Title: Bored games

Rating: PG-13

Genre: gen

Characters/Pairing: Dean, John, Sam, Jess, Jim.

Disclaimer: Don't own not being paid

Spoilers: Up to and including 3.08

Written for: foundficspn prompt 30

Word count: 1285

A/N: Betaed by the awesometastical Starrylizard and Cha Oseye Tempest Thrain.

Summary: I've already told you, I'm the car. You can be the horse, or the shoe. The horse can run almost as fast as the car.

"When you ask a person about Mozart, they don't run away screaming."

John grimaced and took a sip of his coffee. "If that was all she wanted to talk about, I wouldn't have run. She was being nosy."

Nosy was possibly the understatement of the year. Besides which, what use did John Winchester have for talking about Mozart of all things? A discussion about the best way to kill Cornish pixies, John was your man. A topic on which even Mary hadn't even ever been able to get two consecutive words of opinion from John on was another matter entirely.

"And you've just given the woman something more to talk about," Jim noted wryly.

The two men were standing in Jim's kitchen, leaning against the bench surrounding the sink. Two days worth of research was laid out on the table, arranged in a haphazard order that defied logic, yet, somehow both hunters knew where to find pertinent information.

"Great," John muttered, "just what I needed."

Dianne Drake had decided that John Winchester was a mystery that needed solving. The fact that he came in and out of town so irregularly, looked like he needed a good shower and shave most of the time, and yet, had two of the 'sweetest children' around – and that showed what she knew – and was friends with the Pastor fascinated the woman. It didn't help that John had caught her checking out his butt more than a few times. She seemed to be both intrigued and attracted to his 'bad boy' image, which meant that John was doing his damn best to avoid her.

Dean appeared in the doorway, looking uncertainly at the pieces of paper covering the table, his uncombed wet hair spiking every which way. He held up the box in his hand.

"Are we…?"

There was so much hope on his face that Jim immediately nodded.

"Need to work on those spelling skills of yours," Jim kidded. "You going to play, John?"

"Sure, why not," John decided, putting his coffee mug down and helping Jim to clear the table.

"I wanna be the car."

Dean sighed and continued sorting the money into piles. "You can't be; I'm the car."

"That's not fair, I wanna be the car." Sammy crossed his arms with a pout. "I don't wanna play this anymore."

"Look, you can be the dog." Dean pushed the piece towards Sammy. "The dog's pretty cool."

"I don't wanna be the dog, I wanna be the car!" Sammy's voice was hitting the pitch that could effectively drill through concrete.

"I've already told you, I'm the car. You can be the horse, or the shoe. The horse can run almost as fast as the car." Dean placed the sorted money in their relevant holes and put the stacks of cards in the two places on the board.

"I don't wanna be the stupid horse or stupid shoe. This game is stupid." A kick at the table leg and it wobbled.

"Fine, don't play then," Dean retorted, well and truly annoyed and aggravated. He picked the cards back up and slammed the game board shut. "See if I care. Go and watch a cartoon or something, rot your brain with too much TV."

Sam glared back.

"I will!"

Sammy got down in a huff and stomped off to crash noisily in front of the TV, leaving Dean counting the money again.

"It was Mr Green, in the library, with the rope," Dean announced gleefully, moving the green piece from its position only a few squares away from the lounge to the library.

The three Winchesters were encamped around a small table, John with his leg out resting on a nearby chair. A hunting accident meant that he'd been off his feet for the past week, and with no TV reception in the cabin, it was board games or die of boredom.

"Dean!" Sam whined, his fingers itching to move his playing piece back to its original position. "Dad, make him stop doing that." He looked at John pleadingly, but the pleas fell on deaf ears.

"Sorry, kiddo," John said, a smile hovering in the corners of his mouth. "This is war."

"Dad?" Dean prompted, gesturing at his cards.

John held a card up so that only Dean could see it and Dean made a notation on his sheet of paper.

"Right, my turn."

"I can't believe it, you completely wiped me off the board. You didn't even get a question wrong!"

Jess stared in amazement at the Trivial Pursuit board and Sam's piece sitting innocently at the finish. She'd only managed to pick up two of the coloured pieces she needed in the time that he'd got them all and rolled the right number to make the finish.

Sam shifted uncomfortably in his chair, a small grimace marring his face, only just realising what he'd done.

"I'm sorry, Jess…I didn't mean…" He trailed off, unsure how to apologise for winning the game.

She smiled and rested a hand on his cheek. "It's okay, Sam. It's just a game. It's not like I'd want you to get questions wrong on purpose, just to make me feel better."

The overhead lights flicked back on and they both looked up in reaction. Whoever had fixed the power outage had fabulous timing. Jess blew out the candles as Sam started packing up the board.

"Maybe next time we should play Scrabble," Jess suggested, a mischievous grin on her face.

Sam unwound the scarf from around his neck as he placed the plastic bags full of stuff on his bed.

"Dean, I'm back," he shouted in the general direction of the bathroom, hearing the water running. Knowing that he'd still at least have a few minutes until Dean was out of the bathroom, he pulled the box out of one of the bags. The paper and ribbon went beside it, as he realised he'd have to use his pocketknife to cut the paper if it was too big. The box was long and thin, so maybe he wouldn't have to.

When he'd finished the wrapping, he evaluated the result. It was way better than the first lot of wrapping he'd had to do at Stanford, lots of experience with Jess making it look less like a deformed cardboard box. But, while he could easily pick locks, wrapping gifts well was not one of his skills.

The ribbon took a couple of attempts to get right, the first being incredibly uneven with the bits he had to tie at the end. It wasn't like Dean was going to appreciate this sort of effort, if anything it'd get him called a girl, but if you were going to do something, you might as well do it as right as possible.

Giving up on curling the ribbon, he tied it into a neat bow – that he could at least do properly – and placed the finished product on Dean's bed. Three adjustments later to get it centred perfectly and he was done.

He flicked on the TV and settled back to wait for Dean to come out of the bathroom. Five minutes later, a fully dressed Dean stopped short and snorted at the Barbie wrapped object with pink ribbon on his bed, rewarding Sam for his patience.

"Happy Birthday, Dean," Sam said, a grin on his face.

"Dude, you're so getting me back for sapphire Barbie, aren't you?" Dean let out a 'heh' of laughter and walked across to the bed. He sat down gently, swaying the bed slightly, and picked up the present. A few seconds of tearing revealed the box underneath.

"Awesome," he breathed, looking up at Sam.

"You can be the car," Sam said.

-FIN-