#bros!!!!

Kevin answered with a grunt. He was carrying the ancient text that had been driving him nuts these past few days. After the Godly tablets drama had ended, Kevin had decided he liked stressing himself to death while translating ancient, forgotten languages. Even if he didn’t have wicked translating superpowers anymore, he still felt like it was “his thing”. It was Charlie’s job to make sure his nerd masochism stayed within somewhat healthy limits.

“Any progress?” the redhead inquired as Kevin spread his notes and the text over Russia.

“Sort of,” Kevin mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “What are you working on?”

Charlie sat up and turned her tablet around so Kevin could see the code on the screen. “An interactive database of the bunker’s library,” she explained. “You and Sam insist on using the records on paper, but they are such a mess that to find a book it’s easier to wander aimlessly around until you find it rather than use these stupid records.” She nudged the dusty box containing a pile of papers with an accusing finger.

“They are not that messy.”

“Okay, I may be exaggerating, but believe me, you are going to love this bad boy.”

“I believe you,” Kevin replied mechanically. His attention was already on the documents in front of him, so it was possible he hadn’t paid attention to the last thing Charlie had said. Oh, well.  Charlie turned the tablet back around and let her fingers do their magic on the keyboard. Silence immediately reigned on the bunker, except for the occasional turning of a page or sigh and the constant tic-tac of Charlie’s typing.

Code, code, code, code, sip. Code, code, code, code, sip.

Charlie was reaching the bottom of her cup of coffee, and her program was getting closer to completion. She gave one last, contented sigh and pushed her chair back. Only a few details were missing on the database, but those could wait for later. First, a break.

For both of them.

“Hey, Kev?”

“Mm… shhh…” Great. He was so gone he couldn’t even use English.

“Ke-vin,” Charlie sang. “Time for a break, dude.”

“No.”

Charlie was forced to switch chairs. She plopped down next to Kevin and waved a hand in front of his face. Kevin swatted it away. “C’mon, man. Don’t go into nerd-trance.”

“Nerd-trance is a wonderful state to be in when you’re about to reach a breakthrough.” A whole sentence. Wow. Charlie was making progress.

“Yeah, but it’s not healthy. If you don’t rest, reaching a breakthrough is going to be harder.

“Mm.” No, no, no. We were already doing sentences. We were making progress.

Charlie sighed, “Let’s do something else for a while. We never do anything together.”

“We were doing something together,” Kevin pointed out, “until you started making noise.”

Charlie stood up behind Kevin and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Worrying about a friend is not noise, Tran. Unglue your eyes from the squiggles and join me in a fun game. Don't make me wrestle you out of this chair.”

With a heavy sigh, Kevin closed his notebook (progress!) and tilted his head back so he could look at Charlie. “A fun game? What the hell are we going to play? And don't say Monopoly; last time was a mess.”

“Point A: it was only a mess because none of us expected Cas to be such a ruthless businessman. Point B: I don't have a game in mind yet, but we can make something up as we go, or maybe we'll find something. Who knows; maybe these Super-Secret Nerds have a Super-Secret D&D lying around somewhere.”

With one last sad look at the ancient text before him, Kevin pushed himself out of the chair and played along. “Pray tell, how is a Super-Secret D&D different from your regular Dungeons and Dragons?”

Charlie headed towards the maze-like hallways with a shrug. “I dunno. It has real dragons?”

Kevin rolled his eyes but followed her anyways. He wanted to ask where were they going, but Charlie probably had no idea, either. “Is walking around until we get lost a fun game?” he sassed instead.

“Very funny. I just want to-” They had reached a T-shaped intersection. A long hallway stretched to their left and right. Charlie turned her head to each side, gears very obviously spinning in her head. “Never mind. New idea. Do the Men of Letters have skateboards?”

Kevin raised his eyebrows. “Skateboards?!”

“Yeah. Or any other smallish thing with wheels, like a… a…” She slapped her forehead with her hand, the universal symbol of Eu-fucking-reka. “Dean’s garage seat!”

“Dean’s gara- okay.” Kevin realized he wasn't getting a straight answer (no lesbian joke intended) for now, so he sighed and followed Charlie to the garage. After peeking under a couple of cars, they found the cart. It was the cheapest Dean could find, just a slab of plastic —wide enough to allow Dean to lay back on it— with four small wheels. Charlie, still not explaining anything to Kevin, inspected the garage seat.

“I think this will do just fine,” she mused.

“For what?” Kevin demanded.

Charlie beamed. “Hallway races!” She hoisted the front of the car up and dragged it out of the garage. “Come on, Kev!” she called.

Kevin was ninety-nine percent sure they were going to get hurt in some way, but he was also one-hundred percent in for this new game.

An hour and a half later, they were sitting on the floor of the Official Racing Hallway drinking beer. Kevin had a bruise starting to appear on his knee and Charlie had scratched both of her elbows. Because they only had one cart, the farthest each had managed to go before crashing into a wall or falling off the cart (garage seats are unsteady as fuck) was marked with a small piece of paper with their initial on it. Kevin was the reigning champion so far. Charlie swore up and down she was going to beat him soon.

“D’you think the boys will like it if we show it to them?” Charlie asked.

Kevin imagined Sam trying to stay within the cart’s limited surface, long legs and arms tucked tightly to his chest. Charlie imagined Cas stubbornly racing in his trenchcoat, and the stupid thing’s belt getting tangled in the cart’s wheels. They both chuckled.