Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Five months after the Sandover fiasco finds Dean Smith, tired, cranky and jobless outside some no-name motel. He’s got $150 cash on his person, a shooting pain in his lower back, and seven smarting bruises making themselves known upon his jawline.

“You’re sure you’re right about this,” he asks, counting out the deposit into the clerk’s hands. She’s not even looking at him, smacking her gum against her lips as she flips idly through her magazine. There’s grease gathering where her scrunchie meets the back of her head. The hair there is overly shiny and bunches in thick clumps, glossing her fingers as she goes to tighten her ponytail.

Dean fights hard against his gag reflex.

“Yeah,” Sam remains blissfully unaware of Dean’s discomfort, “Stumbled upon it myself a couple days ago. Seemed a little odd so I decided to check it out. Ran into some guy doing the same thing. We talked and ran our findings by each other. There’s something here Dean, I know it.”

He fumbles with their bags for a second, something in the one hanging off his shoulder bulges in a distinctly knife-like shape. Dean shoots nervous glance at—he squints at her name tag—Abbie. She hasn’t noticed. Apparently whatever’s going on in the fab and drab world is still more engaging than her job because when the girl slides them their key, she misses by a couple of inches. Dean frowns, regretting ever letting Sam talk him into hiding away their money. He’d locked them in some remote safety box in Kentucky before they’d started this whole cross country spree. “Gotta keep the Feds off our trail.”

Dean’s got his tucked somewhere secret in the back of his car, just in case. One day he’d get him to fold. Dreams were just dreams. And the American dream? Not so bad for the first couple of months, then it bites. Hard. In the ass. With teeth like a devil. Not that Dean’s actually felt that—or seen one for that matter. They’re beginners for crying out loud. Ghosts and the occasional angry gnome more than filled their agenda.

“Hey,” he starts, waving a few fingers by her face. Don’t touch the hair, he thinks, don’t touch the hair. “You think we could get another key?”

Abbie moves to fix him a withering glare that falls the moment she gets a good look at him. It rebounds into one crooked smile, all curdled cheese against pizza face.

“Sure,” she says, “anything you want.”

He fights again, and loses.

The room’s exactly as he thought it would be: small, bare and notoriously bland. He hopes to God the shower works and is free of little six-legged intruders. He had enough of the ‘great outdoors’ last week to last him a lifetime. The next time Sam tries to ‘conserve,’ he’s doesn’t care what happens; he’s going to break out those credit cards. Police be damned. Sam ushers past him, humming some random tune, and drops Dean’s bags on the floor before tossing his own onto the one farthest from the window. Goddamnit. He wanted that one.

Dean shuffles in delicately, taking slow deliberate steps as the door clicks closed behind him. He doesn’t want to agitate any secret squatters—exoskeleton or no. Satisfied when nothing jumps out at him, he picks up the pace, crossing the room in a mere moment. He looks over his bed for the next day or so and grimaces. Its mustard yellow and pressed way too close to the wall for anyone’s comfort.

The window screen sags inwards, peeling back at the bottom right corner. Great, he thinks, a giant gaping hole for insects to make camp right by his head. He’ll have to patch that up before bed somehow. He taps his chin. They should have some duct tape in their duffle somewhere. It’ll have to do.

He goes to look for their duffle bag of supplies and finds it in Sam’s lap. He’s combing through it lovingly, like toddler and his building blocks, admiring each and every piece of equipment with a god like reverence. Dean sees it a lot. Every job’s like this, the light never seems to leave his eyes. He has it to, but the way it just lights Sam up…It’s kind of endearing—in a weirdly childish sort of way.

“We got any duct tape?”

“Hm?”

“Duct tape. For the window.”

“Oh, yeah. Gimme a sec,” he riffles through the remaining canteens of holy water, before tossing the roll at Dean.

For a moment everything looks up, then Dean sees the roll in his hands, and everything goes up in flames. It’s starving; there’s barely enough tape to wrap around his hand.

“What happened to the tape?!”

The zipper slides a little too fast, “Ow, fuck! What?”

“The tape!” Dean cries, brandishing the useless cardboard ‘o’ between them, “Where’d it all go?!”

“Vee, oozed et all ub.”

“For god’s sake! Take your fingers out of your mouth!”

Sam sighs, pulling his pinched fingers from his lips, cradling them against his chest, “We used it all, remember? That ghost in Milwaukee a couple weeks back? The sink in the bathroom sprung a leak and you practically mummified it.”

It takes him a moment before it all comes back, mouth gaping like some poor ignored goldfish. The ghost (a middle aged man hell-bent on terrorizing these punk teenagers who had unwittingly given him a fatal heart attack when they broke into his 7-Eleven), the Motel 6 with the shoddy plumbing and the sink from hell. It’d taken him a full two hours to fix that hole—deserved a fucking medal. He remembers now: taping and re-taping, wrestling with the mini geysers, Sam at the doorway, laughing his ass off, hips cocked against the frame, shoulders quaking.

“Oh,” he breathes, ears a little pink. He might have gone a little overboard. He remembers Sam coming forward and helping him wrap the last bits of tape round the u-bend. He remembers Sam crowding in his space and wondering about how the hell they could possibly fit there in that tiny pocket of a bathroom.

“Dean?”

He jerks then sucks in a breath, slowly lets it out through his nose. The room’s a little stale, not too offensive, but enough to make his nostrils twitch. It clears his head. “I’m good.”

“Okay…” Sam sounds a little unsure, but Dean squares his shoulders, settles at the table, and gestures for him to sit back down.

They crowd in front of the screen as Sam directs Dean to the website he’d stumbled upon five days ago. It lights up in a flourish of blues and greens and overly fluffy clouds make way for a line of hooded figures. All of a sudden music erupts from the speakers and Dean only has a moment to mourn for his poor laptop, when words explode across the screen:

“Who the hell is Vendras?” he cries right as Sam laughs in his ear.

He’s close enough that even from this odd angle Dean can see his dimples. Like a child, he thinks, fighting back his own smile as the screen is overtaken by a bulky grey dragon. It shivers and shakes before releasing a torrent of fire that burns the figures and words off the screen (“All these fancy effects and they couldn’t even come up with their own score?”). After a moment the ash fades and a login screen appears. The cursor flashes idly at them.

“What the he—“ Dean starts, but Sam hastily shoves him aside and by the time he rights himself, the login screen is gone and some sort of chat room is in its place. He turns to Sam, brow raised and some sort of remark building at the tip of his tongue, but the flush spreading down Sam’s neck locks it in tight.

He eyes Dean quickly, cheeks darkening the tiniest bit. “Here,” he says loudly, fingering a specific thread, “They’re planning something.”

Dean continues to watch him for a moment and then lets it drop. “What makes you so sure?”

A few clicks and scrolls and the words, “JUDGEMENT DAY: APRIL 27” are staring back at him. “Oh.”

It’s all there, outlined in detail. Saturday April 27th, Judgement Day for the Brotherhood of Storm Breakers, devout followers of the dragon Vendras.

“This is bullshit.”

“I know,” Sam sits back and laughs, “but people believe it.”

“If it’s not real, then why the hell are we even here?”

With a heavy sigh, Sam slides the laptop into this lap. His thighs jerk a little from the heat. “Their prophesy may be shit, but their relic isn’t.” He draws up a new window, speeding through a few sites until he stops on one. “Well it’s not theirs really. They just say it is.” He zooms up on one of the pictures—some sort of copper ball. “The Hunt-Lenox Globe.”

Dean peers closer, “One of the oldest globes in the world. What’s so special about that? Gonna tell them where their dragon pops out?”

It rouses a chuckle from Sam, dimples peeking out to say hello. Dean smiles. He likes making Sam laugh. It’s one of the few things that makes his new life bearable. He likes the camaraderie between them. It’s smooth and easy, just the two of them and the rush of job.

“Not quite.” He pulls up a few more pictures in detail, “Here, HC SVNT DRACONES.” At Dean’s furrowed brow, he continues, “Hic sunt dracones or ‘here be dragons.’ It was used for pointing out dangerous or unexplored territory—a sort of callback to the medieval practice of putting serpents and dragons on uncharted areas on maps. This is the only documented usage of the term, except in this case it’s not a metaphor.”

Idly, Dean wonders if it’s just him, or was the room getting smaller. “You mean there’s a…”

“Yeah.”

“In the…”

“Yup.”

“Oh jeez.” Dean stumbles back into this chair as the air hightails it out of his lungs.

He’s not sure how long it takes to get himself under control, but Sam must have taken pity on him and his poor laptop. It’s off and cool in the middle of their too small table. He searches the room for Sam, eyes shooting between all four corners and the door. Its then he notices Sam hovering worryingly over him with a glass of water in one hand, the other rubbing soothing circles across his back. He brings the glass forward, but Dean knocks it away.

“There’s bottled water in my suitcase,” he rasps.

Sam’s lips quirk, but he says nothing. With a few last pats, he leaves and comes back bottle in hand. Dean gulps it greedily, relishing the refreshing alpine taste. Little comforts of home, his mama used say. And god did he need it.

“Dragons?” he croaks, bits of panic still laced in. The water’s done its job, but there’s only so much mineral water can do when a man’s faced with fiery doom.

The bed behind him creaks as Sam’s weight pulls the edges of mattress up a bear trap, because that’s what the stupid thing is—a spring loaded metal mouth with lumpy cloth teeth waiting for its next meal. “If it makes you feel any better, it’s just an egg.”

It does actually, just a little bit. But then he thinks back to the Brotherhood with their dark robes and loud ripped off orchestra music and blanches.

“This is why that guy, Gary, helped you isn’t it? They wanted to push off the crazies to the newbies.”

“Garth,” Sam corrects automatically then he looks thoughtful, his shoulders rising as if trying to cradle his head. “Actually I think he just wanted to help. Seemed like he was interested in tagging along too. But, yeah, he emailed me something about his boss or whatever told him to let us handle it; he’s got to meet him in South Dakota.”

Great, just great. How were they, just two guys—granted they were two big guys—going take on a whole brotherhood of crazies? Crazies who probably still lived with their parents…but still! A whole horde of them? That calls for some serious manpower. Because if anyone knows how to group? It’s the quiet ones. It’s always the quiet ones.

Dean’s stomach twists. Ghosts he could handle. He knows how to handle them. People too, but dragons and crazies? He didn’t know where to start. There was no fancy video tutorial on rounding up crazies who might be harboring some secret magical talisman somewhere in their robes.

He sighed, rubbing lightly at his abdomen. They were just people. Stupid people, but people nonetheless. He could deal with people—talk ‘em, charm ‘em into place. Yeah, he could do that. Keep them away from the library long enough for Sam to sneak in and get the egg—

Oh shit. The dragon egg. Where there were eggs, there were mothers, and where there were stolen eggs, there were angry mothers. Angry mothers the size of a Boeing 747 who’s breath is capable of charbroiling an entire city. What the hell?! Dragons weren’t even supposed to exist!

He gropes toward the table as the air, once again, ejects itself from his lungs.

When he wakes, the sun is bursting through the threadbare curtains and the window screen is swaying dangerously close to his face. He’s on his bed, but he doesn’t remember getting there. Then it all comes back to him in a whorl of color. Dean flushes a little, he’d hyperventilated and passed out—yes passed out--thinking about dragons. Oh god. Dragons. They were going to steal a dragon egg from the New York Public Library before a cult of crazy Dungeons and Dragons obsessed people could. He squeezes his eyes shut, determined to force himself back to sleep. He could deal with this when his stomach stopped churning.

A buzzing noise sounds somewhere above his head until something crawls onto his shoulder. Dean turns to stare at it for a second, focusing slowly on the brown exoskeleton and wiggling antennae. They caress his cheek and Dean lets out a shriek.

By the time Sam makes it from the bathroom, Dean is sprawled upside down on the floor trying desperately to beat the cockroach to death with his shoe. It scurries past him and up the bed, before disappearing out the window in a panic.

Sam is laughing up a storm as Dean finally rights himself. He’s laughing so hard, the smeared toothpaste is sliding down his face, catching a ride with little globules of spit.

“Laugh any harder and you’ll choke on your toothbrush. In fact, please do. See if I need you.”

Sam snickers around his toothbrush stem as he makes his way back to the bathroom. Dean can hear the water, trickling slowly out the rusty faucet; the sound of swishing and the splat as Sam rinses; the soft pat pat of one of the many hand towels Dean had packed. One of eight, he’s sure of it—counts them after every job. It’s probably the blue one, the one with little ducklings embroidered at ends. A client had given it to him long ago—before he’d come to work at Sandover, before the whole ghost nonsense, before Sam—and Dean had tossed it to him that day. “For the blood,” he’d said, fumbling with his own sweaty shirt, “You missed a spot.” It’d taken up residence in Sam’s back pocket ever since.

“Hey, you good?”

“What?”

Sam’s toothpaste free, some of the locks framing his face are wet and curling. The soft blue of his collar is darkening against his neck. It’s a nice color on him. He gives Dean a once over and cocks a brow. “Not that it really matters, but you okay with going out in yesterday’s clothes?”

Dean follows his gaze downwards and stiffens. An itch starts up. It’s crawling along where his dress shirt chaffs against his skin. He feels sticky and heavy and his gag reflex is just raring to go. With one last shiver he pushes off the bed and makes a beeline for the bathroom, suitcase in hand. The shower is weak, but hot and he’s alive again.

Fifteen minutes later, they’re tucked in the back of a nearby Starbucks, scouring the crowds for anything out of the ordinary. Which in New York, is mind numbing. You’d think a large group of hooded figures would be easy to spot.

They plow through about six cups—Sam two and Dean four (the wait’s making him nervous). To be fair, the last three were just water, but he really shouldn’t have. Now he’s got to pee like bitch.

Sam lays a steady hand on his vibrating thigh. “Relax,” he murmurs, “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“Tell that to my bladder.”

The smile is slow but forthcoming. He takes of swig of his latte and pushes on Dean’s thigh. “Go.”

“But—”

“I’ll be fine. Just go before you explode or something.”

With a grateful sigh, Dean books it to the restroom. He hurries, can’t leave everything to Sam. This is their gig now. And crazies or no crazies, Dean Smith does not abandon. He pulls his own weight, thank you very much.

He’s drying his hands when two guys wander in. They’re dressed in black, faces obscured by heavy hoods. One of them holds the door open for him as he leaves. He shoots them a smile, “Thanks.”

The guy nods and gives him a thumbs up, “No problemo mi amigo.”

If there’s one thing his new job has taught him, it’s that you can’t take anything at face value. Books are meant to be read not watched. The door swivels shut and Dean stands a little taller. Maybe this is good for him. Then he stops. Over at the counter there’s a few more hooded guys are ordering—well trying— a bunch of drinks. The barista looks frazzled. The one in front is waving his hands around trying to convey something. The silver cord knotted around his waist is swinging wildly.

Silver cord. Just like the ones in the bathroom. Oh shit.

“Sam!” he cries, dodging a few sleepy patrons as they queue up.

“I know! I saw them too!”

Dean whirls around and throws open the bathroom door, “Hey! Stop!”

One of them has his robe bunched around his hips and is staring back at him in horror, trying very hard to stop peeing. It’s a lost cause. The other is at the mirror, combing the hair from his face. He turns to face Dean slowly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Um, uhh.” It seemed like a good plan at the start, but if there’s one other thing that this job has taught him, it’s that going in without a plan? Yeah, no. Bad idea.

They continue to stare at each other for another beat and then Dean is knocked against the door as the rest of their crew floods in.

“Gabe! Hurry it up in there man! We got to go!”

Gabe tucks his comb into the back pocket of his jeans before slapping his friend’s ass. “Get a move on, Chuck!”

Chuck flushes, finishes up and hastily washes his hands. They slide past Dean who’s staring back at them wide eyed. Gabe winks, Chuck shoves his hood back on, refusing to make eye contact and the whole congregation is out the door in a minute.

“Dean!”

Dean risks a glance as feeling rushes back into this body with a force. His knees twitch and he falls into Sam.

“Sam! I found them!”

“I know,” he replies, prying his biceps from Dean’s iron grip.

They race after them, but not before Dean gets the name of the one from the counter from the barista. She’d given him a look like she thought he was one of them, but he’d spilt some story about some independently produced play and understudies and all that. She was wary at first, but relented once he let his eyes go shiny.

“Eddie!” He shouts, catching up to the flock, “Eddie! Wait! Stop!”

A few of the hoods spin to look at him. One of them reaches out to tug on the sleeve of another, “Hey, Eddie. Some guy wants to talk to you.”

Eddie pauses in his gesticulations and whirls around on them, “Norendithas, Meg. Norendithas the Sorcerer. ”

She deadpans then after a moment, bows with an exaggerated flourish, “ O’ great Norendithas. Someone calls upon you this late hour.”

Eddie gives her a gracious nod, completely oblivious when she tosses her hood back and pulls a nail file from her sleeve. He’s spies Dean and throws out his arms. “Have you come to seek revenge, my lost young soul? Have you come to learn the ways of the Brotherhood?”

Dean surveys the crowd. They’re quite small—smaller than he had anticipated, nine by his count: two female, seven male. They’re ringed around a few scattered benches with Eddie at the center, his arms still outstretched like he’s waiting for a hug.

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” He coughs, “I mean. Yes. Yes, I’ve come to learn.” God, he hopes Sam gets back with the egg soon.

Another hood steps up and lays a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “Where did you come to hear of us, my curious friend?” There’s a smirk hiding somewhere in the folds of his hood, Dean can hear it.

“Online?”

Yet another hood rushes forward, it flops back to reveal a thin face and blonde hair. “You’re Belros the Bard?”

What? Oh. Haha. Is that what Sam hadn’t wanted him to see? Dean’s lips twitch, “Yeah, that’s me.”

The girl’s smile falters a little, “I thought you’d be taller.”

“Becky!” Someone shouts. She shrugs sheepishly and slinks back behind one of the hoods who loops an arm around her waist reassuringly, though he refuses to look anywhere in the vicinity of Dean’s face.

Eddie sighs, pulling a pair of coke bottle glasses from beneath his hood and wipes them on a sleeve. Then he straightens and turns back to Dean, chest puffed out. “You must earn the trust of our Brotherhood, my pale friend. Three trials!” and here he pushes out his hand, wiggling three fingers in Dean’s face, “Three trials to test the bonds of fealty!”

The rest of Eddie’s group just stares at him, or at least Dean thinks so, their hoods hang far into their faces.

“And I have just the test!” Eddie exclaims, “You shall prove your worth by reclaiming the Stone! With it, we shall unleash hell upon all who have scorned us!”

“The Stone?”

“Yes, the Stone. Our most treasured relic! Twas stolen from us! Those bastards from the New York Public Library dared to disregard our letters. We beseeched them to reconsider, but they just pushed us away!” The tails of his robe whirl around him as he spins on one foot. “You” he cries, laying a finger on Dean’s chest, “will return to us what has been lost! Return the Stone and join your brothers as we bask in the glory of our most gracious creator, Vendras the Storm Breaker!”

Dean very carefully removes the finger from his chest, but before he can respond one of the hoods steps forward and taps on Eddie’s shoulder. “Uh, boss?”

Eddie sighs, “Yes Gabe?”

Gabe points to the back door of the library. Someone is barreling out, trailing much of the library security force behind them. “You don’t mean that stone? Do you?”

Nestled in the crook of the guy’s arm is the egg, a perfectly round translucent ball. It gathers and magnifies the surrounding colors like fresh dew and Dean can see refractions of light dance around the his face.

“Sam!” he cries, “Over here!” His arms pinwheel above his head, “Saaam!”

Sam nearly trips as only his head whips around. “Dean!” He sounds relieved and Dean almost runs to him, but just as he takes the first few steps, Sam is jumped by security. The egg fumbles in his grasp, but he manages to hold on.

It takes just a second for Sam to make a decision and Dean’s ready for him. He lunges forward, arms outstretched as Sam chucks the egg at him. It arcs in the air, mysteriously picking up speed as it goes, bounces off Dean’s palms and slides into his forearms.

Yet it takes just a millisecond for things to go wrong.

As Dean, Sam, and the majority of library security watched the egg travel the fifty feet between them, Eddie had dashed forward, intent on ripping it from Dean’s ready hands. He’d misjudged the distance however, overshooting it by a couple of feet.

He sails straight over Dean as Dean ducks and the egg is slammed against his chest. It pops—bursts open like an overripe fruit. A strangely iridescent fluid soaks through Dean’s shirt, cooling his skin as it seeps in.

Huh? He was sure dragon eggs were more durable than that.

Sam is staring wide eyed, the security too. In fact the entire square is quiet. Dean rubs at his chest, the cooling sensation growing stronger. He steps forward, watching Sam flinch at the crunch crunch of the shell. The sound grates on his ears and his stomach begins to roil.