Fic: No One Ever Wins a Board Game
Recipient: patriciatepes
Author: sameuspegasus
Artist: twisted_slinky
Title: No One Ever Wins a Board Game
Summary: How much knowledge did Metatron really give Cas? There's only one way to find out.
Characters/Pairings: Gen. Sam, Dean, Cas and Charlie.
Rating: PG
Warnings/Spoilers (if applicable): This is literally just two and a half thousand words of them playing Trivial Pursuit. All questions are from real Trivial Pursuit cards.
Wordcount: 2667
Sam pulled up short in the doorway to the bunker library. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
Dean and Cas were sitting across the table from one another, fiercely staring each other down. Between them on the table sat a blue board with a wheel of coloured squares marked on it.
“I am showing Dean that the knowledge thrust into my head by Metatron is more complete than his puny collection of pop culture trivia gained through years of watching the few television options available in low quality accommodation,” Cas told him, without looking away from Dean.
Dean grinned but didn’t break. “I’m showing Cas that you can’t beat experience for learning. Winner gets first go with the cannon.”
“Uh… what cannon?” Sam asked, not sure he wanted to know.
“The one in the basement.”
“What basement?”
“There is a stairwell in my closet,” Cas said, still glaring at Dean.
Sam raised his eyebrows. It wouldn’t be the first time they had found an extra room in the bunker. Though why the men of letters would choose to put a cannon in a room that required taking it into a closet and down a staircase was beyond him. “I’m in,” he said, walking into the room and sitting down on one of the empty sides of the board.
“Oh really, college boy?” Dean said, a challenge in his voice. He finally broke eye contact with Cas to look at his brother. “You want to show us where all that fancy learnin’ got you?”
Cas smirked and turned his glare on Sam. “I have been given extensive knowledge of both modern and ancient popular culture. Do you really think you can beat me?”
“You know there are other categories, right?” Sam asked, feeling his natural competitive nature rising to the surface.
“Oh please,” said Dean scornfully, “You did pre-law.”
All three looked up as Charlie bounced into the room. “What’s up, bitches? Oh, you guys are looking to get owned at Trivial Pursuit? Online champion eight months in a row until Dick ruined my streak.”
“You can play Trivial Pursuit online?” Dean asked incredulously.
“I hardly think your eight months of online Trivia games is equal to the knowledge acquired over several thousand years of life,” Cas told her firmly.
“Oh really? Let’s go then,” said Charlie, sitting down at the empty side of the board. “Where did you get this, anyway? It can’t have been in the bunker, it was invented in the 80s.”
“Bought it online,” Dean said. “Got it cheap, too.” He dumped out the bag of game pieces onto the table. “I’m green.”
Cas snatched up the blue one.
“Pink!” Charlie grabbed the pink pie.
Sam sighed. “I guess I’m yellow.”
“Highest roll starts,” Dean announced, shaking the die with a flourish. One. They moved clockwise round the board. Charlie rolled a one. Cas rolled a six. Sam rolled a one. “Looks like it’s Cas.”
Cas rolled another 6 and moved to the pink pie.
“Entertainment,” Dean announced, pulling a card from the box and reading, “What was Marlon Brando’s famous response to the question ‘What are you rebelling against?” in the film The Wild One?”
Cas smirked. “Whaddya got?” he replied.
Dean growled and put the pink pie piece into Cas’s Pie Dish (Sam called them wheels and cheese, the weirdo, but anyone could see they were pies). “You haven’t even seen it.”
“I have no objection to watching it with you,” Cas said.
Dean just shrugged grumpily. “Roll again.”
Cas rolled another six and moved to purple.
“Since when has there been a purple square?” Sam asked. The version he’d played with Jess at college hadn’t had a purple category. But then, they had always played the fun version, so maybe he’d been distracted by his girlfriend’s progressive states of nakedness and there had always been a purple square. Everyone had won that version.
“Purple is brown,” Charlie said.
“In a sense, that is true,” Cas contributed. “Given that colours are simply the result of different wavelengths of light.”
“Shut up, Cas. Purple and brown aren’t the same,” Dean pulled another card out of the box and asked: “Which children’s author wrote ‘unbearable’, ‘uncanny’ and ‘unmentionable’ tales?”
“Paul Jennings,” Cas said smugly, and rolled another six. He landed on ‘roll again’, and promptly rolled a fourth six.
“Hah,” Dean chortled, “Sports. What red wine traditionally fills this bottle?” He slid the card across so Cas could see the picture. “How is that a sports question?”
“It’s Sports and Leisure, Dean,” Sam informed his brother long-sufferingly. Honestly, some of the things his brother didn’t know… “Oh, mature, Dean,” he said as Dean made a face at him. “Act your age. Aren’t you, like, fifty?”
Dean gave him the finger and turned back to Cas.
“I am afraid I do not know the answer to that question,” Cas admitted grumpily.
“My turn,” Sam announced gleefully. He rolled a one and moved to blue.
“Which Yukon mining district was the site of the 1890’s gold rush?” Charlie asked him.
“Klondike,” Sam said knowledgably, and rolled again. He was so going to get first go with the cannon. Although now that he thought about it, was it really a good idea to be the first person to use an antique cannon that that been shut up in a basement with a bunch of cursed things for fifty years? But it was a cannon! And Dad had never let him use that rocket launcher they used to have. He continued around the board, getting question after question right but somehow never landing on a pie. Finally he tripped up on “What, on average, is the tallest breed of dog?”
“Great Dane,” Charlie laughed, “Everyone knows it’s an Irish Wolfhound.”
Sam glared at her. Trivial Pursuit wasn’t as much fun as he remembered it being. He didn’t think going back to the rules he and Jess had used would help, either. Somehow he thought Strip Trivial Pursuit wouldn’t be as much fun to play with his brother.
Dean rolled a one and moved to green.
“What is the name for the process by which tadpoles turn into frogs or caterpillars turn into butterflies?”
“Metamorphosis,” Dean answered proudly, and rolled again. One.
“What sport are you watching if you’re in the crowd at the All-Ireland Football Final?”
“Gaelic football,” Dean replied. “What? I know stuff,” he said in answer to Sam’s suspicious look.
“Have you been looking at the answers?” Sam asked.
“Dean does not always cheat at board games,” Cas defended his best friend.
“Thanks, Cas,” Dean rolled again. “What, are you kidding me? Another one? Are you doing this, Cas?”
Cas looked at him innocently. “I no longer possess any grace, Dean.”
“Which 1980’s TV crime fighter drove a Pontiac Trans Am?” Charlie asked, before Dean could argue.
“Knight Rider!” Dean answered, and rolled again. “Seriously, Cas! I know you’re doing this! There’s no way I would have rolled five ones in a row by chance.”
“Actually, you have the same chance of rolling a one no matter what you’ve rolled previously. Each roll is independent,” Sam informed him.
Dean made a face at him. Sam stopped trying to be the mature one and made one back.
“Which English novelist was born Mary Anne Evans in 1819?” Charlie asked.
“How the hell should I know?” Dean growled, and stomped into the kitchen to get pie. “And none for Cas. People who fix the dice don’t get any pie.”
“It would serve him right if I was fixing the dice,” Cas growled. “Unfortunately, I am no longer capable of such a thing.”
“My turn at last,” Charlie pressed her fingertips together and laughed evilly. “Now you can see a true champion in action.”
Charlie collected three pieces of pie before finally tripping up on the capital of the Falkland Islands.
Dean was back, asking questions through mouthfuls of homemade apple pie.
“Stop talking with your mouth full, Dean. It’s gross,” Sam nagged him.
“Which country has the longest coastline?” Dean asked Cas, picking up a piece of crust with his fingers and chewing it.
“Canada,” said Cas, and gave himself a blue pie piece.
“Why don’t I get any pie?” Charlie asked. “It’s not my fault Dean sucks at this.”
“I don’t suck at this,” Dean said, pointing his piece of pie crust at her. “Cas is messing with the dice.”
“I am not causing your succession of ones, Dean,” Cas said innocently, “You clearly have a poor action.”
“Stop with the big blue eyes, Cas, I know it’s you. And my action is fine. I have a great action.”
Sam took the opportunity to remove the purple cheese from Charlie’s wheel while she was distracted by the exchange and put it in his own.
“I saw that, Sam! Give it back!” Charlie shrieked.
“Saw what? Look, a rat!” He pointed to the door into the hallway, and while everyone turned to look, took the blue cheese from Cas’s wheel.
“There’s no rat,” Charlie said, turning back to the board.
“There better not be,” said Dean, shuddering. “I hate rats.”
“Seriously?” asked Charlie, “You went to Purgatory, but you can’t deal with a rat?”
“Shut up,” Dean shoved another bite of pie into his mouth.
“Why are you scared of rats, Dean?” Sam asked, suddenly realising he didn’t know.
“I’m not scared of them. They’re just disgusting.”
“The plague was spread by rats,” Cas informed them. “Well, fleas on rats. It was a product of hell, designed to create havoc on earth and recruit desperate souls. We, of course, put a stop to it.”
“Bang up job, there,” Dean said. “Hardly any deaths.”
“My point was that it is justifiable to be afraid of a creature capable of such destruction,” said Cas, “But I think I will stop attempting to comfort you now.”
“Whose turn is it?” Charlie asked.
“Mine,” said Sam. He was pretty sure Cas had forgotten it was his turn, so Sam might as well take advantage.
“I’m not scared of rats,” Dean insisted sulkily.
“If we had a cat…” Cas began.
“We’re not getting a cat, Cas. I’m allergic to cats. Plus what would we do with it when we’re hunting?”
“How about a guinea pig?” Cas suggested. “We could take it places in a cage.”
“How is getting a guinea pig going to solve the rat issue?”
“…We could get a particularly fierce one?”
“What do you think a guinea pig is, Cas?”
“I know what a guinea pig is, Dean.”
Sam took the opportunity while Cas was distracted to steal his pink cheese.
“Sam’s cheating!” Charlie shouted.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam said indignantly.
“Give me back my pie,” Charlie demanded.
“I don’t have it,” Sam lied, “You just haven’t been paying attention to the game. You’ve been texting! You could be asking someone the answers. Or googling it. I demand to see your phone. And it’s a cheese.”
“How is that a cheese?” Dean asked, “Cheese is square. It’s clearly a pie.”
“It’s a cheese!” Sam insisted, because it was true, and also to distract from the fact that he actually had been cheating. But no one else was focusing on the game properly. What was the point in playing if you didn’t give it your full attention?
“In what way is that like a cheese?”
“It’s round and you cut it into triangles, like proper cheese.”
“Look,” Dean said, picking up the green piece representing him on the board, “Apple pie.” He pointed to Cas’s blue piece. “Blueberry pie.” He pointed to the orange piece. “Pumpkin pie.” He picked up the purple one to show Sam. “Blackberry pie.”
Sam snorted. “Apple pies aren’t green. And what’s the pink one? Can you honestly tell me you’ve seen a pie that colour?”
“When was the last time you saw a bright pink cheese, Sam? And it’s pink marshmallow fluff. And everyone knows you use green apples for apple pie. Back me up here, guys,” he entreated Cas and Charlie.
“It’s a pie,” Charlie agreed.
Cas looked up from the piece of paper he was reading. “The rules refer to it as a ‘wedge’.”
“I still say it’s a pie,” Dean said, “Hey, where’s my pie?”
Cas looked away.
“You ate my pie? You traitor!”
“You deserved to have your pie eaten. You accused me of causing your run of poor dice rolling, when in fact it was due to your own inflexible wrists.”
“My wrists aren’t inflexible!”
“I think it’s due to the way you hold your gun.”
“Hey, I hold my gun right. Who’s teaching who to shoot, here?”
“I have discovered a website with exercises for increasing wrist flexibility. Would you like to see it after we shoot the cannon?”
“Why do you know a website for that? What were you looking up? No, I don’t want to know.”
Charlie reached across the table and snatched up Sam’s pie, removing all the pieces and placing them in her own pie.
Sam reached across and grabbed it back, accidentally sending Charlie’s pack of cards flying, scattering small squares of cardboard across the floor. Charlie slapped at Sam’s hand, knocking the board. It bounced several inches off the table, sending the pieces sliding off. Sam picked them up and rearranged them, removing the pink cheese from Cas’s wheel and placing it in his own. Charlie grabbed it off him, sending Dean’s piece spinning off the table and under the bookshelf against the wall.
Dean didn’t notice, because his argument with Cas about wrist flexibility had somehow developed into a game of Mercy. He was losing badly but refusing to beg for mercy as Cas relentlessly bent his wrist back as far as it would go. Not very far, as it turned out. Maybe he did have inflexible wrists. He waited until Cas had him walking backwards, and then hooked his leg behind Cas’s knee and pulled forward. Cas stumbled into the table, sending the remnants of Dean’s pie flying.
Sam felt a wet splat as the pie hit him and slid down his thigh.
“Really, Dean?” he said in annoyance, glaring at his brother and stepping aside to avoid standing in the glob of cooked apple and pastry crumbs that was all that remained of the pie.
“That was Cas! You wasted my pie, Cas! It was bad enough that you ate some, but throwing it away!”
“I did not think it was your best work,” Cas replied coldly.
Sam stood back to watch.
A moment later, Dean had Cas in a headlock, and Sam suddenly realized there were only three of them in the room. “Where’s Charlie?” he asked.
Suddenly, an enormous BOOM shook the floor beneath their feet.
Dean dropped his arms from around Cas’s neck and all three of them pulled out their guns, running in the direction of the closet in Cas’s room.
Charlie was just emerging, soot covered, but unharmed, as they reached the bedroom. “Who leaves a loaded cannon in the basement?” She shouted over the ringing in her ears. “I was just looking at it, I swear!”
Dean and Cas looked at each other. “It wasn’t loaded this morning.”
“Are you sure?” Sam asked.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Dean said, “And it definitely didn’t have gunpowder or a fuse.”
“It didn’t look like it was loaded this time,” Charlie yelled, “I didn’t put gunpowder in or light it or anything. All I did was touch the barrel.”
Sam grabbed Charlie’s hand and inspected it. Sure enough, on the tips of her fingers was a light dusting of ancient dried blood and herbs. “Well, now we know why there’s an ancient, unused cannon in the basement. What did we tell you about touching things, Charlie? It must be cursed to go off every time someone touches it, and now you’ve broken the binding spell.”
Charlie smiled innocently at him. “Well, I guess Trivial Pursuit didn’t end that well. Anyone up for Monopoly?”