So this story is the result of my New Years resolution to write happier stuff...and a challenge issued by Sylvia37 who thought hell would freeze over before I wrote a happy story. Well. Here is that story. :)

100% no hurt Winchesters. No angst. Just 100% brotherly fluff and fun. And after the season finale, I think we all need this.

For Sylvia37 who requested the story be set Season 6, post-French Mistake. This is a two-shot.

Not Even a Papercut

Thursday morning

"It was a dark and stormy night."

"Dean."

"Thunder sound effects," Dean continued narrating the movie, filling in for the fact there was no sound. "Boom! Rumble rumble BOOM!"

"Dean."

"Lightnin' splits the sky...oh look! Oh look! The monster emerges. More thunder sound effects. Boom! Rumble rumble boom!"

"Dean."

Another particularly loud boom rumble rumble boom finally pushed Sam over the edge. Lowering the book he'd been unsuccessfully attempting to read, he looked for something to throw at his brother that would hurt. Not maim, necessarily, but definitely hurt. He wasn't throwing his book because he'd never get it back and the wad of fast food wrappers next to him wouldn't inflict any pain.

About to pitch his shoe at his brother's head, Sam paused when Dean dramatically flopped backwards on the other bed sending candy wrappers scattering everywhere. He groaned and pressed one hand over his eyes while his other hand was going through what remained of the candy wrappers. Probably looking for one with a candy still in it.

Sam had to smile at the pathetic picture his brother made.

At least he's quiet now, he thought, returning to his book.

"Sammy."

Well, shit.

"Saaammmy."

Sighing, Sam lowered the book again and asked, "What?"

"Tell me you found us a case."

Sam laughed. "And how exactly am I supposed to do that without wi-fi?"

"Go find one of those hippy coffee cafes you love."

"I think hipster is the word you're looking for and I don't love them. If I have to, I'll use their wi-fi but I'd rather avoid them. We don't exactly fit with that crowd, in case you hadn't noticed."

"I fit with any crowd. You're the one who's too tall."

Sam rolled his eyes. What his height had to do with anything, he didn't know but he wasn't going to pursue the topic because, in the mood Dean was in, they'd be arguing about it until tomorrow. He returned his attention to the book even though he already knew he wasn't going to be finishing it anytime soon. Maybe he should have left Dean alone. If he was providing energetic narration for the movie, he wasn't as irritating.

"Boom!"

Then again, maybe not. Sam cringed as Dean pushed himself upright and continued with the boom rumble soundtrack. It was loud. It was annoying. Of course, the fact the tv had no sound was also annoying.

But it wasn't loud.

"Dean, seriously. Go take a walk. Go get food. Go….anywhere."

Dean flopped back on the bed and rolled over until he was resting his chin on his hands and staring at Sam with narrowed eyes. He asked, "Am I annoying you, little brother?"

"Hell yes."

Dean's eyebrows went up, but there was amusement in his eyes that told Sam he'd just made a very, very, very, critical mistake. Dean pushed himself up and sat on the edge of the bed. "What're you reading anyway? You've been awfully quiet."

"One of us needs to be." Sam tried to casually keep the book away from his brother's eyes.

"I can't help it the tv is boring without sound," Dean said, craning his neck. "What are you reading?"

Sam closed the book and considered sitting on it. He let it rest against his left hip, as far from Dean's prying eyes as he could. Looking his brother straight in the eyes, Sam said, "You know what? Let's go do the laundry. We've been putting it off and right now we have nothing better to do."

Dean was still staring at him with narrowed eyes. Obviously he wanted to know about the book. For a moment, Sam thought he'd lost the battle, then Dean nodded. "Ok. Let's do laundry."

Watching in surprise as Dean got up and started gathering the piles of clothes, Sam counted his blessings that, as usual, Dean bored was Dean distractible. When Dean went into the bathroom, Sam slid off the bed and shoved the book between the mattress and the box springs then hurried to grab his own laundry. He was halfway out the door by the time Dean was back.

"Come on. Earlier the better."

Dean glared at him, looked around the room, then huffed and followed him to the car. "It's Thursday at ten am, Sam. Every housewife in town is gonna be at the laundromat."

Sam just smiled as they got into the car. "And what do housewives like to watch?"

"Stupid soap operas," Dean muttered, trying so hard to not look eager even as he pressed the accelerator and sped the two blocks to the laundromat.

Once they were inside, Dean took one assessing glance at the nearly deserted room and headed straight to the back. The television, predictably, was on a soap opera. Sam rolled his eyes and went to start the laundry while Dean stood there like an idiot and caught up on whatever drama he'd missed.

Taking his own assessing peek around the room, Sam was mildly surprised to find only three other people doing laundry. Well, one other person doing laundry. A middle-aged woman was focusing on loading three dryers across from him. A guy who could've been that woman's father was sleeping in a chair in the corner, head leaned up against the washing machine presumably containing his load.

The only other person was a twenty something girl with perfect teeth and blonde curls. She apparently was as into the soap as Dean was and they were standing shoulder to shoulder chatting about it. Sam ignored them both, and the soap opera, and just grabbed his brother's clothes and started another load.

Once he'd finished, he straightened and found Dean and the blonde sitting next to each other, engrossed in the show. Sam hovered for a moment. Maybe they'd hook up and Sam would have a peaceful evening to himself. She was cute enough and obviously shared a common interest with his brother. Something that was not always true of Dean's one night stands.

Well other than the one specific common interest.

Sam smiled at the middle-aged lady as he walked to the door.

Dean had been so engrossed in the drama on screen that it took him a moment to realize the beeping noise he was hearing wasn't stopping. Turning from the television, he saw that the place was almost deserted. The blonde had disappeared after the first episode ended. Apparently she'd already finished her laundry but couldn't leave until she found out if Drew had murdered Kelly's father or fathered her baby. It had surprised neither of them to discover he'd done both.

Straightening up, he stretched his shoulders and headed for the beeping washing machine. The old guy who had been sleeping next to his washing machine when they'd arrived was now sleeping next to a dryer. Dean shook his head and started transferring their clothes into a couple dryers. He'd finished the task before it registered that he was missing something.

"Sam?" He called out, taking another peek around the room.

Except for the napping guy and him, it was empty. Shrugging, he went back to the chair conveniently located in front of the television. Dean hoped Sam's absence meant he'd gone for coffee or a snack. Or both. He almost texted him, then decided not to bother. Yet, anyway.

He couldn't help but smile remembering the first time Sam had disappeared at a laundromat. Dad had still been doing the laundry at that point and Sam had been seven and lured out the front door by the sight of a puppy being walked down the street by a woman whose diamond necklace was worth more money than they would ever hope to see.

Dean had been engrossed in his comic book while Dad had been working on the laundry and attempting to occupy Sam by having him go round and round the room counting the washing machines and dryers. Smart as Sam was, practicing his numbers just hadn't been as enticing as the sight of a fluffy puppy.

Dad had handled it better than Dean had expected. Of course, it hadn't been the first time Sam had gotten distracted and wandered away from them, so they'd both had some practice in not freaking out when they realized they were short one Winchester. Once they'd covered the interior of the laundromat and found it empty, they'd gone straight out the front door and looked in opposite directions then followed the sound of barking and laughing.

Sam had made fast friends with the rich woman and her fluffy Pomeranian. Dean had expected the worst, but Dad hadn't yelled or anything. He'd merely shaken his head, laughed at the sight of the energetic fluffball pouncing all over Sam and carried on a brief, friendly chat with the lady. Dean had stood back because, call him crazy, but something that looked like a faceless cotton ball, and was that hyper, was not something he wanted anything to do with.

It might have been because Dad had handled the situation well and not started an argument or maybe it had just been a perfect day. Either way, Sam hadn't fussed when Dad had announced they needed to get back to the laundry. He'd patted the puppy on the head and trotted back with them to the laundromat while chattering endlessly about how much he needed a puppy.

By the time their laundry was finished, Sam had drawn no less than ten pictures of the puffball and yapped the entire time. Walking back to the motel they were staying in, Dad had finally lost what had, at this early stage in their lives, been considerable patience.

He'd bribed Sam with ice cream if he would shut up about the dog.

Dean had sat there on the bed next to his dad and held his breath while Sam stared at them both and considered the offer. When Sam agreed, Dean and his father had shared a huge sigh of relief. Unfortunately, Dad really should have applied more specific terms to the deal because the ice cream bribe lasted until the next day when they wound up driving eight hours straight while listening to all the reasons Sam really, really, really, needed a puppy.

To this day, Dean truly believed that the reason the last two hours of their trip to Bobby's had been mercifully silent was because Dad had somehow snuck a generous dose of Benadryl into Sam's juicebox. Even if he'd been forced to endure Sam drooling on his jeans those last two hours, the blessed silence had been worth it.

Something bounced off the side of his head, drawing him back to the present. Dean leaned down to pick up the bag of M&Ms. "You've been waiting all day to throw something at my head, haven't you?"

"You're welcome."

Dean glared at his brother as Sam sat down next to him. "Where'd you go?"

Sam shook his own bag of candy dramatically in front of Dean's face.

"And you didn't bring coffee?"

"There wasn't a hippy coffee shop."

"There's a truck stop."

"Where do you think I got the candy?"

Dean's jaw dropped. "And yet...no coffee?"

"Exactly." Sam popped a handful of candy into his mouth, realized he was being glared at and shrugged. "They were out."

"Out of coffee?"

"Yeah. You think I walked all the way to the truck stop just to get you a bag of M&Ms?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "The truck stop is next door. But seriously. No coffee?"

"No coffee."

"What is wrong with this town?" Dean groused, staring back up at the tv and pouring a handful of M&Ms into his mouth.

"You wanna leave?"

"No coffee. Tv without sound. No wi-fi. Yes, I wanna leave."

Sam checked his watch. "Check out is in like half an hour."

"Where're we gonna go?"

"I don't know. Someplace with wi-fi, sound and coffee I guess." Sam shrugged. "Could go back to Bobby's."

Dean considered the thought. They'd left after repairing the front window and putting the room back together after Balthazar had used them as distractions and thrown them through it. A simple haunting in Georgia had gone off without a hitch and now they were in limbo.

Dean hated being in limbo.

He shook out the last of the M&Ms and asked, "Think he's still pissed at us?"

"He wasn't pissed at us."

"You didn't hear him chewing us out about the mess?" Dean asked incredulously.

"Well yeah. But he wasn't mad at us. It wasn't our fault and we cleaned it up."

Dean smiled as he heard the confidence in Sam's voice fade away.

"It wasn't our fault," Sam added for good measure before slouching down in his seat and finishing his own bag of candy.

"Dude, you don't have to convince me." Dean shuddered, thinking back to the surreal experience of landing in an alternate reality. "That had to be one of the weirdest things ever right? I mean, we're pretty up close and personal with weird but still-"

"Yeah, I think an alternate world where we're rich is pretty weird."

Dean shook his head and cast his brother a disbelieving look. "That's what you found weird? That we were rich? How about the fact our lives were on a tv show? Our lives were a tv show."

Sam nodded. "It was weird."

"It was weird."

"Weirder than going back in time and meeting our parents."

Dean had to agree. "Weirder than that thing with the fairies."

"I dunno, man. The fairies were pretty weird."

"Weirder than the time I got all old 'cuz of a poker game?" Dean grinned.

"Weirder than that, but not as weird as that time Paris Hilton kicked your ass." Sam smiled back. "Or that time you got scared of making a left turn."

"Shut up." Dean elbowed his brother and turned back to the tv. He muttered, "Was ghost sickness. Not my fault either."

Sam just laughed.

"So how many hunts you think we do in a year?"

"What?" Sam looked over at his brother.

"How many? Just a guess."

"I don't know." Sam shrugged, returning his attention to the road. It was just them as far as he could see and, with the windows down and the sun out, it was as close to a perfect day as Sam could imagine. "Twenty-ish?"

Dean nodded, then took a sip of his coffee, settling back in the passenger seat. They'd decided to bail town in search of a hunt. Or coffee at least. Coffee they'd found. Free wi-fi had been unobtainable which left them back on the road.

"Maybe thirty tops."

Sam laughed and stared at his brother again. "What is it with this urge to figure out how many hunts we do in a year? We suddenly need to report them on our tax forms?"

"I'm bored."

"You're bored." Sam rolled his eyes at the plaintive whine in his brother's voice. "You're bored so you decided to count hunts?"

Dean shook his head, shifting in the seat. "No. I'm just trying to figure out how many days in a year are like this one."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "Like this one?"

"Yeah. Boring."

"It's not boring."

"How is it not boring?"

"Just because you aren't shooting at something doesn't mean the day is boring."

"You don't think today is boring?"

Sam shook his head. "It's just...ordinary."

"Yeah. Boring."

"Dean, the weather's nice. We made it through the last hunt without either of us getting so much as a scratch. Not even a papercut." Sam waved a hand forward. "The road is ours. Right now no one and nothing is after us. I don't think it's boring. I think it's kinda nice for a change."

"I guess. But really." Dean didn't seem ready to give up the topic so easily. "Think about it. If we do like twenty-five hunts a year, say each one takes about a week give or take, right?"

"Seems about right," Sam said, frowning as he found himself sucked into his brother's weird math problem. "So that leaves like twenty-seven weeks."

"Right. And let's say like half of the hunts take a week to recover from depending on injuries received," Dean said, tapping his fingers on the edge of the door, "that leaves what-"

"Fourteen and a half weeks," Sam supplied.

Dean nodded. "Exactly. Fourteen and a half weeks. Of boring."

Sam laughed. "Dude. We need to get you a hobby."

As soon as he said it, Sam regretted it.

"Speaking of hobbies," Dean said sounding far too eager to pursue this topic. "Did you remember your book?"

Sam tried to play dumb. "Book?"

"Yeah. The one you were reading this morning."

"Oh that. Yeah. Uh. I don't know. It wasn't important."

"I could drive. We can switch. Give you time to get back to it."

Sam settled more comfortably behind the wheel and tightened his grip. "Nah. It's fine. I'm good."

"So you don't get bored?"

Back to that. Sam was just relieved Dean was letting go of the topic of the book. He gave a moment's thought to Dean's question then said, "Not really. No."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Seriously? You don't get bored?"

"Sure sometimes things are a little slow, but I don't get bored."

"You always were able to amuse yourself," Dean said with a shrug.

"I kind of had to, Dean. You want to do some math? Let's try to calculate how much time I spent in that back seat." Sam waved a hand behind him. He laughed and shook his head. "I probably spent ten years of my life back there."

The car fell silent for a moment, then Dean said, "Yeah. You probably did."

Sam shot him a quick glance, sensing the change in Dean's mood. "Hey, I wasn't...I didn't mean-"

"No, no, I get it," Dean said, with a half-smile. "You shouldn't have had to grow up in the backseat of a car, Sammy."

"Neither of us should've had to grow up in a car, Dean. Front or back seat." Sam considered his words and their childhood, then said, "But you know what? A lot of people have it worse. Was it ideal? Absolutely not. Do I think Dad would have done it differently if he could have? Yeah, I do. But we were together and I think that made up for a lot. Still does."

He spared his brother a quick peek and waited for the teasing to start.

Instead, Dean said, "Yeah. It does."

Thursday afternoon

"Are you serious?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"Uh...because...it's not really-" Sam broke off, staring out the front window and Dean could

swear he looked scared.

"Not really our thing?"

"Uh, yeah. Not at all."

Dean followed his gaze and nodded. "Yeah well I need to stretch my legs and I'm bored."

Sam snorted, but got out of the car when Dean moved. "I told you to pull over at that rest stop. There was a walking trail and -"

"I'm not taking a nature hike with you. I hate nature."

"You also hate crowds and malls," Sam said, waving a hand pointedly.

Dean frowned, pulling the door open. "Have we ever even been in a mall?"

Sam shrugged, grabbing the door as Dean walked inside. "We must have been at some point. Right?"

They both froze once they'd taken a few steps inside.

"Wow."

"Nature sounding better now, eh?" Sam smiled although his tone sounded about as wary as Dean was feeling.

And Dean almost said yes. But then he smelled something wonderful and, hey, nature didn't offer cinnamon sprinkled pretzel bites.

"Where are you-"

"Food, Sammy. Try to keep up." Dean glanced over his shoulder, identified that his brother was indeed keeping up, then had his billfold out before he'd even reached the line for the pretzel stand.

"Seriously? We ate lunch like-"

"Like half an hour ago. This is dessert."

Sam smacked him on the shoulder. "Stop interrupting me."

"Stop saying dumb things." Dean looked up at the menu. "You want a pretzel or something?"

"We just ate."

"So you're not hungry?"

"A pretzel doesn't sound too bad, though," Sam said, frowning up at the menu. "They have pizza pretzels."

The line moved forward and Dean looked eagerly at the menu. "Pizza pretzel? That sounds amazing."

"Or the cinnamon ones."

"See, those were what I was thinking. Like pretzels but-"

"Dessert," they said at the same time.

Dean grinned. "Exactly. Yes?"

"Yes. And get the icing."

"The what?" Dean looked up at the menu.

"It's right there."

"Dude, it's like another dollar for the icing." Dean rolled his eyes. "That's stupid."

A dollar bill appeared in front of his eyes. "I want icing."

"Fine, fine," Dean said, snatching the dollar from Sam's hand. Stepping up to the counter,

Dean placed their order and five short minutes later they were sitting down at a table with a cup of warm pretzel bites.

"If you hadn't insisted on icing, we could be walking while we eat this," Dean griped while Sam set out napkins.

"You have somewhere you need to be?" Sam asked mildly, reaching for the cup.

"Hands off." Dean slapped his hand away. "You are not divvying them up like when we were kids."

"You mean fairly?" Sam asked, opening the icing.

"No I mean you pawing through everything we ever got and looking for the biggest pieces."

"I did not do that."

"You've touched every single chocolate chip cookie I've ever eaten in my entire life because you had to count the chocolate chips." Dean dumped out approximately half of the pretzel bites onto the napkin in front of his brother.

He kept his share in the cup and sat back with it held protectively close to his chest. Sam rolled his eyes, but Dean noticed he didn't deny that he hadn't counted all the chocolate chips.

They fell silent for a few minutes.

Sam, predictably, hogged most of the icing, but Dean didn't complain because he had kept more of the pretzel bites for himself.

"So this was your plan," Sam said, crumpling the napkin as he looked around. "Where do you want to go?"

"No clue." Dean popped another pretzel bite into his mouth and joined his brother in surveying the mall. He waved a hand. "I think we can rule out that little shop, though."

Sam laughed. "Yeah. Pretty sure we don't need any candles."

Tossing the trash, Dean said, "Although I suppose we could upgrade-"

"Vanilla scented candles for summonings?"

"Or tropical flowers." Dean pointed as they walked past the window. "Look. We could imagine we're on a beach while we're summoning demons."

"I'm sure Bobby would kill us if we brought scented candles back."

Dean had to admit he was probably right. They paused as they reached the center of the mall. The place was too busy. Too crowded. Considering it was Thursday afternoon, Dean knew he wanted nothing to do with the place on a Friday night. Knowing they probably looked completely out of place, he shrugged and walked up to the mall directory. For a moment, they stood there studying their options.

"Well? You see anything-"

"There's a bookstore." Sam nodded to the right.

"Nerd." Dean rolled his eyes. "Alright, go browse. I'm going to that sporting good store. Look: it says it has a climbing wall."

Sam patted him on the back. "Go climb your mountain."

By the time Sam had finished at the bookstore and wandered into the sporting good store, Dean was still standing in line. Deciding it would be more entertaining to watch his brother than to look through the store, Sam found a place where he had a good view and settled back to enjoy the show. It took awhile, but finally Dean was getting rigged up to climb the rock wall.

Amused, Sam enjoyed watching his brother struggle up the wall only to fall backwards several times. The climbing gear caught him every time, but that didn't mean he didn't look panic-stricken each time he dropped.

He finally made it to the top and rang the bell.

Sam had to smile at the childlike enthusiasm in his brother's expression. It was rare these days to see Dean so at ease. He had the worries of the world on his shoulders and just catching a glimpse of joy on his face made Sam decide it was well worth the trip to the mall.

As he was descending, Dean caught sight of him and waved between them and then up to the bell. Sam shook his head and Dean called out, "Get in line, Sammy."

Sam shook his head again, but when Dean challenged that whoever won was off laundry duty for a month, the crowd around them laughed and Sam got in line. Not that he particularly cared if he got off laundry duty. If they were to be completely honest, he knew they both would admit they didn't mind doing the laundry. Sam liked it because it gave him time to get lost in his own thoughts while doing something mundane and monotonous. It was relaxing.

Dean liked it because he could catch up on his favorite soap operas.

"Bookstore too boring for you?" Dean asked, joining him in line behind the ten other people ahead of them.

"No. Just didn't see anything I really needed."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "Well considering you haven't finished that book you've been reading...what was the name of it again?"

Sam ignored him and motioned to the climbing wall. "You didn't exactly make good time. You really think you're going to beat me up that wall?"

"It was a practice run. Now I'm limbered up."

"Uh huh. So I should get a practice-"

"If you wanted a practice run, you should've shown up sooner." Dean grinned as they inched forward. "Now you're outta luck."

Sam rolled his eyes. Dean started chatting with a couple guys who were in front of them and Sam studied the wall and started to strategize. The closer they got, though, the taller the wall seemed and by the time he was next in line, he was regretting not having taken longer at the bookstore.

I should've gone back and looked at candles, Sam decided as they approached the wall.

Dean was practically giddy and Sam knew he wasn't hiding his apprehension from his brother. But when Dean advised the guy running the climbing wall that it was a race, the apprehension faded away and all that remained was the spirit of competition. They took their places and the guy counted down from three.

The first part of the climb wasn't difficult at all. Sam had a distinct advantage in his height and didn't fail to rub that in whenever Dean looked his way. But after awhile, the climbing became more of a challenge and the fact Dean had already scaled the wall began to lean the odds in his favor.

Neither of them spoke as they climbed, but they exchanged frequent glances as they gauged their progress. By the time they were about a third of the way up, Sam could feel his arms shaking. The hand holds were smaller and spaced further apart. He'd managed to avoid falling off the wall so far, but it was getting more and more challenging. Dean had done better this time and they were just about even.

Sam saw the gloating look in Dean's eyes as he inched upwards. Looking up, Sam could see the goal in sight. It had been a mistake, though, to let his focus stray because all of a sudden he was very, very aware of how high the wall was. It hadn't seemed so high when he'd been watching from the distance. Now, however, it seemed to have grown.

"Giving up?" Dean panted from a few handholds above him. He was sweaty and grinning.

"No," Sam said, keeping his response short because even that one little word wobbled more than he wanted it to.

His fingers ached and his arms were shaking worse by the second and of all the times to develop an issue with heights-

"Little too high for ya, Sammy?" Dean asked, pulling himself upward. His movements were slowing down, but he was still making progress.

Sam hadn't managed to move ever since he'd looked up. He stared at his brother's left knee as it moved beyond him and told himself repeatedly not to look down. Looking up had been a bad idea. Looking down? Sam had a feeling it would be even worse.

Heart pounding, Sam refocused and reached up for the next handhold. Dean seemed to have paused to catch his breath and Sam knew this would be his only chance to regain first place. Keeping his eyes carefully on the handholds, he started climbing again.

Dean was struggling to reach the next handhold and had to climb down a bit in order to find a different path. Sam's smile was as shaky as the rest of him, but he enjoyed seeing Dean's annoyed expression as he realized he was in second place again. The annoyance turned to determination and Sam stopped smiling and started climbing like his life depended on it.

Heart pounding, Sam risked another glance up and saw the bell was almost within reach. Of course, so was his brother now. They were practically elbow to elbow and twenty some years of brotherly competition flared up as they climbed. It didn't matter that the prize was to not do something neither of them particularly minded doing.

What mattered was winning.

Sweat was trickling down his back and he was breathing hard, but he was almost there. Sam started to reach up, then caught movement to his right. Dean grinned as he stretched up for the last handhold.

And then he slipped.

Sam reacted without even thinking and caught Dean's wrist. He saw the surprise in Dean's eyes and heard an audible gasp from the crowd below. Gritting his teeth at the added weight, Sam struggled to hold onto his brother and the wall. He knew Dean wasn't in any danger, but reaching for him had been instinctual. Second nature.

Scrambling frantically, Dean managed to get his feet and free hand connected with three of the handholds and he regained his balance. When he nodded, Sam let go of his wrist.

For a moment, they both remained where they were, staring at each other, arms shaking and breaths rushing in and out. Sam almost expected a thank you, but something else glinted in Dean's eyes and Sam realized almost too late that Dean still intended to win. His brother's muscles tensed and a smile spread over his face as he started climbing again.

Sam used his height to his advantage again and stretched up enough that his fingers barely brushed the bell.

But it rang.

And that was what mattered.