Ken tothe Brotherhood's campsite.
"This almost feels like that time we went undercover in crowbar hotel to help Deacon." Dean murmured to Sam. "Except this time I don't need to worry about you ending up as someone's bitch-boy."
"Something's definitely off here." Sam agreed, feeling rather uncomfortable under the scrutinizing eyes of the many people, they passed by - then realized what Dean had said and scowled at his older brother.
"Hey, you were the one who basically started a war against some of the prisoners who thenwanted me dead because of it." Sam said.
"You survived, didn't you?" Dean smirked. "And at least I didn't trade you for cigarettes, princess."
"Moron." Sam shot back with a roll of his eyes.
The Brotherhood's campsite consisted of a circle of tents with a bonfire in the center of it where the remains of half a roasted hog still hung on the rotisserie above the red-hot firewood, and, in true medieval style, the men sitting by the fire were drinking mead from horns. The team gave the brothers a mixed welcome – some of them rather accommodating and polite, others dismissive and indifferent, while some appeared even hostile towards them.
"Don't mind them." Redbeard said while shaking Dean's hand and nodded towards a couple of men who were glaring at them. "Welcome to the team. I'm Tobias Mercer but people call me Red."
"I wonder why." Dean remarked and Red barked out a laugh before patting Dean's shoulder in a friendly manner.
"You lads sit down and make yourself at home." Red told them, making Sam startle a little in surprise as he showed a horn with mead into Sam's hands and led the younger Winchester to a stool by the bonfire.
Dean chuckled at the look on Sam's face, poured himself some mead and grimaced over the peculiar taste of it before joining his brother by the fire.
When nightfall came, and everyone receded to their tents to sleep for the night, the Winchester brothers waited for the whole battle camp to quiet down before they began snooping around in the area – flashlights in hands and guns tucked away in the back of their waistbands.
What had bothered both hunters the most about the case was that there didn't seem to be any specific connection between the victims - other than the fact that they'd all been a part of this Battle of the Nations tournament. Four people had died and all seemingly from a heart attack, although no one was able to explain how four completely healthy men could suddenly die of heart failure. Other than the deaths, the Renaissance festival had also been plagued by a series of bad luck, whereas most of them had happened during the battles. Some of the contestants had been severely injured, but where some people believed that these accidents were only to expect in a sport this tough, Sam believed otherwise. The youngest Winchester was convinced there was a connection between the mysterious deaths and the very unfortunate accidents that had happened in the battle arena - even though he hadn't come up with a proper theory for it yet.
"This camp is gonna take forever to investigate if we stick together." Dean whispered, eyes focused on the EMF-meter he was carrying which had remained silent so far. "We should split up, take each our side of the camp and meet back up by the team's campsite."
"Yeah." Sam agreed, nodded his head in silent understanding as Dean gestured his directions with his hands – the younger man turning left at the exact same time as Dean went right.
Sam let the beam of his flashlight guide his way as he walked between the many rows of tents, ready to excuse his nightly escapade as a search for a bathroom if anyone should see him and demand an answer as to why he was snooping around in the middle of the night. He didn't run into anyone though and, after having spent almost half an hour investigating row after row of tents with no result, Sam stopped up in front of a small wooden cottage that (according to the sign on the door) was for staff only.
The youngest Winchester peeked through the dark windows for a few moments, spotted a subdued light from somewhere inside and saw shadows dancing on the wall, but wasn't able to make out much else than that. Curiosity piqued, Sam moved to the door and slowly pulled down the knob, finding it locked, then turned his head from side to side to make sure he wasn't being watched, before he found his lock pick set and started working on the door. As soon as the door clicked unlocked, Sam carefully opened it up and heard the distant murmur of voices inside. Frowning when he couldn't make out what was said, the younger Winchester brother snuck inside the cottage, pulled out his gun but remained pressed up against the wall by the door, cautiously looking around the corner and holding his breath while trying to listen to the conversation. Whoever was speaking, the voices, Sam discovered, came from an adjoining room in the cottage from where a streak of light was visible underneath the door.
Sam snuck a bit closer until he was able to make out a little more of the conversation, and intercepted a few words here and there about rituals and sacrifices and something about the tournament the next day.
Deciding it was probably wiser to wait for backup before throwing himself into something that could end up getting him into trouble, Sam backed out of the cottage again and dug out his phone from his backpack to send off a text to Dean.
"On to something. Meet me back at camp in five. /Sam."
He texted the message, slipped his phone back into the backpack and slung the bag over his shoulder before heading in the direction he'd originally come from.
Sam had just rounded the corner of the cottage when something hard hit the back of his head, and the last thing he registered was pain before his knees buckled and everything went silent and black.
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TBC..