The Win in Winchester

"I'm bored," Dean pronounced.

Sam, who was halfway through crossing the hotel room, froze. "Shit," he breathed. Those two words never added up to anything good. By the time those words passed his lips, Dean was ready to get creative in solving the problem. The last time Dean had been bored, Sam had ended up in a pirate costume going door to door asking people about their "booty." It was the longest and most embarrassing goose-chase of a hunt. In the end, the "angry spirit" they suspected happened to be a five-year-old with too much time on his hands, and too much of Dean-like imagination.

Outside, two feet of snow and counting lay everywhere, stalling any hunts the brothers might have embarked on. Sam shouldn't have been surprised that Dean was already bored, but the thought certainly scared him.

"Sorry, Dean, we can't really go anywhere further than we can hike in the snow. And personally, I'd rather be bored than cold and wet."

"I hate snow. I hate it and all the stupid salt they put down to rust up my baby."

"Yup, 'they' are always out to get you and the Impala."

"They are. And I'm still bored."

Sam cringed. He wasn't going to get out of this one easy. "Want to play cards?"

"No, not enough challenge."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Play with the minpala?"

"What am I, two?"

"Look for the next stop on the Deanquisition, then."

Dean grinned. "Well, I have been working on that… hey maybe I'll play pranks on the mooks at the front desk."

"Don't you dare. I am not going to freeze to death because you got us kicked out."

"Fine. Party poop. Hey, I think I saw a pile of cardboard boxes out by the ice machine… Do you still have markers in your bag?"

Sam was worried.

~*~

"Dean."

"…"

"Dean."

"Mm… hummm?"

"What the heck is that?"

"You'll see when I'm done, Sammy."

Sam was very worried.

~*~

Trying very hard to avoid whatever it was that Dean was cooking up, Sam did some research on new jobs, started reading a book, and made some lunch. Dean was still busy, sometimes mumbling to himself and other times just chuckling evilly. As Dean was still hard at work, Sam decided on some exercises and a long, hot shower to work out the knots in his muscles. When he emerged from the steamy bathroom his jaw dropped.

Dean looked up from his project, grinning. "I'm almost done. I just need to finish the dice. Come over and sit down."

Sam cautiously crossed to his bed and stowed his dirty laundry, praying that Dean didn't intend to include him.

"Aren't you going to ask what all this is?"

"Nope."

"Why not?" Dean seemed a little disappointed.

"Because I'm hoping you aren't going to involve me in any way…"

"Sam, the sooner you accept that you're going to play The Dean Game, the better. You might even have some fun."

Sam sighed. Judging by the forecast, there was no way to avoid this before the snow could be managed.

"Fine. How do you play?"

If Sam had been worried before, the smile on Dean's lips was downright terrifying.

~*~

"You realize this game makes no sense at all, right?"

"What's not to get? You move across the board with various challenges, trivia, and mini-competitions and whoever successfully gets there first, puts the 'Win' in Winchester."

"But every space on this board has a competition and at least one fall back or weird contingency to stay put!"

"Huh?"

Sam sighed… it was going to be a long game, he could already see that.

"Nevermind. I guess I'll learn as we go. One thing, though. What's all the beer for?"

~*~

Sam moved his shoe across the game board. Dean insisted on using the minpala as his game piece and Sam sort of wished he had something better than a shoe for his. It was like monopoly all over again. Dean got the race car and he got the lame shoe.

"Okay, you landed on the purple volcano. That means you have to finger-joust with me to keep your board position."

"What the HELL is finger-jousting," Sam demanded. Two turns into the game and he was regretting ever hunting somewhere that was cold enough to snow.

"You take your hand and point with your thumb sticking up like you're miming a gun," Dean demonstrated the gun hand position. "And we both clasp hands like this. The first one to poke any part of the other person's body wins."

"Dammit. Where did you learn that game?"

"Shut up and joust."

They cleared the middle of the board of the handmade dice, and assumed the position.

"GO!"

They struggled in epic battle to poke first and moderate amounts of flail ensued.

~*~

"HA! You got a dare challenge, Sam. I dare you to go outside and stick as much snow down your pants as you can for a minute!"

"Um, no," Sam said with plenty of bitchface.

"Okay, then drink." Dean handed him a can of beer.

"What?"

"You refused a challenge. You have to chug the whole thing if you don't do the dare."

"Why?"

"Thems the rules, brother. I would do the dare, if I were you. This isn't a good game to play drunk. Unless you WANT to be the Failchester," Dean smiled slyly.

"DAMMIT."

~*~

Ten minutes, a lot of cussing and a fresh set of underwear and pants later, Sam was hopping on one foot trying to remember the rest of the alphabet backwards.

"Tsk, tsk, Sammy. That wasn't very fast at all."

"Excuse me, Dean. Like every other kid in the United States, I learned it the forwards way."

"Well, being good at the forward version won't help you if the cops think you're drunk."

Sam ran his fingers through his hair. "Yup, that's what I'm always worried about."

~*~
"Do it or drink, Dean."

"Fine," Dean snatched to bottle from Sam. "But that's low. You know the only time my bare ass will ever be on the Impala is if there is a very attractive young lady involved." Dean chugged with malice in his eyes.

"Very lady-like, I'm sure," Sam snickered.

~*~

"You're going down, baby bro."

"Bring it!"

Back in the center of the board, they were each in the crab-walk position: on hands and feet, butt suspended off the floor in between.

"GO!"

They each advanced, trying to kick, knock, or otherwise cripple the other so that their butt hit the ground. Ten minutes later, both breathing heavily, they broke for dinner in desperate need of sustenance.

~*~

Sam tried to breathe as shallowly as possible. Somehow, he'd managed to pull himself neatly up onto the shelf at the top of the closet. Defying more than one law of physics, he'd fit his massive man-frame all the way in.

"Saaaaammmmy," Dean sing-songed as he groped his way through the darkness of the room. This challenge was called "Mummy in the Crypt" and Dean was running out of time to find Sam. "Dammit, Sam, where the hell are you?"

Sam struggled not to laugh evilly.

~*~

"Alright… for the win. Come on, anything over three…" Sam threw the over sized dice. Snake eyes. "Blast…"

"YES!" Dean shouted.

"Oh, God, what is it?"

Dean looked up with glee. "The laugh challenge. You gotta go five whole minutes without laughing. I can do anything but tickle you!"

Sam did a quick search of his brain of all the sad and/or disgusting things he could think of to deter laughter. Check. "Bring it on, Dean."

~*~

"Heee… you folded like a cheap tent in wind storm!"

Sam wiped tears from his eyes. He hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. After three and a half minutes of torturous self-control, Dean had gone nuclear. "I had to laugh, otherwise it would just be disturbing! The 'Honey, if you love me' route was low, Dean." (see author's notes at the end if you don't know of the game)

"Well, it got you to laugh. And now you owe me all your stripper points. And you have to take three spaces back to the wonky sheep space."

Sam moved his shoe back three spaces. "You can have them as long as you promise you NEVER twirl my hair like that again, Dude. Or yours, for that matter."

"Done."

~*~

"Game point, Sammy, what are you going to do?"

Sam thought long and hard. After five hours of game play, two or three fairly serious injuries that had stopped the game for a few minutes each, and more beers than probably should have been allowed, it all came down to this?

A drip of sweat slid down the side of his forehead, and Dean smirked.

"You don't have it, do you?"

"I'm thinking! Shhh!" Sam squelched his eyes shut, and nodded along to the tune in his head again.

"Five seconds…" Dean glanced at his watch with a self-satisfied smirk. "Four… Three… Two…"

"Fraggle Rock?" Sam shouted.

Deans smile slid off his face faster than jello on a wall.

"What?"

"It's the theme from Fraggle Rock! Isn't it? Isn't it!"

"Son of a bitch! How did you know that?!"

Tired and sore, Sam still had the energy to laugh and point enthusiastically at Dean. "I knew it because I put the Win in Winchester, bitch!"

Dean frowned. "You're the bitch, bitch…"

~*~

Twenty minutes later, they'd finally cleaned the beds off enough to get some sleep. Sam had just turned out the light.

"This isn't over, you know…" Dean said matter-of-factly.

Sam sighed. "Come on, Dean. That was one long-ass game."

"If we're still snowed in tomorrow... I want a re-match."

Sam groaned and pulled his mutilated pillow (which was used as ammo during the bed bounce challenge) over his head.

A/n: Thanks for reading!

Honey, if you love me is an awesome game in which the person who is "it" tries to make someone else in the group laugh by saying "Honey, if you love me, would you please, please smile." If the person can make it through saying "Honey, I love you, but I just can't smile," without smiling or laughing, the "it" person has to move on until the make someone crack. It is a really, really fun game. You can't tickle anybody… but needless to say, other ground rules sometimes should be laid out before hand. Anyway, I remember playing this with some friends a LONG time ago, and nothing got the crack-ups quite like girly, too-southern accents with hair twirling… especially if it came from a dude! It's a good thing some of my ridiculous ideas will only stay on paper…

I started a completely different next chapter, but it wasn't ridiculous enough… Then, my city got hit with a lot of snow. I still had to go to work, but this plot bunny went for the throat, so… yeah. When I get bored… I get creative. This sort of thing is the result. Also, I am thinking about reworking some of the earlier chapter so that the flow of the story is more consistent with the later chapters. Any thoughts?