This was the thing to end all things. It had transgressed from sports, to the next level of gaming all together. It was how they planned to relieve any and all animosity that they had towards each other, with a sufficient distraction to ease the tension.
Or so they thought.
"Wait, what the fuck version is this?" Anders asked, picking up the box suspiciously. "This isn't Monopoly!"
"It's the New Zealand version. I picked it up from the Warehouse on the way here," Ty said defensively.
"Great commitment to the cause, bro," Anders said sarcastically, lifting the lid off the box and peering inside. "I can't work like this. There is no way that Queen Street will ever be Mayfair."
"Get over yourself, Anders, at least you can actually play!" Mike retorted.
"I thought you LOVED being the banker and in control of all the money, Ullr."
"It's called tolerating, Bragi. There's a difference."
"I bags the racecar!" Axl hollered, pulling the token out of the box. Olaf became acutely alert at Axl's announcement.
"No, no, no, you can't be the car, I'm always the car. As convenor of the things, I get to have first choice on the tokens," Olaf explained to his youngest grandson. Plus there was the fact that after Joe and Axl's little jaunt down the country, he wasn't trusting of Axl around cars anymore.
"But I'm Odin. And as Odin, when I bags the car, I get the car." Olaf frowned very sternly at Axl. But he knew that Axl had followed the rules of bags-ing something. He'd have to look out very carefully next time.
"As the banker, I will take the moneybag token," Mike declared, taking the token and putting it in front of him.
"But you're not even playing!" Antagonising each other seemed to be the theme of the night.
"At least allow me to feel like I'm a part of this, Anders! Isn't that the whole point of this?" Anders didn't know WHAT the point of this game was if he was being perfectly honest, but he decided to let it slide, and grabbed the hat before anyone else could. The hat he placed on his head and stared at Mike, as though daring him to laugh. Mike gave a smirk, but turned to Ty.
"Which token can I give you?" Ty shrugged. He didn't mind at this point, he just wanted to actually start playing. Mike handed him the dog.
"Alright, Grandpa, you're up. What token do you want?"
"Boat," Olaf grumbled. Mike reached into the box and paused.
"Dad was always the boat."
"Yes, well, Johan doesn't get the privilege of being the boat anymore because he is not here to play with his sons. SO I will be taking the boat. Seeing as Axl took my car," he added pointedly in Axl's direction.
Axl ignored his grandfather as he happily drove the little car around the table.
"Can we just start playing now?" Ty asked. The sooner their anger got channelled into an actual game, the better. Mike pulled the board out and laid it on the table, and divvied out money to his brothers and Olaf.
Ty picked up the die and went to roll it, but he was cut short when a hand seized his wrist.
"What are you doing?!" Axl demanded from his left, gripping Ty's wrist tightly.
"Wha- I'm rolling the die." Ty was baffled at the tone that his little brother was using.
"No, no, the youngest always rolls first. Givvus here." Ty thought Axl was joking, but then Axl stuck his hand out expectantly. Ty jerked his wrist out of Axl's grasp.
"Piss off!" Ty wasn't going to hand it over when Axl was acting so childish.
"Oh, for fuck's sake, will somebody just roll the fucking die?!" Anders tended to be more impatient than usual when it came to his brothers.
Ty rolled the die, and received a head slap from Axl. The die landed on a one.
"Hah, shame!" Axl crowed. Ty glowered at Axl, and moved his token forward one measly space.
"Palmerston Street instead of Old Kent Road. Where the fuck is that?" Anders had not let go of his grudge against the edition of the game.
"Westport, or maybe Hamilton," Olaf answered as he lit himself a cigarette. "And are you going to bitch about every single street and place that people land on?"
"Probably." Mike rolled his eyes. Axl picked up the dice and let out a triumphant yell when it landed on a two. Anders scoffed.
"Why would you be happy about a two?" Axl pulled a card from the middle of the gameboard.
"Community Chest, bro. That's where it's at." He lit up at the card's instruction.
"ADVANCE TO GO! YES!" Ty and Anders both let out groans.
"What's that? I can't hear you over the sound of my TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS!" He looked expectantly to Mike.
Mike pulled out the money, but before he handed it over, he gave Axl a stern look.
"Now, don't go spending it all in one place. Now that you've passed the board once, you can buy properties. Pick carefully."
"Thank you, Mike," Axl said politely, but rolling his eyes when Mike wasn't looking.
Naturally, the original matter that was to be discussed was discarded the moment that the game properly started.
Each of the brothers had their own individual strategies. Anders would buy all the expensive properties and put houses and hotels on them as soon as possible, despite his whining ("I can't believe they put a street from Inver-fucking-cargill to replace a London street! It's bloody ridiculous!"). He didn't have a lot of cash on hand once purchasing his properties, but he was confident that his brothers and Olaf would start landing on his properties and the cash would start rolling in.
Mike had gotten bored and started memorising the Chance and Community Chest cards, and then "shuffling" the cards so that the bad ones would always turn up at the least fortunate moment. For example, Anders would always get the house and hotel repairs card.
"Fuck, again?!"
Axl had a devious strategy: buy every single property he landed on regardless of the colour. This was so he would have a bargaining tool later on in the game.
Ty favoured the mid-priced properties, particularly those between jail and free parking. He was slowly but surely growing his little empire. Except for the fact that Axl had Devon Street, the last orange property that Ty needed before he owned almost the entire row (not counting the utility or the station; Ty had given up on those).
"Devon Street. Are you seriously trying to tell me that it's the one in New Plymouth over the one in Wellington? This game is fucked up." Even though Anders was currently the richest person in the game, it didn't stop his whining.
Olaf wasn't really concentrating on the game; he had been sitting in jail for about seven turns. He had somehow acquired both utilities, and that allowed him to earn some money. Everyone was content letting him sit in jail, seeing as his heart wasn't really in the game anyway. Not compared to his grandsons.
But it was when Mike hadn't shuffled the cards in a very long time that Ty noticed something suspicious.
"I haven't seen the get out of jail free card anywhere. And I swear we've gone through all the cards."
"Maybe Olaf has it and he doesn't realise." Olaf was close to falling asleep on the table. The game, thanks to Mike's sabotage, had gone on for two and a half hours.
Anders carefully examined Olaf's cards. "Olaf doesn't have it." Ty frowned, and picked up the Community Chest and Chance cards and started turning them all over.
"Hey, hey, what are you doing?!" Mike protested. His integrity as banker was compromised with Ty flipping over all the cards.
"IT'S NOT EVEN HERE! I JUST BOUGHT THE GAME TODAY!" Ty smacked his hand on the table, leaving ice crystals on the game board which melted promptly.
"Hey, watch it!" Axl said, trying to wipe up the water from the board with his hand.
"Where's the bloody card?!" The room dropped several degrees in temperature.
"We don't know, Ty, just calm down! We'll just have to play without it!" Mike had actually confiscated the get out of jail free card as a lesson to his brothers. Teach them to exclude him from their games!
"Yeah, Ty, seriously! You're over-reacting!" Axl was starting to shiver. Olaf had officially fallen asleep and had begun snoring. Ty exhaled with anger, and sat back in his chair with folded arms.
"Fine," he relented through gritted teeth. Mike swallowed his laughter as he turned to Axl.
"I believe it's your turn." Axl picked up the die, hoping to land on 'Go' so he could collect double the $200 (a family rule). But sadly, he landed on Lambton Quay – one of Anders' hotel properties.
"Oh, for fuck's sake." Axl was rather broke, having offered Monopoly money as a truce for Olaf letting him have the car token, and also as a payment for some of his weed later. Mike didn't protest to this deviance from the rules, because it made the game more amusing for him.
"Ty, do you want to buy some properties from me?" If he didn't, Axl would be broke and out of the game.
"Nope," Ty replied bitterly. Even if Axl had mortgaged his properties, he actually still owed Anders money from the last time he landed on Lambton Quay. This was his last chance.
"Pleeeeeeeaaaassseeee! Be my best big brother and help me out!" Anders and Mike both took offence to this.
"What do you mean, Ty's your best brother?!"
"Do I mean NOTHING to you?!"
"Shut up," Olaf moaned. He reached out and grabbed the car token.
"Axl, you're out of the game." And Olaf went back to sleep, content that he finally had control of the car token. He was never going to let it go. He did, however, slide his properties across the table to Ty. Olaf had no reason to play anymore. Ty surreptitiously accepted the properties and slipped them into his own.
"WHAT?! This is bullshit! I hate this game! You all suck!" Axl's protests were despite the fact that he would actually have been eliminated from the game long ago.
"Axl, you're out. If you're going to be a sore loser, you can leave the table," Mike scolded. Axl stood up angrily.
"You know what? Fine. I hope you choke on your hotels, Anders." Anders just laughed.
"I'll be choking on all the money I've made thanks to your rotten luck." Axl gave Anders the finger as he went and sat on the couch.
And then it was just Ty and Anders left properly playing. The room actually fell silent as the two brothers focused on the final stretch before victory. It was a precarious ten minutes as the game teetered on Ty and Anders either landing on their own properties, or chance cards.
Then the game breaker emerged. Ty started landing on Anders' properties and had to pay up big.
"I knew you'd come through for me, Queen Street!" Anders praised the street that he had insulted earlier that day.
Ty wanted to keep his dignity. The thought of Anders cleaning him out until he had to mortgage all his properties was a fate worse than death, so he decided to throw in the towel there and then.
"Okay, I give up. You win."
"WOOHOO!" Anders cheered. But before he could start rubbing his victory in his brother's faces, Mike reminded them of one of their house rules that they had had since they were young.
"Okay, guys, time for you two to pay your property tax." The rule was, each person had to pay a certain amount of tax for each of the hotels and houses they owned, multiplied by the number of properties they had. Anders had a significantly higher amount of properties, so he had more to lose.
"NO, you can't do this! We didn't agree to this before the game started!"
"House rule. We ALWAYS play this rule."
"Rules are Ullr's," Ty muttered, chuckling to himself over Anders' fate.
"This is ridiculous; we haven't played this rule in YEARS!" Anders was on his feet, and he wasn't going to go down without a fight.
"We haven't PLAYED Monopoly in years, Anders," Axl pointed out, gleeful at his brother's anger.
"Shut up, moron," Anders snapped. "Mike, this is completely out of order!"
"Arguing with the banker, that's grounds for immediate disqualification." Mike was getting far too much joy out of this. "Ty is now the new winner."
"Fuck off, no way! You just made that up to be a dickhead!" Ty grinned broadly at his victory and started humming 'We Are the Champions' as he commenced tidying up the money and the properties.
"I can't believe this!" Anders complained. "We were supposed to be having a thing, and yet all we did was playing a bloody game for three hours." Mike, Ty and Anders all exchanged glances. None of them could even remember why they were having a thing in the first place. Or who even called it.
"Oh yeah…" said Mike. Anders shook his head.
"What a stupid idea. Monopoly. Next time, can we play something less gruelling, like Pictionary?"
Ty then gripped the side of the table and flipped it upside down, with Olaf slipping off and all the money and the cards and tokens cascading to the floor. Olaf still had the racecar tucked up in his pocket, however.
"TY, WHAT THE HELL?!" Axl yelped, jumping off the couch. He kept forgetting how strong Ty was, and it made him feel inadequate. It was time to start going to the gym, he thought.
"Sorry. I was just expressing my agreement with Anders. Fucking Monopoly."
"Sooooo…rematch? This time with beers?" Axl asked hopefully.
There was a pause as everyone pondered this. That game was one of the worst examples of family harmony they had ever experienced. Naturally, there was only one appropriate answer.
"Fuck yes."