Author's note: Many thanks to my wonderful beta reader, Ghastly Eternity. Maknatuna, you're awesome for reviewing every single chapter! I'm also grateful for every single of my other reviewers.
I nearly forgot to put today's update online, although I had it finished... maybe it'd be harder to forget, if more people reviewed. No pressure... ;-)


6

If there was one thing Sam and Dean had learned from being trapped in TV-land, then it was adapting to new situations quickly and acting accordingly.

For Dean, this meant sitting by a large rounded table, a pokerface firmly in place as he was looking at the cards he was holding. Entering in the middle of a game definitely gave him a disadvantage, but he had enough confidence in his abilities at playing poker so he wasn't seriously worried.

The next thing he put his focus on was finding his brother, of course.

And that was when Dean just had to step out of character.

"Oh my… Dude, what the…?" he managed between laughs, before he couldn't do anything but laugh for quite some time. In fact he was quite breathless and gulping in air like he was suffocating before he managed to calm down a little. Of course he just had to take another good look at his brother and burst into another fit of laughter though.

So what if it was the Trickster's stupid little fantasy world? So what if they were basically powerless to do anything against their imprisonment? So what if they and probably the entire world were screwed? Seeing Sam in a sparkly black cocktail-dress was more than enough to make Dean laugh like a maniac.

Sam on the other hand was eerily quiet and just looked at Dean, the annoyance clearly written all over his face. The silence lasted nearly as long as Dean's laughing did. "Are you quite done yet?"

The older Winchester nodded, wiping tears of laughter from his face. He bit his tongue for a second, not wanting to push his brother over the edge he was quite clearly dangerously close to, but he lost the fight against the little voice in his head, which was still laughing.

"Aren't you glad we waxed your legs earlier now?" he asked, keeping his voice and expression neutral this time.

Sam narrowed his eyes dangerously and swiftly kicked his brother's leg under the table with as much force as he could. Dean's muffled yelp made him feel a little better.

Besides, as unfortunately was easy to be seen, they had not waxed Sam's entire legs. There just was that one hairless stripe. Not that it mattered, he'd have looked damn stupid in the dress anyway.

"Do you need some time alone with your lovely companion, Mr. Bond?" the man sitting across the table from Dean asked in the sort of charming but ultimately sleazy tone that only movie villains could master.

The question made both Winchesters wonder what exactly the others were seeing. It couldn't be a 6'4'' guy with a murderous expression wearing a cocktail-dress, which was less than ideal for his built, they were both quite sure.

Only then Dean noticed something else the guy had said. "Wait, did he just call me…?" he wondered out loud giving his brother a short look searching for confirmation, "Okay, that's cool."

His inner child was giggling gleefully at the realization that that made Sam his Bond-girl, but there'd be a time and place to bring that up, there and then wasn't it. He had a poker game to play and, given his role in the scenario, win.

Picking the cards, he had put on the table face down earlier, back up and looking at the bets the other players had made, he grabbed a few chips and threw them toward the middle of the table.

A couple of hands were played just like that and even though Sam knew he should be grateful for nothing more happening, he couldn't help wondering what lame kind of James Bond story this was. He wouldn't dream about complaining about not having to run in the stupid dress and – thankfully flat but still uncomfortable – shoes he had been forced into however.

In the end, as had to be expected, only Dean and the bad guy were left in the game. While Dean didn't have the best hand of the day, he still was quite confident that he was just meant to win this. The real question in his opinion was what the other man would do, once it became clear that he had lost.

They both put their cards down pretty much simultaneously. As Dean had suspected he had had the better hand and so he moved to take the chips.

"Not so quick, Mr. Bond," the villain stated fixing him with a cold glare, "I'm afraid we can't let you leave like this."

"I knew it," Dean muttered, sitting back down for what it looked like, before he quickly grabbed the edge of the table and knocked it over to distract the others for the few moments he and Sam would need.

The younger Winchester was already turning to run, before his brother ever yelled for him to do so. It seemed they ended up in places they had to run away from quickly quite regularly. Thinking about it, this was one aspect taken straight from their everyday lives.

They reached the staircase quickly and without any troubles, but of course that meant that some goons were already running up the stairs toward them, so they only could run upward themselves.

"You just had to annoy them by winning," Sam groaned feeling his thighs burn, since he wasn't used to running in a dress and with shoes that could fall off his feet at any second.

"Hey, I'm James Bond! Of course I had to win!" Dean shot back. Furthermore, if the Trickster had wanted them to end up like this, it would have happened no matter what.

The younger Winchester couldn't quite deny the logic Dean was operating on anyway. They were in a movie so, of course, movie logic applied, and it seemed like a foregone conclusion that James Bond would win every game he entered.

They were lucky and reached the door to the roof the very second their followers began shooting at them, and - lucky once more – there was a barrel they could block the door with. It wasn't quite so lucky that there was no exit on the roof to be seen.

Following a sudden inspiration, Dean grabbed the canvas, which had been covering the barrels, and moved toward the edge of the building.

"Sorry, Sammy, this is quite likely gonna add a panty-shot to the list," he quipped, gesturing for his brother to get over to him already. "You are wearing underwear, right? On second thought, don't answer that!"

Not that Sam had been about to say anything to the topic, he had been about to say something to another topic however. "Dean, that's not going to work. We're too heavy and even if it was just one of us, that's just not how these things work!"

"In movies it is!" Dean argued and grabbed his brother to force him to go along with the plan. He also was pretty sure that the Trickster didn't want them dead. Actually he was a hundred percent sure that the Trickster didn't want them dead. They couldn't 'play their roles' in real life if they were after all. If there had been time Dean would have tried to figure out why the hell the unhindered course of the Apocalypse was important to anyone but the angels in the first place, but as things were they had to move on.

Their landing was a rather hard one, but considering the circumstances, that was good enough. They saw that the goons had broken through the door and were now staring down at them from the top of the building, just as the Winchesters were about to turn around the next best corner.

After they had put a little more distance between them and the building Dean turned around to give his brother a sort of victorious look. "Told you!"

Sam didn't reply and just leaned against a nearby wall with a heavy sigh, staring into the distance for a few moments before Dean's worried voice brought him back to the present. "Everything alright, Sam?"

The truth was that the younger Winchester wasn't alright. His suspicion, that the Trickster might be trying to tell him something, by picking on him more and most of the time more directly than on Dean, wouldn't leave him alone and was weighting him down.

Instead of saying anything about this, he just nodded slightly, sighing once more but also standing upright again. "Sometimes I'm just so tired…" he began before a very sudden scene change interrupted him.


"Good night, John Boy!" the annoyingly cheerful voice of a young girl sounded through the night, that was otherwise completely silent, except for a cricket here and there.

"Good night, Elizabeth! Good night, Daddy!" the no less annoying voice of a young man replied, apparently trying to beat the other one as far as the cheerfulness was concerned.

"Good night, son! Good night, Mary Ellen!" an older male joined in with a fond tone of voice.

"Good night, daddy! Good night, Dean!" another girl shouted.

"Good night, Walton kid! Good night, Sammy!" Dean went along with the game, sounding by far more enthusiastic than he should have.

"Oh shut the hell up!" Sam yelled back.