Work Text:
I’m Not Stupid, Bitch
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Dean Winchester was bored, and so was Sam—together, that didn’t make a good combination. The boys had finished off a pretty easy case down in Colorado, and Dean had jokingly suggested that they should travel to Florida for Disney Land, and then they would be able to claim that they had seen it all.
Neither one could scrounge up a case to take on, so they thought, ‘what the hell? ’
It wasn’t until much later that they found themselves in the scorching hot state of Florida, even though it was October, and there should’ve been a lingering chill.
However, the wacky state apparently didn’t get the memo.
So, there they sat in their grimy motel room, uncomfortable, sweaty, and desperate to find a case. They’d recently bought a second computer—good investments, Sammy, Dean had insisted, (to which Sam had rolled his eyes, because he knew Dean just didn’t like reading books)—and both were scouring the internet for anything that would just scream ‘SUPERNATURAL’. No luck so far.
Dean had pulled up a few interesting articles, all relating to Florida, and he couldn’t help but snort at the headlines— ‘Florida Man Steals 850 Pairs of Underwear from Victoria’s Secret’ and ‘Florida Man, Once Arrested for Fighting Drag Queen with a Tiki Torch While Dressed Like KKK Member, Now Running for Mayor’. They were hilarious. From what he was seeing, any headline starting with ‘Florida Man’ or ‘Florida Woman’ was bound to make absolutely no sense whatsoever. His eyes widened at the next one he read: ‘Florida Man High on Meth Allegedly Fights Off 15 Cops While Masturbating’.
“Whoa.” He smirked, scrolling further down the screen to read the next one. He really doubted any of these would lead to a case, but they sure were fun to read about.
Sam sighed in disgust from across the room, sitting cross-legged on his bed. He hadn’t found anything yet, and he glared at his brother’s animated reaction to whatever was on his computer screen. “Believe it or not, Dean, but computers can be used for things other than porn.”
“Gee, thanks, Sammy,” Dean said sarcastically, “but, believe it or not, I can actually think of things other than porn—unlike you.”
“Yeah, sure,” Sam snorted.
Dean ever so eloquently flipped off his younger brother and turned back to his laptop, a small inkling of frustration creeping in. Dean was always assumed to be all brawn and no brains, and the only things people seemed to think he was good for were sex, eating, and shooting things. Not that Dean did anything to discourage that pretty-boy stereotype, but it just peeved him off that after all the years spent hunting together when they were younger, Sam still thought of Dean as dumb. Somebody who would put pleasures before anything else—every single time.
Maybe his frustration was what got him to actually put more effort into looking up a case, but regardless, Dean tried his hardest to stay on track. He pulled out his journal, as well. It looked just like his father’s—a leatherback book with a strap and everything—except for the fact that it was filled with a few different things.
Due to the fact that he and Sammy always seemed to run into the ‘impossible’, Dean had started to realize, to his chagrin, that his father’s journal didn’t contain everything. (As sad as that was to believe.) It wasn’t that the old journal was useless—it was plenty helpful with John’s detailed descriptions of everything he encountered—but it needed a bit of an update. So, Dean decided to make his own journal with everything, (the ‘impossible’ included), he encountered, which was quite a lot. It was already brimming with stories and recounts of crazy hunts, but the best part was that it had solid information on how to gank every fucking monster out there. No theories, no ‘maybes’. It was all proof-based and proven.
However, Dean hadn’t yet told anyone.
So, what, sue him for acting like a teenage girl with a diary. It’s just that he had worked so hard on it, spent so many long hours writing by hand every single word needed to craft the recounts and stories and lore, that he was reluctant to share.
Sam would probably scoff at Dean for trying to ‘be like dad’. He accused Dean of it every day. ‘What are the things that you want?’ Sam would ask. ‘What are the things that you dream?’ And Dean would try to answer—but then Sam would snark back, dead-set on believing that Dean was just trying to be a copy of John Winchester. ‘Your car? That’s dad’s. Your favourite leather jacket? Dad’s. Your music? DAD’S. Do you even have original thoughts? Can you even think by yourself?’
Since Sam was so inclined to believe that his brother was dumb, just a ‘good little soldier’, Dean opted to play the part. That meant keeping his journal a secret. That meant pretending to let Sammy do all the research. That meant hanging around bars to get laid, full well knowing he didn’t want to get in bed with half of the girls there—or, for that matter, anybody even in a bar.
And because he had chosen to use a journal almost identical looking to their father’s, Sam never gave it a second glance, thinking it was just John’s.
Dean had already put so much into it that it looked exactly like John’s, even on the inside.
Dean had only just opened a new article—a recent news story, by the headline—when he heard Sam snicker and call him over. He let a smirk lift his lips. “Aww, Sammy, did you get into the porn?”
“What?” Sam snapped to attention, then scowled at his brother. “No, come over here.”
Even as he did so, Dean scrunched up his nose in confusion. “Why? You find a case for us to work or something?”
“Nope.” Sam popped the ‘p’, seemingly not caring about their earlier quest to find a hunt to quench their boredom. He scooted over on the bed to make room for Dean, though the eldest Winchester made no move to sit down. “Nah, I found something that kind of piqued my interest.” He spun his laptop around to show his brother.
Dean squinted at the screen, quickly reading over the title and skipping over the long paragraphs at the bottom of the page. It read: Free Online IQ Test. Fan-fucking-tastic. “Don’t know, Sammy. Doesn’t look so interesting to me.”
Sam scowled at Dean. “Of course, you would think that. I thought it would be fun to find out what our IQ’s are so that I can finally argue, with solid proof, that I’m the genius.”
Scowling at his brother, Dean tried to brush off the already common insult. He didn’t doubt for one second that Sam had the higher IQ—Sammy was the genius of the family, after all, not Dean—but that didn’t mean that Dean was completely retarded. Instead, he shrugged, smirking annoyingly at Sam. “Dunno, if I take the test I’ll just end up getting a 60 or shit.”
“Impossible,” Sam retorted. “I’m pretty sure somewhere you’re legally labeled as ‘mentally retarded’ if you get less than 60. Besides, you at least know where to aim a gun, so that excludes that—you might get around 100. 90 if you’re on the low side. 100 is average, though.”
Well, now Dean kind of wanted to do it—if only to prove that he wasn’t mentally retarded. Hell, he’d be happy if he scored 90, just below average.
“You take it first,” Dean groused. “Give me the score to beat.”
Sam smiled slyly, the smug and superior look something that Dean immediately recognized. “I took an IQ test at Stanford.” Of course, you did, Dean thought, rolling his eyes. “I got a 128.”
“Fine, fine,” Dean huffed. “Give me your damn laptop, I’ll take the stupid test.” Sam, happy that he had managed to get his brother to do what he wanted, handed over the electronic. He then picked up the newspaper clippings he and Dean had collected before and started reading through them, now realizing he would have to wait for Dean to finish. Kind of pissy over Sam’s superior attitude, and having no idea how IQ tests worked, Dean looked at the first question. Multiple choice. It was asking about some flimsy puzzle pattern, prompting him to pick which one came next in the sequence. Dean smirked internally—this would be easy as hell.
He clicked through the questions in no time, quickly getting bored at the stupid online test. It was taking too damn long. He finished up in about twenty minutes, satisfied that he had at least not completely and utterly failed, like he had on some high-school assignments.
“I’m done,” he sighed, then promptly plopped the laptop in Sam’s lap.
Startled, Sam glared at Dean, not even glancing at the screen. “Nice try, Dean, but you can’t just quit half-way through. At least finish it, even if it is guessing.”
“No, Sam, I finished the quiz,” Dean clarified.
“Nuh-uh,” Sam retorted, still ignoring the laptop. Dean hadn’t even bothered to look at what he got because the website was still calculating his final result, stuck on the loading screen, and Dean found that he didn’t really care anymore about what he got. What seemed so important before was kind of ‘meh’. The brotherly competition had worn off now. “It’s an hour-long test.”
“That was cut short,” Dean deadpanned. “There were only, like, thirty questions. Nothing too hard or long. Besides, they were all multiple choice. I wish all high-school tests were like that. Would’ve made it a hell of a lot easier—”
Dean was cut off by Sam making a muted choking noise.
“Jesus, Sammy, if you wanted to act out porn, you could’ve just asked me to leave. At least wait ‘til I’ve cleared the room before you…” Dean’s words died before they left his lips when he saw how flushed Sam had turned, his cheeks several shades darker. “Whoa, what’s got your panties in a twist?”
“You cheated!” Sam accused, glaring at his laptop screen like it had betrayed him. “What the hell, Dean, I didn’t label you as a hacker. Don’t pull my leg like that.”
Confused now, Dean frowned at his brother. “I can scam and hack—hunter here—but that’s literally my first IQ test… ever. I didn’t cheat. What, did I score so low that you were embarrassed?” He smirked at the youngest Winchester, just waiting for Sam to tease him and call him a mental retard. Dean really hoped it would wear off soon, though.
Instead, Sam flushed even darker, which Dean hadn’t thought was possible.
“No, dude, you cheated.” He pulled at his hair for a moment before huffing out a frustrated sigh and spinning around the laptop to show Dean the results. “Look, you got a—”
Dean didn’t even hear Sammy. He was just too damn shocked at what was staring him in the face: A big, fat, stupid 149. Or, rather, a smart 149 if you looked at it the other way. Regardless, Dean started to blush because… fuck. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Sammy was supposed to be the genius.
Dean was the one who never went to college or university, satisfied with just a GED, he was the one who had pursued hunting, and yeah, he knew he wasn’t a retard, but it had never occurred to him that he was actually smart. Just… he just knew his stuff, and that was all. Knew the things that mattered, and nothing else. He forced himself to stop blushing because he was certainly no teenage girl, and he forced a taunting smirk. “You caught me. Yeah, I cheated. Should’ve gone for something more realistic to trick you, right?”
This seemed to ease Sam, if only by a little bit, and he nodded. “Yeah, Dean, don’t try giving me a heart-attack like that. You should’ve set it to, I dunno, 105.”
The older Winchester just chuckled.
It certainly didn’t hurt. Not. One. Bit.
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Sam didn’t get it—not one bit. He was pretty sure his eyes bulged out of their sockets when he saw Dean’s IQ result. 149. That was pretty fucking close to 150, and Sam wasn’t positive, but he was sure that Albert Einstein’s IQ had only been 11 points away, sitting at around 160. But… that wasn’t possible. Dean wasn’t stupid, but he also wasn’t a genius. After Sam managed to get over his shock, he scowled at the pretty poor prank.
“You caught me,” Dean said lamely, holding up his hands in surrender. “Yeah, I cheated. Should’ve gone for something more realistic to trick you, right?”
Sam eased his breathing, shoving what was definitely not jealousness in the corner of his mind, hoping to forget about it. “Yeah, Dean, don’t try giving me a heart-attack like that. You should’ve set it to, I dunno, 105.”
Dean chuckled at Sam’s flushed face and retreated back to the crappy coffee table that had come with their motel room.
He had their father’s journal out, too, and Sam briefly wondered what the heck Dean could be looking for in it. They’d practically combed through and inspected every page with a magnifying glass and black light—there was nothing they hadn’t read yet. Sam could remember bits and pieces from the old book, but Dean had been the one to hold onto it, and Sam saw his older brother reading it all the time. Surely Dean should’ve memorized it by now. Besides, Sam knew they wouldn’t find anything in it—he’d never seen anything about Florida in the journal.
Later that night, at around 11:00pm, Dean finally secured and saddled a promising case for them. It wasn’t anything big—just the typical haunted house claims and shit—but it was at least something. If it didn’t turn out to be their kind of gig, Sam at least got teasing privileges. He could remind Dean all the time about how he was wrong about a case—it would never get old.
Sam bit his lower lip, thinking.
He’d never gotten the chance to prove his brother wrong in a case before. Dean’s hunches always seemed to be right, but this time… well, Sam didn’t hold much faith in a house that was only four years old to really be haunted.
However, Dean insisted, and Sam was just going to go along for the ride. Until it stopped and broke down. Then he’d be the maintenance man and find the next case.
“Alright, I’m gonna hit the sack,” Dean announced, stretching his arms above his head and yawning. Sam squinted at him, frowning. It’d only been half an hour since Dean found the case for them, and Dean was already slacking on research? Sam looked down at his notes—only the address and a few reports from online about what happened at the so called ‘haunted house’. Dean shut down his laptop and headed into the bathroom for a shower, and Sam groaned, running a hand over his face. Great. He’d be stuck with the bulk of the research this time.
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In the end, the case turned out to be real, much to Sam’s chagrin. Apparently, when the house had been under construction, there was a minor earth quake nearby that caused the unsafe and unfinished parts of the house to collapse in on itself, sealing the fate of some very unlucky workers. Sam didn’t want to admit it, but he was kind of frustrated. He had not found any of this information when researching.
No, Dean had been the one to know about all of it.
After talking with a real estate agent about the house, then going to check it out themselves, (promptly finding themselves in a not-so-fun house of spirits, who for some reason liked chucking people around everywhere), they set to work on ridding the house of spirits.
Sam had suggested just digging up and salting and burning all the bones, but of course Dean had deemed it too much work. Thirteen construction workers had died, and Dean did not want to dig up thirteen graves. “Besides,” Dean had argued, “they died in the house, not in the graveyard. The house itself is haunted, so it’s the house that needs to go.”
Which is why Sam found himself watching his crazy pyromaniac brother set fire to the modern family house, and everything within it.
“Good riddance,” Dean had said, staring out at the fire. There was something in his eyes—not just the glare of the flames—that made Sam uncomfortable. Like he did not really know his brother at all. And that in itself was fucking stupid, really. However, then Dean had blurted out something else, hinting at the fact that he knew ten times more about the case than Sam did. “They need to stop building houses in this area. Like, Jesus, this is the only place in Florida that even experiences earth quakes. Not to mention the abundance of sink holes. You think they would’ve learned from the last five houses built in this area.”
Sam had to pause and register what his brother had said, because, well… he hadn’t found any of that in his research. Florida was actually known for its lack of earth quakes, and yes, Sam had read about that. But he’d never once come across anything that mentioned this particular city having earth quakes, and neither had he found anything about the lot’s previous buildings.
So how had Dean known?
The logical explanation was that Dean had done some researching of his own and somehow managed to find his way through the tangle of articles online and found things that not even Sam had come across.
However, that was highly unlikely, considering Dean had done a whole half-hour of research and hadn’t even listened to a quarter of the things the real estate agent had spit out.
The brothers planned to stay in Florida for a little bit longer to recoup from the fresh bruises they got—or, rather, the bruises Sam got. He’d been thrown around by the spirits so much that when Dean finally managed to drag him out of the haunted house his up was down and his down was up. He’d sustained an array of multi-coloured bruises, a sprained ankle, and what he was pretty sure was a concussion. If there was a reason Dean escaped with the equivalent of a few papercuts, it flew right over Sam’s head. He just didn’t understand, and it was driving him crazier than normal.
On a weird hunch—about what, Sam didn’t know—he made a few phone calls. The first one was to the Roadhouse. After getting Ash on the line, Sam tried to think of a way to word his question without explaining the real meaning behind it. “Hey, Ash, I was wondering if it was possible to cheat on an IQ test.”
There was a snort from the other end. “Of course. There’s a way to cheat everything.”
Only a little bit satisfied, Sam searched for a better answer. “Well, yeah, but how? Like, if you had to cheat on an online IQ test, how would you do it?”
“It’d take about an hour, at minimum,” Ash admitted, and Sam could start to hear the click of keys on a laptop in the distance. “You could take the test once, memorize the answers, and then redo it perfectly. That’s probably the easiest. Or you could try and hack into the IQ test website server. You’d have to find your way through a bunch of codes and files, though, and it’d take a while to actually program the site to project a cheated result.”
“Uh, thanks,” Sam said. “Just needed to know for a case.”
He promptly ended the call after that. His next mission was to contact good ol’ Bobby Singer. That man knew his lore like it was no one else’s business, and he was a damn good hunter, even if he no longer worked in the field.
Sam was hoping that Dean had contacted Bobby about their case, and that was why he knew so much about a simple haunted house and its history.
Unfortunately, that was a dead end. Bobby hadn’t even known they were in Florida, and Dean had never called or contacted him within weeks, dating back to their last case in San Francisco, which was practically on the opposite side of the US compared to Florida. Saying goodbye, Sam hung up on Bobby and dejectedly made his way into his and Dean’s motel room. Sam knew the only way to figure out how Dean had gotten such a high IQ test result, and how he had been more knowledgeable on the hunt, was to confront Dean himself. But Sam wasn’t going to outright ask—he was going to weasel the truth out of Dean.
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Sam huffed in frustration, slamming his laptop down on the bed. “Okay, I give up,” he admitted, glaring at Dean. “I don’t know how you did it.”
“Huh?” Dean peered up at Sammy from his gun magazine, a slight smirk on his features when he realized what had Sam so riled up. He remembered—Sam was trying to figure out how Dean ‘cheated’ on the IQ test. It pissed him off at first. Dean actually felt proud of his result, but with Sam constantly pestering him and questioning him about how he had cheated to get such a high score, it was hard to stick with the happy mood.
Because, well, goddammit—he had earned the result fair and square!
However, Sam would never believe that, so he had to play along and admit to cheating. To Dean’s sly smirk, Sam scowled. “I can’t figure out how you cheated.”
“Who’s the idiot now, bitch?”
Sam stuck out his tongue at Dean in a childish manner. “Jerk. Just come here and show me how you did it. I mean, I knew you fabricated a few of our IDs, but I didn’t mark you as a hacker.”
Dean rolled his eyes. His father had a friend that used to fabricate all their fake IDs, but once Dean started hunting solo, he did it all himself. When Sam joined hunting again, he lied and said someone else made them, because, 1: Sam was studying to be a lawyer, and Dean’s reputation was already coloured with ‘criminal’ enough as was, and 2: It was easier than explaining that the ‘stupid big brother’ actually had a brain.
When they got acquainted with Ash at the Roadhouse the man offered to do it for them, free of charge, and Dean had accepted. All it meant was that he had less work to do, and Sam didn’t complain.
As for hacking… he’d been doing it since the age of six, when his father finally allowed him to help with hunting research. Dean had found out about the supernatural at age four, around the time his father first took up the mantle of being a hunter. Sure, his father trained him, but John didn’t allow Dean to be in on the bulk of the hunting world. Due to the fact that Dean had always been one to take things apart and put them back together, his father made him disassemble and reassemble all of the guns and clean them thoroughly. However, when the man realized how good Dean was with numbers and puzzles and riddles as well, he didn’t hesitate to give Dean the job of research. Dean had eventually taught himself how to hack, and then had learned through the pointers other hunters had given him.
So, maybe he hadn’t cheated on the IQ test, but ever since taking it, he had been tinkering around here and there, finding ways to actually cheat. He knew sooner or later he’d have to prove to Sam that he cheated, (even though he didn’t.) He hadn’t, however, had enough time to find a solid hack.
Despite this, Dean kept his smirk, and confidently snatched the laptop from Sam. “Sit back and watch the pro, man.”
Okay, so Dean might have overestimated his hacking skills—but he did get it done. It only took him around twenty minutes, too, barely pushing twenty-one. He was kind of sure that he had finished the IQ test in about that time, so he saw no reason for Sam to question him anymore. He proudly spun the laptop around to show Sam a brilliant 180 result.
He got the opposite reaction he was hoping for.
“Dude,” Sam sputtered. He almost would’ve sounded impressed if it weren’t for the fact that his eyes were wide, and it looked like he almost didn’t believe what Dean had just done, even though he had monitored and watched the whole time.
“Dude what?” Dean asked, making a face at Sam. “I don’t get why you’re a gaping goldfish, Sammy. I hacked the test, just like I told you I did before.”
Sam looked like he had to choke out his next words.
“Ash said he could only do it in an hour.”
Shit, Dean thought. Just great. “And since when were you so sensitive about his ego?” Dean retorted. “The dude likes to take his time, anyway. Probably lied, too. He could’ve done it in ten minutes flat. Nothing too hard.”
The next thing Dean knew, Sam smacked him upside the head and stole back the laptop. He looked absolutely humiliated. “You didn’t cheat, did you?”
“What the hell did I just do?” Dean demanded. What was going on with Sam? At first, the youngest Winchester couldn’t accept any reason for Dean’s IQ of 149 without assuming it was a fluke or cheat. Now he was accepting that Dean hadn’t cheated? Where did this come from? “Sam, what are you talking about?”
“I just… I just thought—” Sam started to ramble, and he wasn’t making much sense. “You couldn’t have a higher IQ than me, and… and, I’m sorry. I didn’t believe until Ash said… this is actually—”
“Sam.” The youngest Winchester’s words died off, and Dean smirked. “Shut up.”
“But—”
“I cheated, Sam.” Dean slid off the bed and went back to the coffee table, bypassing his gun magazine in favour of reaching for his journal. He had a few things he wanted to write down about their latest case, despite how easy it was, and he figured he better dedicate a whole section of the book to hacking, as well. He damn well knew now how much hacking skills could help in a hunt, even if they weren’t as important as lore. “I’m all brawn, and you’re a genius. End of story.”
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This wasn’t the end, Sam promised. He was, to say the least, extremely surprised when Dean managed to hijack the website in less than ten minutes. His older brother then proceeded to work hacking magic, and Sam couldn’t even keep following what Dean was doing for the next ten minutes until he was suddenly staring a big IQ result of 180 in the face. He had quickly glanced down at his watch and was even more shocked when he realized it had only taken Dean twenty minutes, at most.
Ash had claimed he could only get it done in an hour, at minimum.
He couldn’t believe it, to be honest, and after (mostly) getting over his shock, Sam started to wonder a few things.
For example: Dean had mentioned that it was the first IQ quiz he had ever taken before. If that were true… it didn’t make sense. Sam was pretty sure that you took some kind of mini IQ quiz in both elementary and secondary school, and if you had potential, you were tested for being gifted. How had Dean skipped both tests?
Sam knew Dean hadn’t been doing well in school, though, but he never suspected Dean was failing. Dean always pushed through everything, and besides, their father didn’t care too much about their education, but he’d never let one of his sons fail high school.
It’d be a disgrace to the already cursed Winchester name.
Then there was the matter at hand—how had Dean done the impossible?
It wasn’t the first time, if Sam had to admit it. They’d run into the ‘impossible’ tons of times, and to be honest, ‘impossible’ seemed to no longer be in Sam’s vocabulary. Not when such a thing no longer existed. But… goddammit, it just didn’t make any sense! Dean was a slacker—he had one-night stands, he barely finished high school, he was a pretty boy, and he thought he was a damn comedian half the time. Dean also had the emotional intelligence of an ant! For as long as Sam could remember, Dean was the brawn, and he was the brain. That’s how it was, and he didn’t know why Dean had to go and screw with it.
So, Sam started to make a plan—he was going to trick Dean into fessing up that he cheated at cheating. Surely Dean had practiced cheating at online IQ tests—he’d probably lied about never taking one, as well. Sam immediately went online to search riddles and puzzles.
He came across one website— ‘Hardest Brain Teasers’—and was kind of disappointed. Sam got stumped on quite a few, but eventually figured them out. For example: A boy was born in 1955, yet he is 18 today. How is this possible? The answer was obvious—the boy was born in room 1955, not the year 1955.
Then there were others that had Sam completely stumped. So, he called over his brother to see if Dean could help and figure them out.
If he couldn’t—he couldn’t. That was the end of it, and Sam could be absolutely certain that the high IQ and cheat was a fluke, and that Dean was just Dean. If he could… well, Sam was pretty confident that Dean wouldn’t be able to figure it out.
“Dean,” Sam whined petulantly, not having to fake it so much as just let his frustration leak into his voice. “I’ve been stuck on this riddle, and I was wondering if you could find the answer.” Enough time had passed for Dean to brush off the whole IQ test hack, and he just shrugged and came over to Sam to look over his shoulder at the riddle. The riddle went like this:
Can you find the magic word hidden in this poem?
Sir, I bear a rhyme excelling.
In mystic force and magic spelling.
Celestial sprites elucidate.
All my own striving can’t relate.
Sam was honestly stuck. His best guess was the word ‘magic’. It had asked for the magic word, after all, but he knew that was a lame answer and excuse.
Dean’s eyes read over the words, and Sam could tell he was thinking—he had the same expression he wore during research or investigation. Then, not even a few seconds later, he blurted out the answer. “Pie.”
“What?”
“The answer’s pie, Sammy.” At Sam’s exasperated eye roll, Dean smirked. “The answer is always pie.”
Sam glanced back at the riddle, silently wondering just how in the world Dean had managed to scrape up enough brain capacity to hack an IQ test. An IQ was, after all, not how much you knew, but your capacity to learn. Dean had always been quick at learning, but Sam always possessed more knowledge, and he knew it. Besides, Dean never applied himself to anything—if it didn’t involve hunting, sex, food, or the Impala, Sam doubted Dean even knew it existed or was a thing. Besides, if Dean wanted to act dumb, who was Sam to bother? Just to entertain his brother, Sam furrowed his brows in question. “How?”
He didn’t expect a logical explanation, but that was what he got. “Sammy, you know, the number Pi? Not as good as the food, really. The answer’s pi because of the number of letters in each word of the riddle. 3 point 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6, 5, 3, 5, 8, 9, 7, 9, 3, 2, 3, 8, 4, 6... I mean, the real number goes on forever and forever, but you get the gist.” Dean looked back at the website Sam was on and the corner of his lips lifted in a slight smirk. “Brain teasers, Sammy? Really? Those things are for kids.”
Dean yet again left Sam to gape as he went back to the coffee table to presume reading John’s journal for what must’ve been the thousandth time.
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Dean was getting slightly pissed off with Sam. Okay, that was an understatement. Ever since the IQ test Sam had been seemingly obsessed with proving that he was the smarter one, and that Dean had cheated. However, now that Dean had showed that he could, in fact, hack the test—even though he didn’t the first time ‘round—Sam wouldn’t stop finding reasons to chuck a bunch of riddles and puzzles in Dean’s face, desperate to prove that Dean was dumb. It was driving Dean up the wall. He couldn’t get through a single day without his brother shoving a riddle, puzzle, or supposedly ‘impossible’ question in his face to see if he could solve it.
Which he did, by the way.
The eldest Winchester thought at first that if he sated Sam’s weird urge to see him solve the unsolvable, (read: ‘kid’s riddles’), that Sam would eventually leave him alone. He had no such luck. If anything, it just made Sam more driven to keep pestering Dean.
That’s when Dean figured it out—Sam was trying to find something that Dean couldn’t solve. Sammy was always competitive and had always been labeled as the smartest Winchester. For that title to suddenly go to his big, dumb brother must have really hurt his ego. And that conclusion only made Dean more agitated.
So, when Sam came home one day with a puzzle book, Dean snatched it when he wasn’t looking.
Sam had been whining about not being able to figure out some of the harder puzzles and had tried coaxing Dean into trying to solve them, but Dean refused. When Sam finally fell asleep, Dean took advantage of the time to answer every single fucking puzzle in the book, just to make a point. They were easy—it was basically just playing around with numbers and words until it seemed to fit or stick. Not to mention that there were word searches and ‘spot the difference’ pages. It was child’s play.
And, just to really peeve off his brother, Dean signed the last page with: I’m Not Stupid, Bitch.
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