![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hybridshadeTitle: Borne of the Earth
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hybridshade
Artist:dracox_serdriel
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean, John, Bobby, Rufus, Ellen, Cain, Castiel etc.
Genre: fantasy, angst
Rating: nc17
Warnings: angst, sibling incest, mild violence and injury, underage kissing, very slight dubcon due to circumstances of depression, magical healing cock
Word count: ~14.7k
Summary: Dean is born and raised with the pressure of becoming the greatest of Riders always hanging over him. But when the big day comes and his destined Pledged Dragon doesn't show, Sam proves he will go to the ends of the Earth to make it right again, if only for the sake of his brother.
A/N: Minibang written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
scifibigbang
Link to Story: Part 1 - Part 2 on LJ, or on AO3
Link to Media: Here on AO3
The finer moments of Sam's short life could probably be condensed into just a small handful of memories. All of them involved either Dean or dragons or both, because it felt as if those things were all he really knew. Write them down, recount them verbally, and you would probably have everything you needed to know about him, all neatly wrapped up and tied with a bow.
It was a little disheartening to think he wasn't more than the sum of his parts - or, at least, that was the way Sam felt about the matter. He'd followed those two near-parallel paths – Dean and dragons – without ever really straying, and he didn't physically have a whole lot to show for it. His father had always expected him to be Dean-Part-Two, a born Rider destined for the history books, but once he'd shown no innate proclivity for it (no thanks to some crazed mystic-woman they'd once come across) John had never been able to look him in the eye again without that tell-tale shine of disappointment.
As a kid, Bobby had always encouraged him and teased him with equal measure, like the sort of father Sam imagined he deserved to have. But even in his encouragement Sam had still recognised the great expectations of his pseudo-uncle. Sure, Sam was aware that he was smart, more clever than almost anyone he knew, but he was also aware that Bobby silently waited for him to make the greatest of discoveries, the revelation of a lifetime, and Sam had felt the pressure of it ever breathing down his neck.
Dean, though. Dean had never added to the weight on Sam's shoulders, not directly. Rather, he'd saved it for himself. Heaped it on like he could carry anything, no matter how damning. Sam begrudged him for it at times, the way he so easily appeared to shrug things off even when Sam knew he just buried them too far down for people to see - at least until the weight had eventually broken him. But then Sam was also grateful that his brother had always tried to protect him the way he did – without expectation. It was Sam's own downfall that he himself was too earnest to be a good liar, too resolved in his intentions, too determined to 'fix' Dean and save him from himself. Sam was an open book where that was concerned.
There was one secret he did manage to keep for himself, however. At least for a time. He'd spilled it once after Dean had been injured in an attack, while his hands had been painted in his brother's blood, fingers slipping as he'd tried to staunch the bleeding. That moment's falter had proven to be both the greatest and worst thing he'd even let fall from his lips. Things had changed between them after that slip. Brotherly touches becoming something so much more - both beautiful and terrible all at once.
Perhaps it had all been means to an end.
Where he was now, all Sam could see were the tops of his boots, the rocky ledge he stood on, and the endless black abyss that stretched out beyond. All he could hear were the seams of hot wind whipping around him, and the heavy thudding of his own heart.
The only way out was forward.
The abyss called to him.
~/S/~
The first attack Sam remembered ever bearing witness to was one that he didn't even see.
Instead he remembered the noise. The town bells ringing, the rumble of people as they left their houses to hurry to their posts, the yelling of the battle commanders…
Sam had been frightened of all the commotion and he'd clung to Dean's arm as their father had stood from his half-eaten dinner and gone to dress himself in some strange metal-plated outfit, leaving with barely a wave goodbye. Sam didn't let go of Dean the whole time, curling himself into a tight ball against his brother's side while they waited it out. Dean assured him repeatedly that there was nothing to worry about, but the subsequent screaming and the crackle of fire told him otherwise.
It wasn't until he heard the screeching wail of a dragon that he dared to raise his head. He'd never known anything like it, and he could feel it all the way down to his toes.
~
The next attack was half a year later in the middle of the summer, though it was still cool in their mountain village, just like it always was. The enemies came while it was still light out, and once they were sure their father was gone, Dean led him to a secret lookout where they could watch the battle without being spotted. Their attackers always came from the North, Dean told him, so they were always at a disadvantage because of the rocky cliff face that bordered the North-facing edge of their land, dropping straight down into the icy sea.
The enemy arrived riding a spearhead of eight dragons – some black, some dark blue, some cloudy grey, and all of them practically aglow with power. Sam had started to worry as they flew closer and closer, their piercing shrieks carrying from far off, but then he'd sensed the prickle of awareness on the back of his neck and the subsequent blast of air had nearly toppled him over.
There, hovering above the surrounding mountains, were five more dragons. Five Pledged of their own.
Dean had told him the South had proper dragons too, just like the North, and Sam had known it to be true since just about everyone talked about them. But that was his first instance of laying eyes on them and he could scarcely believe they were real. Unlike the much smaller, tamer, Stone dragons that he saw around town from day to day, these creatures looked as big as the mountains that they slept beneath. Not to mention more diverse in colour. The pale blue one that hovered nearest to them was crackling with raw energy, snaps of light curling around its nostrils and mouth. It was ready and raring to go, tail whipping around viciously, desperate to let loose on the enemy. But the Rider held it fast, digging her heels into its sides.
"I'm gonna be up there one day, Sammy," Dean said, a wondrous smile on his face.
Sam's response was drowned out by a sudden high-pitched whistle and the subsequent screeching of dragons. His hair blew right across his face as the beating of giant wings stirred up a strong breeze, and he barely remembered to breathe as he watched the ensuing battle break out over the ocean below, torrents of fire and lightning and wind and ice tearing across the sky.
Maybe I'll be up there one day, too, he thought to himself, too young to know any better.
~
Attacks were anywhere from a few months to a few years apart, though the townspeople were always ready to dash to their posts at a moment's notice. Dean was ten when their father first started teaching him how to fight (he was going to be a Rider one day, after all) and he took to it like a duck to water. He showed Sam every time he learned a neat new move, and showed off his bruises as if they were badges of honour. From then on, and especially whenever their father was around, that was all they ever seemed to talk about – fighting and battles and dragons and fighting dragons and fighting on dragons and strategy, strategy, strategy.
Sam didn't care so much for the fighting, as such, though he didn't mind letting Dean instruct him on how to throw a decent punch or kick, but it was the dragons themselves that Sam couldn't learn enough about. John only put up with his relentless questioning when he was in an amenable mood, which was hardly ever, though he didn't hesitate to correct Sam if he made an incorrect statement during a discussion over the dinner table. And so, Sam managed to make quite a lot of marginally incorrect statements, just to be sure.
Only once did he ever ask his father how he knew so much about dragons. John had looked at him blankly before his entire body seemed to shut down, expression clouding over like a storm gathering over the sea. He'd left after a drawn-out minute with nary a word and Sam didn't see him again for several days.
Whilst their father was gone Dean had led Sam into John's room, pulling out several thick books from the back of his wardrobe. Dean made him promise that he would never let John know that they'd been in there or anything of what he was about to see, and then Dean opened one of the books to reveal pages and pages of faded black and white photographs. Sam barely recognised the clean-shaven version of his father, but he did recognise his mother, having only ever seen her in photographs before. The pictures were mainly them, together or apart, but sometimes with one or two others, and always wearing well-worked leather gear – the same sort Riders wore.
All was explained when Sam turned a page to find his father standing before a giant dragon – seemingly bigger than any he'd seen before. The photograph could only tell him that it was light in colour and shiny like a silver penny, but more than anything Sam was just shocked to see his father's face smiling so openly.
"Dad and his dragon were the strongest team in a millennium, Sammy," Dean whispered, as if they might suddenly be discovered if he spoke any louder, "They say everyone was shocked when mum married dad 'cause Riders don't usually get married. I mean, they don't even come into town, y'know? They're usually loners and only hang out with other Riders."
Sam pondered for a moment. He'd thought nothing of it before Dean brought it up, but it was true that as soon as someone became a Fully-Fledged Rider they seemed to be spirited away by the other ones, only to be seen again during an attack and with their dragon beneath them. "Is it 'cause of the bond?"
"Guess so. Auntie Ellen told me that a Pledged bond fills up your heart so much that it's hard to fit anyone else in there as well. And they're so mysterious, the Riders… Probably got millions of secrets, right?"
"Yeah, probably. But that means you'll get to learn all their secrets and hang out with them when you get your dragon, right, Dean?"
Dean's eyes sparkled a moment before he schooled himself back into seriousness. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves – I haven't even been tested yet. I mean, I've got a good chance since dad's a Rider, and since that crazy lady prophesised it that one time, but that's not like it's a guarantee, is it?"
"Actually, from what I've read it seems it's more likely to be passed down through the mother's side… But, hey, if that crazy lady said it..."
Glancing down, Sam stared at the album lying open on the floor. "Was mum a Rider, then? She's wearing Riding leathers in that picture."
"I dunno, Sammy," Dean sighed, ruffling Sam's hair, "I tried researching that one on my own once. There's no pictures of her with any dragon, there's no register of her being a Rider or having a dragon, and all I could really find was that she was from out of town. I know some people were a bit suspicious of her 'cause of that, but whether it means she was registered elsewhere… Who's to say?"
"But, then…" Sam swallowed, "Why'd she die, Dean? No one ever tells me anythin' but that it was an accident. And I know you know something, so don't lie to me."
Dean was quiet for a moment before clearing his throat. "Look, I dunno everything, 'kay? But a while back I managed to get Auntie Ellen to spill some and she told me that there was a surprise attack one day – two really strong fire-breathers breached the Northern border and razed and burned the town hall and some houses. You wouldn't remember it, but back then we were living further out from town, up towards the cliffs. Dad managed to call his dragon down in time and they battled up on the hillside. But it was two against one and the other Riders couldn't get there quick enough. The house caught on fire. Dad had to leave the battle to get both of us out. All that was left behind was a pile of ashes and bones."
"You remember it?"
"Not much." Dean looked solemn, and suddenly pulled Sam against his shoulder. "Just dad putting you in my arms, all wrapped in blankets, and telling me to run. You were crying, and I was coughing from the smoke. But I just did what I was told and ran – didn't look back. I knew something was wrong but anything more than that never occurred to me, y'know?"
"Well, you were four. It's not like you could've done much anyway."
"I s'pose."
"So what happened to dad's dragon?"
"Dunno. No one knows. Some thought it burned. Others thought it fell over the cliff and into the ocean. There's no way to know… Really, dad was lucky to survive."
Sam snorted. "I don't reckon he feels lucky."
Nothing about his parents or the circumstances of that day sat right with Sam following Dean's revelation. The idea of his mother's death would likely haunt him until the day he died.
~
Sam tried to squeeze something out of Bobby one day soon after, asking him why his father came to live in the town while none of the other Riders ever did.
All he got was a 'Boy, your daddy has never done anything by the book, nor did your mother for that matter. But John will follow those warped instincts of his 'til it kills him.'
~
It was the day of the Winter Solstice when Dean dragged him out of the house at some ungodly hour, the sun not yet peeking over the horizon. They took a precarious trail up the side of a rocky slope and ended up on a large outcrop that looked out into some kind of chasm formed between two mountains. Sam took a careful glance down, feeling a rush of hot, foul smelling air whack him in the face. The chasm stretched so far below that Sam couldn't see any end to it, but he figured it had to go pretty damn deep into the earth if there was hot air coming out of it.
Dean pulled him back as a slightly familiar young man joined them on the outcrop, three others following closely behind him. Only the young man remained near the edge while the rest of them moved back as far as they were able, and just as the sun's first rays started reach up into the sky, golden fingers stretching toward the heavens, there came a sudden rumbling from beneath the ground.
"That's one of the Talley boys – Jake. He turned twenty last month—"
"He's a Rider?" Sam looked up in surprise. Usually he was able to keep tabs on these things, but the Talleys kept to themselves a lot, so he supposed it wasn't beyond reasoning that only very few people knew.
"Yep. First one in the Talley family for near two hundred years, Bobby said. I know you've peeked in the public records, so you've probably noticed that recent numbers aren't the same as in the past. Used t' be that Riders were one in a thousand, but Bobby reckons it's one in every two thousand now. It might be a while before we see another Fledgling take their first flight."
"You're gonna be one of them though, right? The next one might be you!"
"You betcha, Sammy."
The rumbling only grew louder and more intense as the sun rose, the ground beneath their feet trembling like an earthquake. Jake stood at the very edge of the outcrop, his toes poking out into mid-air. He let go a pained grunt, seeming to stagger precariously where he stood, one hand clutching at his chest. Sam gasped and took a step forward, ready to run and grab him should he begin to fall, but Dean held him back, his grip firm.
Then suddenly a column of thick dust shot up from the depths of the chasm below, more hot, fetid air in its wake, and the blood-curdling shriek of a dragon followed close behind. The mountainside they stood upon shook ever harder, as if it might blow its top and erupt with a scorching stream of lava, but a mere second later and the gigantic body of a forest-green dragon appeared before them, flapping its expansive wings and then settling on the edge of the outcrop right at Jake's feet. Jake leapt toward it like a touch-starved man and the dragon sniffed playfully at him, amiably nudging his shoulder with its snout.
It was almost a shock to see something so large and surrounded with such an aura of danger to act in such a gentle way. Jake and the dragon seemed to be petting each other, standing in as much of a brotherly embrace as a man and dragon could achieve. There was an instant connection, even a kid like Sam didn't have to look too hard to see it, and his own heart cried out for the chance to connect with something or someone on such a profound level one day. He could only hope.
"They're bonding," Dean whispered under his breath, low enough that only Sam was close enough to hear.
Sam turned to his brother, about to ask some question or another, but found himself hesitating at the unfamiliar look he could see on Dean's face. It was the look of a man stranded in the desert, watching as his last sip of water evaporated away in front of him. It was a look of both wonder and desolation. And something inside Sam seemed to break.
"Are you gonna leave me?"
He couldn't stop the words from leaving his mouth, and he slapped himself internally for asking something so selfish.
Dean's head still whipped around so fast Sam worried he might snap his neck. "What? Why would you ask that?"
"When you become a Fully-Fledged Rider…" Sam swallowed, half-dreading the answer, but he pushed on regardless, "When you get your dragon, are you gonna go off with the other Riders? Aren't you gonna live in the mountains with them? Share all their secrets?"
Hands angled him around so Dean could grip both his shoulders and look him dead in the eye.
"I'm not gonna leave you, Sammy, no matter what. Remember what I told you that Auntie Ellen said about Rider's hearts? Well, you're already in there, little bro, so whatever big ass dragon I end up Pledged to is just gonna have to learn to share." The heat in Dean's eyes didn't dim, but his lips did curl into a slight smirk. "Besides, I'm a Winchester. And since when do we Winchesters do anything by the rules?"
Before Sam could respond he was pulled into a hug. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in Dean's smell – soap and sweat and spice. It was comforting. And it gave him hope that Dean would be the kind of rogue Rider to do things his own way. It was more than a little bit true that none of them were the sort to take the easy road.
Sam was halfway to pulling out of the hug when he noticed that Dean had tensed. He stopped in kind, taking a split second to notice that Dean's breath was puffing against his cheek, his lips only a hairsbreadth away, but for whatever reason he didn't flinch. Rather, he was caught by the prickling of something creeping up his spine. He turned, toward where Jake and his dragon still lingered in his periphery, and found the dragon not looking at Jake as he'd expected, but instead at himself and Dean. Its nostrils flared, yellow-y eyes blinking, and Sam could sense the intelligence behind them, the awareness of it considering them, weighing them up. His stomach seemed to momentarily plummet down toward his feet, but then Jake was patting the creature's chest and leaping onto its back, the two of them suddenly dashing off into the sky without a second thought.
"Musta thought you looked pretty, Sammy," Dean joked stiltedly, before grabbing his hand and leading them back toward home.
~/D/~
They say your memories from when you're a child are always skewed in some way and never as accurate as they might seem. Dean agreed that he couldn't remember much from before the age of six, but there were two particular memories that he still recalled as clear as day.
The first was the day his brother was born. He remembered sitting with Uncle Bobby in the lounge room of the Mills' house, which served as the town clinic-slash-hospital. He remembered hearing his mother's screams from the next room, and Bobby patting his shoulder telling him not to worry, that it was normal. All the commotion seemed to die down, however, when there came the sudden cry of a baby, and Dean's heart had fluttered brightly in his chest.
He remembered looking up at Bobby and saying with complete and utter conviction that he had a brother now and that he was going to be as skinny as a rake, and then the look of Bobby's slack-jawed face when John had poked his head out a moment later to tell them it was a boy had etched itself into his brain. He remembered thinking that he was going to take care of his brother, no matter what, even if he was a beanpole. And so far he'd been right.
And then there was that second memory – this time it was one that disturbed him rather than prompting him to well up with joy.
It was the look on Auntie Ellen's face that had told him everything. Not even her words had had the same effect as her expression. He'd known his dad went off to fight the invading dragons sometimes and he'd known it was dangerous – how could it not be when they breathed fire and ice and dust and shards of rock and lightning? But he'd never really understood the ultimate threat of that danger until suddenly his mother wasn't going to be around anymore. His father was in the clinic for weeks after that, despite that they insisted he wasn't badly injured, and Ellen temporarily took he and Sammy in to look after them. But even once John was out of the clinic, even once they'd moved into a new shack at the other edge of town, even once John was back at home and their primary carer again, it still never really felt like he was actually there.
For a long time he was more ghost than father. Haunting them.
~
The Winter Solstice when he dragged Sam up to The Bridge was always a moment that stuck out in his mind.
John had dragged him to a First Flight once years before, just the two of them, but he'd been too young and still too enamoured by the mere thought of dragons to have really understood what was going on at the time. He couldn't even remember who the Rider was, or whether he'd ever even seen them again.
But that time with Sam he was always going to remember, and for all-round conflicting reasons. He recalled Sam's excitement – as well as his own – as they'd climbed up to the outcrop, day packs slung over their shoulders, despite the early hour and the chilled air. It hadn't been long before the shaking had started, strong enough that they would have felt it down in the township without any trouble, and then the blast of gritty dust that had told Dean immediately that Jake was getting an Earth dragon. He might not have known the Talley's all that well, but he knew enough to think that it was a fitting match for Jake.
He remembered the overwhelming pull he'd felt once the dragon had appeared, the longing of his heart to have one of his own. He'd watched the bonding with avid fascination – the connection forming through their touch, the innate knowledge of each other passing through skin and scales.
But he'd been torn from the moment by Sam's soft words, and they'd ripped at him deeper than he'd ever imagined was possible. The thought of ever leaving Sam, of ever not seeing him again, wounded him horribly. He had no idea what the future held, but a future without his little brother was not an acceptable one. His father was a rebel. Dean would fight the system too, if it ever came to that. He'd pulled Sam into his arms, then. The kid was growing up fast, only twelve and already edging towards the height of Dean's nose. But the sensation of his breath on Dean's neck, the straight-up heat of him, was the first instance of his life that he'd though of his brother in a less than wholesome way. It felt right and sick and it tore him up all over again.
When Sam had pulled back from him Dean had worried what might show on his face. But he needn't have bothered. Sam had frozen, his head turned towards the outcrop, and Dean had quickly followed his lead. He'd found the Earth dragon looking at the two of them, studying them intensely, and the weirdest thing had happened.
Something had tugged on Dean's consciousness in that moment, uncoiling like a hidden spring from the back of his mind. He'd felt it stretching, growing, and the hint of a whisper echoing through his inner ear. The sort of whisper that was beyond mere human ability. And it shook him to the core.
The spell broke suddenly when Jake jumped onto the dragon's back and headed off into the sky; sleek, leathery wings carving through the air. He'd muttered some half-hearted jab at Sam, and then dragged them both towards the track home, still slightly dazed from the whole ordeal.
Dean had made a sudden detour towards another flattened area he'd discovered during his own childhood explorations, a place he'd named the 'carpet ledge' due to the unexpectedly thick mat of grass that grew there amongst the rocks. He hadn't taken anyone there before, not even the pretty girls from town that he'd tried to impress at one point or another, but he didn't mind Sam knowing about it. They'd spread out a blanket that Dean had brought in his pack, and taken out their lunch despite that they were a little early for it. The conversation had been a little awkward at first, mainly because of Dean and mainly because of his ridiculous fears, but in no time things were back to normal.
"So it was an Earth dragon, right?"
"Gold star for Sammy. Anything else your genius brain wants to share?"
"Jerk," Sam said snidely around a mouthful of sandwich.
"Bitch. But it's a good match, I reckon. The Tulleys are farmer types, it makes sense that Jake would end up with an Earth dragon. There's always some sort of deeper connection and a reason why a Rider ends up with a particular type of dragon, you know that, right? I mean, Water and Ice and Wind types are the most common, and there's still a Fire or two around. There's a lot of types that seem to have died out, though. Dunno why."
"Like what? Most of the books and stuff I've looked at only talk about the common types."
"Well, yeah, it's not like everyone knows everything about them. They're still a mystery to us common folk."
"You'll probably find out when you're Fully-Fledged and the Riders confide their secrets to you. But then you'll have to come back and tell me, okay? So I can write it down. Make my own text book."
"Whatever you say, Sammy. But, um, there are Lightning and Storm types - you've seen them around by now - Smoke types, Iron and Copper types… I think I heard dad's was a Crystal type, diamond-hard and all edges. Spat out shards of white rock that would slash you to pieces."
Sam was quiet. "I never knew that."
"Yeah, well, you didn't hear it from me, alright? But anyway, Jake's got an Earth dragon and he'll be an excellent fighter, I can tell. It'll send those Apes running before they even come close to the border."
"I've heard Uncle Bobby call them Apes before, but I don't get why?"
"Dad told me this one," Dean said, his words slightly muffled by his mouthful of lunch, "Apparently up North where the invaders come from the land is really low and flat and it rains a lot, so they basically live in the forest – hence we call them Apes 'cause they live in the jungle. But then they call us Yetis in retaliation because we live up in the mountains."
Sam nodded, finishing off his sandwich. "Fair enough, I guess."
"You are so weird, little bro."
~
His brother was always a bit of an oddball. Always preferring to have his head buried in a book rather than let Dean teach him a new hand manoeuvre, or asking questions about dragon biology when they were trying to discuss battle strategies at the dinner table, and it only got worse when he hit his teens. Their father was a stern man these days, angry more often than not, and didn't always appreciate Sam's lack of willingness to be 'all about the battle'.
Dean got used to playing mediator right quick.
Being an experienced Rider and battle commander made their father hot property, and other towns were often asking him to come and look at their fortifications, or help develop their defence mechanisms. From when Dean had been about ten years old he'd started taking jobs that required him to travel. John only dragged them along when he felt like it, which suited Sam fine since he preferred being able to consistently go to lessons and do his homework without fail, but Dean liked being able to explore the world a bit more. Even Sam enjoyed it once they got going, always taking notes and making sketches of the things they passed by.
As they got older John took more and more jobs away from their home town, and Sam became more and more adamant about staying behind. Even from a young age Sam had quite the defiant streak about him. Dean did his best to cushion the verbal blows, and thankfully he was the one person that Sam always seemed loathe to disagree with. Although, for all that he liked travelling about, Dean could agree that being stuck on the back of a horse or in the back of a wooden cart wasn't the most comfortable of experiences.
It was on one of those trips when Sam went missing for the first time.
They were in the East somewhere, as far East as they'd ever gone before (not that that was terribly far). John was off doing whatever he did, leaving Dean and Sam to their own devices. He'd seen Sam wandering off towards the mountains, but hadn't thought anything of it at the time. He often went off on his own to sketch, or make notes about the landscape, or question local Elders about their dragon knowledge. But when he'd been gone all day and all night before finally coming back to their lodgings, Dean had been livid.
Sam had laughed him off, saying he was over-reacting.
~
Dean was a few months past seventeen when Bobby told him that Elder Cain was finally going to test him. Everyone was excited for him, even John gave him a hearty slap on the back. However, while Sam was happy on his behalf – and why wouldn't he be – he was all the more disappointed by the fact that he wouldn't be allowed to go with Dean. It was the perfect opportunity for 'observation and analysis of an event both sacred and intrinsically linked to Riding'. It was a given that Sam wouldn't want to pass something like that up.
But some rules were important to maintain, so Dean did his best to be firm about it. Yet when midnight hit and Dean quietly crept from their house up towards the nearby mountain caves, he couldn't shake the suspicion that he carried an extra shadow in his wake. Dean bit his lip and tried not to let his brotherly pride get the better of him – Elder Cain was one scary sonofabitch and Dean didn't want to be on the receiving end of his wrath if he could help it.
The path up to the right cave was thankfully dotted with small pots of burning oil – what good would it do for Dean to stumble and crash in the dark only minutes before his big moment? So he tried to quell his eagerness and not rush up the path too hurriedly, but still he reached the top quick enough that he was panting. He schooled himself as he entered the cave, lit by fiery torches tucked against the walls. Cain was waiting for him as he reached the main cavern, standing behind a huge altar of polished rock. Sitting proudly in the centre of it was what looked like a giant crystal ball, except in the vague shape of an egg.
"Come," Elder Cain beckoned with a curl of his finger, "This won't take long."
He bid Dean to stand where he had been, on another fancy, circular stone which had been embedded into the floor. It brought him right up to the edge of the altar and within arm's length of the egg – from there it would be easy to reach out and touch.
"Your old man in town?" the Elder questioned.
"Nah, he's two towns west, helping them sure up a new fortification on the cliff's edge. Last attack caught some damage."
Cain nodded, his face not betraying anything, but Dean still got the impression that he wasn't pleased.
"Do you have any questions before we begin?"
Dean thought for a moment, trying to think of something Sam might want him to ask. He remembered once on one of their trips East that their dad had asked some mystical seer to read them. She'd apparently confirmed (through all her bizarre wailing and shrieking) John's hopes that Dean would be a great Rider, but that Sams' fate was not to be on the same path. Their dad had never told Sam directly, but Sam had been smart enough to figure it out. Dean had hated John that day, and hated him still for the disappointment he harboured for his youngest. In his stead, Dean did his best to encourage whatever endeavours Sam took upon himself.
"Can you tell me how… how you know when to test someone?"
The Elder's eyes were shrewd and Dean had a mind that he knew exactly what Dean was trying to accomplish.
"Alright, son, I'll bite, but just this once. And you're not to tell anyone else, understand?" His eyes wandered to somewhere at the back of the cavern before returning to Dean. "I'm of an ancient people who lived deep in the earth. There are very few of us left now, but so long as we reside within the mountains we can live to hundreds of years old. My people were innately linked to the dragons of old, could sense their emotion and converse with them. You might say we were 'as one' with them.
"The dragons of this generation are not the same. They have lost many of their old abilities. However. There are some things that remain as they were. My role, such as it is, is to listen for the calling amongst the children of our village – I heard it from you some time ago but I have waited to test you until I felt it was right. This test is a trial of your untaught strength and affinity."
"So, if this works out it means a Pledged will come for me?"
"Dean, I know instinctively that there is already a dragon's soul in existence that bears your name. I hear it calling on occasion. But neither of you are ready. These things will only come about when the time is right."
Dean nodded unthinkingly, trying to take it all in. Sam would be over the moon.
"Okay, then. Let's do this."
Cain indicated the egg. "We call this a dragon's egg, but while it is made of a dragon's belly, it is not an egg as we know it. Touch it with true intent, open your heart, and let your soul fill it up."
Exhaling, Dean shook out his limbs and cleared his mind. He gently placed his hands upon the stone and tried to put himself out there as Cain had instructed. His heart was an unsound place at the best of times – lingering scraps of his mother, shreds of his father, and full to the brim of all facets of his brother. But his intent was true, that was for sure. He'd always felt his dragon would be his saviour, and he believed it utterly. Please, please, please, don't leave me…
He blinked as the egg began to glow. The inside of the crystal was not clear, it had white-coloured seams of imperfection as any rock or gem might have, but it was still glaringly obvious when the centre of the egg began to glow red. The central light expanded, growing until the red filled the entire egg, and Dean imagined he could feel the pressure of it pushing against his hands. In fact, he wasn't imagining anything. Too soon egg began to shake, growing heavy and hot against his palms. He wanted to put it down but somehow couldn't manage to back away.
The egg continued to tremble. Until it broke.
The crystal cracked unevenly through the middle, tumbling onto the altar into two parts.
And Dean could finally step away.
Cain moved in to his side and frowned.
"That could either be very good or very bad."
"That's not exactly giving me much encouragement."
The Elder clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, I've not seen that happen for an extremely long time, so I'm not sure what to think. Get yourself home now, son. I'll call on you if and when I reach a decision."
Disheartened, Dean left the cave and stumbled down the pathway home. He found Sam leaning against a boulder about halfway along.
"Dean?"
"So you saw all—? Wait, what's wrong?"
"Dunno," Sam let his head drop to his chest, "Feel weird."
"Well, the Earth knows what kind of funky Eastern incense Cain's burning in there. Let's just go to bed. Today's been a fucking drag."
~
He didn't know what to make of it. Probably never would. And when Sam somehow fixed the egg? That just threw a whole other spanner in the works – into their already spanner-abundant life.
Dean couldn't deal. Couldn't deal with a whole week's worth of unimaginable inconceivable fuckery. So he tamped it as deep down as possible, and kept on moving.
~
Dean made sure Sam trained a little every day, even when John was away and even though he hated it on principle. At some point Sam began to help in the assault when the Apes got to close to the cliffs. He would hole himself up in one of the outlying lookouts and use complex slingshots and spears, and crossbows and arrows, all of his own making. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't, but he told Dean that the weapons themselves weren't the point. He was investigating the dragon's reactions to different attacks and materials, or some such thing.
Dean didn't pretend to understand it – they had dragons for a reason, did they not – but Sam seemed to know what he was doing so he didn't debate the point. It was only when Sam went and got himself injured that he spoke up. He wouldn't have his little brother putting himself out there with so little protection. Even their father didn't face a battle without his plated armour on. But Sam was a Winchester, and stubborn as a mule, so Dean was left to stitch him up every now and again, guiltily indulging in the chance to stare at the smooth expanses of skin and counting all the scars of the various wounds that had come before.
Out of the blue Sam asked him why he thought the enemy attacked them. Was there something they wanted? A point they were trying to make? But Dean didn't have a clue, and it wasn't exactly his job to care, so he asked Sam right back. He must have had a theory if he was bothering to ask Dean.
"I've been thinking about it a lot," Sam confessed, worrying his lip with his teeth, "The attacks have been going on as far back as any of the history books I've looked at. Although at some point our own counter attacks were lessened until they eventually stopped, which is why we're only ever on the defensive."
Dean wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that information, so he said nothing and wandered into the kitchen to start dinner.
~/S/~
Sam hadn't meant to do it. Or, not exactly. He hadn't known what he was doing, was the thing.
He'd watched the entire performance of Dean's testing from a small niche in the cavern wall, his heart in his mouth the entire time. But when the egg had broken? That's when he'd hightailed it out of there. Something about it made him feel sick, and he hadn't needed to stick around to hear Cain tell his brother that that hadn't been normal.
For days after he'd been plagued by strange dreams and sudden dizzy spells. Dean had started sharing his bed, worried about him being sick. But Sam was pretty sure he wasn't that kind of sick.
It was exactly a week later when something came over him. Some sort of feeling that compelled him to come awake in the middle of the night and step out of bed. He threw on a coat and shoes and headed out the door, not even noticing the biting chill of the night air. He headed up towards the caves, easily navigating the rocky path, and wandered straight into the cavern, right up to the altar where Dean had stood only a week before. He sensed his brother's presence somewhere behind him, but didn't acknowledge it. Instead, he looked at the broken halves of the egg and laid his hands on them, ignoring the wave of nausea that rolled over him. He pulled the halves together and willed them to fuse.
And they did.
Slowly, slowly, there was a give in the two halves and they melted back together with a snap of light.
Sam drew back from the altar and felt his knees go. But Dean caught him before he could hit the ground.
"Let's go home now, Sammy. I've got a feeling you'll be able to sleep now."
He nodded, sensing the extra pair of eyes watching them from the shadows further down in the cavern.
~
There was an attack one day where the enemy dragons got closer to the township than usual, though thankfully not close enough to do much damage. Sam sat in a nearby lookout, watching intently and making notes. Dean was going to be up there one day, soaring about on a dragon and driving it relentlessly through the battles. But before that time came Sam was going to be ready. He was going to know everything there was to know about the Pledged and he was going to make damn sure Dean won every fight, that their town would not be hurt again in the span of their lifetime.
At some point, he didn't know precisely when, Bobby joined him in the lookout hut, casually watching the fighting as if it were some spectacle of entertainment rather than what it was. Sam glanced up at him every now and then, taking in the look on his face. Where at the beginning it had been carefree and content, it gradually turned into something akin to unease.
"Bobby? You look…"
The Elder glanced down at him sombrely, arms tucked around his chest. His words were short and sharp, almost as if he were annoyed at having to talk in the first place, but Sam knew better. Bobby was all bark with rarely a bite.
"I look what, exactly, boy?"
"Umm, thoughtful? Something about the dragons on your mind, maybe?"
Bobby snorted and reached out to ruffle Sam's hair.
"If I hadn't known y' mother at all I would've wondered where y' got those smarts from, because they sure as shit weren't from y' dad. But you're right, Sam. I was thinkin' 'bout the dragons. I don't wanna say there's something wrong with 'em, but there is something wrong with 'em. Not like they're sick, exactly, but they're not quite like I remember from when I was a kid."
Sam's face scrunched up in thought, remembering what he'd heard Cain say back in the cave, but deciding to play dumb for secrecy's sake. "So they're changing over time?"
"That they are, kiddo. The ones those Apes ride seem only slightly less ferocious than ever, but ours? It's almost like they're becoming tame. They don't have the same power they used to, or the same personality, for that matter. Thankfully our lands are better protected and we've got the better battle strategies, but it's a fine line that's sittin' between us and defeat."
"Do you think… they're becoming like the Stone dragons?"
Bobby looked at him quizzically before breaking out in a sudden grin.
"You been in Rufus' study readin' his dragon lore again, haven't'cha? Well, I don’t think this is quite the same as the Stone dragons, but you know what? You keep researchin', you put that nifty brain of yours to work, you might just save us all. Dragons included."
Sam slightly resented the fact that Bobby seemed convinced he could 'save them', but at least it was some sort of acknowledgement of his efforts. And yes he had been raiding Rufus' study, including the basement where he kept all the old archives. It was the largest collection of lore and records in the whole town, and some of the older parchments had proven surprisingly insightful. The fate of the Stone dragons was one of the greater revelations he'd discovered. In the present time they were kept mostly as pack animals – bigger and more hardy than horses or donkeys, though they were considerably slower – but despite their small, residual wings, their bodies were far too heavy to fly. One of the accounts Sam had discovered seemed to infer that Stone dragons hadn't always been that way, that once upon a time they had been as fearsome in the fight as their former peers.
It was just a pity that the words were written in an older and more ambiguous version of the language, as well that the actual parchment was slightly water damaged. He couldn't quite make out one last part on the page, thus it remained a mystery whether the Stone dragons chose to become land-bound, or whether someone chose it for them.
~
His quest for knowledge was a dangerous and interminable task, so several people told him, but Sam was not to be stopped. Thankfully Rufus, the mayor's own personal scribe and chronicler for the entire own, was on his side, encouraging his thirst. He secretly gave Sam a key to his archives once he'd turned fourteen, and told him he'd be grateful if Sam could attempt to put all his mess of papers in some sort of order as he researched. And Sam was all too happy to oblige.
Eventually Sam had made it through every scrap in the archive, and his own notebooks were all the richer for it, but he still felt as though he'd been left with more questions than answers. When he'd approached Rufus to ask about other archives in other towns that might be of use, Rufus had sat him down and told him a story.
He'd said first that he didn't want Sam to go wasting away in dusty basements while he was still a kid, that he deserved to be outside running around and hanging out with his brother. But then he'd confessed that there were stories of past Elders storing books and records further up in the mountains, all secret-like. The very thought lit a fire in Sam's stomach, and stoked it for days. Just imagining what he might find if he could locate one of those secret archives was enough to drive him mad with excitement.
But time went on.
Dean began training more with the few other Fledgling Riders. On very special occasions one of the Fully-Fledged would visit to take stock of their progress and give them further instructions on what to work on. Any time it happened it would take Dean weeks to get over talking about it. And Sam – he had more time to himself than ever, and he took Rufus' story to heart. He would pack a sleeping bag, a change of clothes, and supplies, and head out into the mountains, searching for his ultimate prize.
He would only stay gone for a couple of days at a time, not wanting to alarm Dean just in case he got a break from training and came home. His caution paid off for the most part, but it often meant cutting short his explorations when he knew he should really be going further, not stopping.
He did it for Dean, though, turning around at the very last minute and heading back to town.
Sam came back empty handed every time, the feeling never leaving him that his fingertips were just brushing the surface, only needing to take the time to dig. But it was worth it for some of the scenes he came back to – Dean sparring with one of the other Fledglings, sometimes hand-to-hand or sometimes with a weapon or two, always in a light shirt that would cling to the sweat beading on his skin. It was like his brother was putting on a show, taunting him with his lithe limbs and expert skill, and Sam liked to pretend that it was just for him.
Barely into his teen years and already capable of such possessiveness. Sam didn't rightly recall when it started or when his desire had grown so strong, only that it was.
He would make a point of not letting himself be seen straight away, sneaking home to put all his gear away first. Then he'd go back to the training grounds, or else wait there in the house for Dean to return – either way he got to see that bright spark flare in Dean's eyes when he would catch sight of Sam and start yammering away incessantly about all the things he'd learned. On the odd occasion, however, Sam would decide to keep himself hidden for a while longer. It was just an experiment, to see what might happen, but after all the times he'd been disappointed by the result, one would think he should know better. But hey, he was a teenager with a tainted heart, what did you expect?
Sam tried not to hate on the pretty girls that would come up to sweaty, post-sparring Dean and flutter their eyelashes at him. He got it completely, and couldn't blame them one bit. If he were in their position he'd probably do the same. And he got that Dean was more of a people person, that he needed the attention. He'd seen Dean kissing girls now and again, and Dean had talked about the times he'd done something more with them, but only when it was just the two of them and it was late at night with the lights already out.
Sam's quest for knowledge was what got him through. It was the only thing encompassing enough to keep his thoughts focussed and steady enough to stop him from falling into a slump of desperation.
It was one of those slumps that finally caught him unawares, prompting him to lose track of time completely whilst on one of his treks. He didn't mean to do it as such, but he hadn't taken his usual care to keep track of the time. It was just that he could feel it, calling to him, bidding him to go further…
He'd been gone nearly four days once he finally returned. Dean was beside himself, angry and crazed and holding Sam close in his arms, and he made Sam promise.
He promised.
~
John took more and more trips, farther and farther away. To the point where Sam could barely remember when the last time he saw him was.
Eventually there came an instance where he didn't come back.
Sam and Dean were on their own, completely. Not that Sam minded so much. He didn't wish his father ill, but their fights had gotten more poisonous lately, and Sam saw the toll it took on Dean and his constant, fruitless efforts to keep things smooth between them.
Weeks later Dean muttered something about a woman and a town several days ride away. At least he was alive, Sam supposed.
~/D/~
Part two ==>>
Author:
hybridshadeArtist:
dracox_serdrielFandom: Supernatural
Characters/Pairing: Sam/Dean, John, Bobby, Rufus, Ellen, Cain, Castiel etc.
Genre: fantasy, angst
Rating: nc17
Warnings: angst, sibling incest, mild violence and injury, underage kissing, very slight dubcon due to circumstances of depression, magical healing cock
Word count: ~14.7k
Summary: Dean is born and raised with the pressure of becoming the greatest of Riders always hanging over him. But when the big day comes and his destined Pledged Dragon doesn't show, Sam proves he will go to the ends of the Earth to make it right again, if only for the sake of his brother.
A/N: Minibang written for the
scifibigbangLink to Story: Part 1 - Part 2 on LJ, or on AO3
Link to Media: Here on AO3
The finer moments of Sam's short life could probably be condensed into just a small handful of memories. All of them involved either Dean or dragons or both, because it felt as if those things were all he really knew. Write them down, recount them verbally, and you would probably have everything you needed to know about him, all neatly wrapped up and tied with a bow.
It was a little disheartening to think he wasn't more than the sum of his parts - or, at least, that was the way Sam felt about the matter. He'd followed those two near-parallel paths – Dean and dragons – without ever really straying, and he didn't physically have a whole lot to show for it. His father had always expected him to be Dean-Part-Two, a born Rider destined for the history books, but once he'd shown no innate proclivity for it (no thanks to some crazed mystic-woman they'd once come across) John had never been able to look him in the eye again without that tell-tale shine of disappointment.
As a kid, Bobby had always encouraged him and teased him with equal measure, like the sort of father Sam imagined he deserved to have. But even in his encouragement Sam had still recognised the great expectations of his pseudo-uncle. Sure, Sam was aware that he was smart, more clever than almost anyone he knew, but he was also aware that Bobby silently waited for him to make the greatest of discoveries, the revelation of a lifetime, and Sam had felt the pressure of it ever breathing down his neck.
Dean, though. Dean had never added to the weight on Sam's shoulders, not directly. Rather, he'd saved it for himself. Heaped it on like he could carry anything, no matter how damning. Sam begrudged him for it at times, the way he so easily appeared to shrug things off even when Sam knew he just buried them too far down for people to see - at least until the weight had eventually broken him. But then Sam was also grateful that his brother had always tried to protect him the way he did – without expectation. It was Sam's own downfall that he himself was too earnest to be a good liar, too resolved in his intentions, too determined to 'fix' Dean and save him from himself. Sam was an open book where that was concerned.
There was one secret he did manage to keep for himself, however. At least for a time. He'd spilled it once after Dean had been injured in an attack, while his hands had been painted in his brother's blood, fingers slipping as he'd tried to staunch the bleeding. That moment's falter had proven to be both the greatest and worst thing he'd even let fall from his lips. Things had changed between them after that slip. Brotherly touches becoming something so much more - both beautiful and terrible all at once.
Perhaps it had all been means to an end.
Where he was now, all Sam could see were the tops of his boots, the rocky ledge he stood on, and the endless black abyss that stretched out beyond. All he could hear were the seams of hot wind whipping around him, and the heavy thudding of his own heart.
The only way out was forward.
The abyss called to him.
~/S/~
The first attack Sam remembered ever bearing witness to was one that he didn't even see.
Instead he remembered the noise. The town bells ringing, the rumble of people as they left their houses to hurry to their posts, the yelling of the battle commanders…
Sam had been frightened of all the commotion and he'd clung to Dean's arm as their father had stood from his half-eaten dinner and gone to dress himself in some strange metal-plated outfit, leaving with barely a wave goodbye. Sam didn't let go of Dean the whole time, curling himself into a tight ball against his brother's side while they waited it out. Dean assured him repeatedly that there was nothing to worry about, but the subsequent screaming and the crackle of fire told him otherwise.
It wasn't until he heard the screeching wail of a dragon that he dared to raise his head. He'd never known anything like it, and he could feel it all the way down to his toes.
~
The next attack was half a year later in the middle of the summer, though it was still cool in their mountain village, just like it always was. The enemies came while it was still light out, and once they were sure their father was gone, Dean led him to a secret lookout where they could watch the battle without being spotted. Their attackers always came from the North, Dean told him, so they were always at a disadvantage because of the rocky cliff face that bordered the North-facing edge of their land, dropping straight down into the icy sea.
The enemy arrived riding a spearhead of eight dragons – some black, some dark blue, some cloudy grey, and all of them practically aglow with power. Sam had started to worry as they flew closer and closer, their piercing shrieks carrying from far off, but then he'd sensed the prickle of awareness on the back of his neck and the subsequent blast of air had nearly toppled him over.
There, hovering above the surrounding mountains, were five more dragons. Five Pledged of their own.
Dean had told him the South had proper dragons too, just like the North, and Sam had known it to be true since just about everyone talked about them. But that was his first instance of laying eyes on them and he could scarcely believe they were real. Unlike the much smaller, tamer, Stone dragons that he saw around town from day to day, these creatures looked as big as the mountains that they slept beneath. Not to mention more diverse in colour. The pale blue one that hovered nearest to them was crackling with raw energy, snaps of light curling around its nostrils and mouth. It was ready and raring to go, tail whipping around viciously, desperate to let loose on the enemy. But the Rider held it fast, digging her heels into its sides.
"I'm gonna be up there one day, Sammy," Dean said, a wondrous smile on his face.
Sam's response was drowned out by a sudden high-pitched whistle and the subsequent screeching of dragons. His hair blew right across his face as the beating of giant wings stirred up a strong breeze, and he barely remembered to breathe as he watched the ensuing battle break out over the ocean below, torrents of fire and lightning and wind and ice tearing across the sky.
Maybe I'll be up there one day, too, he thought to himself, too young to know any better.
~
Attacks were anywhere from a few months to a few years apart, though the townspeople were always ready to dash to their posts at a moment's notice. Dean was ten when their father first started teaching him how to fight (he was going to be a Rider one day, after all) and he took to it like a duck to water. He showed Sam every time he learned a neat new move, and showed off his bruises as if they were badges of honour. From then on, and especially whenever their father was around, that was all they ever seemed to talk about – fighting and battles and dragons and fighting dragons and fighting on dragons and strategy, strategy, strategy.
Sam didn't care so much for the fighting, as such, though he didn't mind letting Dean instruct him on how to throw a decent punch or kick, but it was the dragons themselves that Sam couldn't learn enough about. John only put up with his relentless questioning when he was in an amenable mood, which was hardly ever, though he didn't hesitate to correct Sam if he made an incorrect statement during a discussion over the dinner table. And so, Sam managed to make quite a lot of marginally incorrect statements, just to be sure.
Only once did he ever ask his father how he knew so much about dragons. John had looked at him blankly before his entire body seemed to shut down, expression clouding over like a storm gathering over the sea. He'd left after a drawn-out minute with nary a word and Sam didn't see him again for several days.
Whilst their father was gone Dean had led Sam into John's room, pulling out several thick books from the back of his wardrobe. Dean made him promise that he would never let John know that they'd been in there or anything of what he was about to see, and then Dean opened one of the books to reveal pages and pages of faded black and white photographs. Sam barely recognised the clean-shaven version of his father, but he did recognise his mother, having only ever seen her in photographs before. The pictures were mainly them, together or apart, but sometimes with one or two others, and always wearing well-worked leather gear – the same sort Riders wore.
All was explained when Sam turned a page to find his father standing before a giant dragon – seemingly bigger than any he'd seen before. The photograph could only tell him that it was light in colour and shiny like a silver penny, but more than anything Sam was just shocked to see his father's face smiling so openly.
"Dad and his dragon were the strongest team in a millennium, Sammy," Dean whispered, as if they might suddenly be discovered if he spoke any louder, "They say everyone was shocked when mum married dad 'cause Riders don't usually get married. I mean, they don't even come into town, y'know? They're usually loners and only hang out with other Riders."
Sam pondered for a moment. He'd thought nothing of it before Dean brought it up, but it was true that as soon as someone became a Fully-Fledged Rider they seemed to be spirited away by the other ones, only to be seen again during an attack and with their dragon beneath them. "Is it 'cause of the bond?"
"Guess so. Auntie Ellen told me that a Pledged bond fills up your heart so much that it's hard to fit anyone else in there as well. And they're so mysterious, the Riders… Probably got millions of secrets, right?"
"Yeah, probably. But that means you'll get to learn all their secrets and hang out with them when you get your dragon, right, Dean?"
Dean's eyes sparkled a moment before he schooled himself back into seriousness. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves – I haven't even been tested yet. I mean, I've got a good chance since dad's a Rider, and since that crazy lady prophesised it that one time, but that's not like it's a guarantee, is it?"
"Actually, from what I've read it seems it's more likely to be passed down through the mother's side… But, hey, if that crazy lady said it..."
Glancing down, Sam stared at the album lying open on the floor. "Was mum a Rider, then? She's wearing Riding leathers in that picture."
"I dunno, Sammy," Dean sighed, ruffling Sam's hair, "I tried researching that one on my own once. There's no pictures of her with any dragon, there's no register of her being a Rider or having a dragon, and all I could really find was that she was from out of town. I know some people were a bit suspicious of her 'cause of that, but whether it means she was registered elsewhere… Who's to say?"
"But, then…" Sam swallowed, "Why'd she die, Dean? No one ever tells me anythin' but that it was an accident. And I know you know something, so don't lie to me."
Dean was quiet for a moment before clearing his throat. "Look, I dunno everything, 'kay? But a while back I managed to get Auntie Ellen to spill some and she told me that there was a surprise attack one day – two really strong fire-breathers breached the Northern border and razed and burned the town hall and some houses. You wouldn't remember it, but back then we were living further out from town, up towards the cliffs. Dad managed to call his dragon down in time and they battled up on the hillside. But it was two against one and the other Riders couldn't get there quick enough. The house caught on fire. Dad had to leave the battle to get both of us out. All that was left behind was a pile of ashes and bones."
"You remember it?"
"Not much." Dean looked solemn, and suddenly pulled Sam against his shoulder. "Just dad putting you in my arms, all wrapped in blankets, and telling me to run. You were crying, and I was coughing from the smoke. But I just did what I was told and ran – didn't look back. I knew something was wrong but anything more than that never occurred to me, y'know?"
"Well, you were four. It's not like you could've done much anyway."
"I s'pose."
"So what happened to dad's dragon?"
"Dunno. No one knows. Some thought it burned. Others thought it fell over the cliff and into the ocean. There's no way to know… Really, dad was lucky to survive."
Sam snorted. "I don't reckon he feels lucky."
Nothing about his parents or the circumstances of that day sat right with Sam following Dean's revelation. The idea of his mother's death would likely haunt him until the day he died.
~
Sam tried to squeeze something out of Bobby one day soon after, asking him why his father came to live in the town while none of the other Riders ever did.
All he got was a 'Boy, your daddy has never done anything by the book, nor did your mother for that matter. But John will follow those warped instincts of his 'til it kills him.'
~
It was the day of the Winter Solstice when Dean dragged him out of the house at some ungodly hour, the sun not yet peeking over the horizon. They took a precarious trail up the side of a rocky slope and ended up on a large outcrop that looked out into some kind of chasm formed between two mountains. Sam took a careful glance down, feeling a rush of hot, foul smelling air whack him in the face. The chasm stretched so far below that Sam couldn't see any end to it, but he figured it had to go pretty damn deep into the earth if there was hot air coming out of it.
Dean pulled him back as a slightly familiar young man joined them on the outcrop, three others following closely behind him. Only the young man remained near the edge while the rest of them moved back as far as they were able, and just as the sun's first rays started reach up into the sky, golden fingers stretching toward the heavens, there came a sudden rumbling from beneath the ground.
"That's one of the Talley boys – Jake. He turned twenty last month—"
"He's a Rider?" Sam looked up in surprise. Usually he was able to keep tabs on these things, but the Talleys kept to themselves a lot, so he supposed it wasn't beyond reasoning that only very few people knew.
"Yep. First one in the Talley family for near two hundred years, Bobby said. I know you've peeked in the public records, so you've probably noticed that recent numbers aren't the same as in the past. Used t' be that Riders were one in a thousand, but Bobby reckons it's one in every two thousand now. It might be a while before we see another Fledgling take their first flight."
"You're gonna be one of them though, right? The next one might be you!"
"You betcha, Sammy."
The rumbling only grew louder and more intense as the sun rose, the ground beneath their feet trembling like an earthquake. Jake stood at the very edge of the outcrop, his toes poking out into mid-air. He let go a pained grunt, seeming to stagger precariously where he stood, one hand clutching at his chest. Sam gasped and took a step forward, ready to run and grab him should he begin to fall, but Dean held him back, his grip firm.
Then suddenly a column of thick dust shot up from the depths of the chasm below, more hot, fetid air in its wake, and the blood-curdling shriek of a dragon followed close behind. The mountainside they stood upon shook ever harder, as if it might blow its top and erupt with a scorching stream of lava, but a mere second later and the gigantic body of a forest-green dragon appeared before them, flapping its expansive wings and then settling on the edge of the outcrop right at Jake's feet. Jake leapt toward it like a touch-starved man and the dragon sniffed playfully at him, amiably nudging his shoulder with its snout.
It was almost a shock to see something so large and surrounded with such an aura of danger to act in such a gentle way. Jake and the dragon seemed to be petting each other, standing in as much of a brotherly embrace as a man and dragon could achieve. There was an instant connection, even a kid like Sam didn't have to look too hard to see it, and his own heart cried out for the chance to connect with something or someone on such a profound level one day. He could only hope.
"They're bonding," Dean whispered under his breath, low enough that only Sam was close enough to hear.
Sam turned to his brother, about to ask some question or another, but found himself hesitating at the unfamiliar look he could see on Dean's face. It was the look of a man stranded in the desert, watching as his last sip of water evaporated away in front of him. It was a look of both wonder and desolation. And something inside Sam seemed to break.
"Are you gonna leave me?"
He couldn't stop the words from leaving his mouth, and he slapped himself internally for asking something so selfish.
Dean's head still whipped around so fast Sam worried he might snap his neck. "What? Why would you ask that?"
"When you become a Fully-Fledged Rider…" Sam swallowed, half-dreading the answer, but he pushed on regardless, "When you get your dragon, are you gonna go off with the other Riders? Aren't you gonna live in the mountains with them? Share all their secrets?"
Hands angled him around so Dean could grip both his shoulders and look him dead in the eye.
"I'm not gonna leave you, Sammy, no matter what. Remember what I told you that Auntie Ellen said about Rider's hearts? Well, you're already in there, little bro, so whatever big ass dragon I end up Pledged to is just gonna have to learn to share." The heat in Dean's eyes didn't dim, but his lips did curl into a slight smirk. "Besides, I'm a Winchester. And since when do we Winchesters do anything by the rules?"
Before Sam could respond he was pulled into a hug. He squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in Dean's smell – soap and sweat and spice. It was comforting. And it gave him hope that Dean would be the kind of rogue Rider to do things his own way. It was more than a little bit true that none of them were the sort to take the easy road.
Sam was halfway to pulling out of the hug when he noticed that Dean had tensed. He stopped in kind, taking a split second to notice that Dean's breath was puffing against his cheek, his lips only a hairsbreadth away, but for whatever reason he didn't flinch. Rather, he was caught by the prickling of something creeping up his spine. He turned, toward where Jake and his dragon still lingered in his periphery, and found the dragon not looking at Jake as he'd expected, but instead at himself and Dean. Its nostrils flared, yellow-y eyes blinking, and Sam could sense the intelligence behind them, the awareness of it considering them, weighing them up. His stomach seemed to momentarily plummet down toward his feet, but then Jake was patting the creature's chest and leaping onto its back, the two of them suddenly dashing off into the sky without a second thought.
"Musta thought you looked pretty, Sammy," Dean joked stiltedly, before grabbing his hand and leading them back toward home.
~/D/~
They say your memories from when you're a child are always skewed in some way and never as accurate as they might seem. Dean agreed that he couldn't remember much from before the age of six, but there were two particular memories that he still recalled as clear as day.
The first was the day his brother was born. He remembered sitting with Uncle Bobby in the lounge room of the Mills' house, which served as the town clinic-slash-hospital. He remembered hearing his mother's screams from the next room, and Bobby patting his shoulder telling him not to worry, that it was normal. All the commotion seemed to die down, however, when there came the sudden cry of a baby, and Dean's heart had fluttered brightly in his chest.
He remembered looking up at Bobby and saying with complete and utter conviction that he had a brother now and that he was going to be as skinny as a rake, and then the look of Bobby's slack-jawed face when John had poked his head out a moment later to tell them it was a boy had etched itself into his brain. He remembered thinking that he was going to take care of his brother, no matter what, even if he was a beanpole. And so far he'd been right.
And then there was that second memory – this time it was one that disturbed him rather than prompting him to well up with joy.
It was the look on Auntie Ellen's face that had told him everything. Not even her words had had the same effect as her expression. He'd known his dad went off to fight the invading dragons sometimes and he'd known it was dangerous – how could it not be when they breathed fire and ice and dust and shards of rock and lightning? But he'd never really understood the ultimate threat of that danger until suddenly his mother wasn't going to be around anymore. His father was in the clinic for weeks after that, despite that they insisted he wasn't badly injured, and Ellen temporarily took he and Sammy in to look after them. But even once John was out of the clinic, even once they'd moved into a new shack at the other edge of town, even once John was back at home and their primary carer again, it still never really felt like he was actually there.
For a long time he was more ghost than father. Haunting them.
~
The Winter Solstice when he dragged Sam up to The Bridge was always a moment that stuck out in his mind.
John had dragged him to a First Flight once years before, just the two of them, but he'd been too young and still too enamoured by the mere thought of dragons to have really understood what was going on at the time. He couldn't even remember who the Rider was, or whether he'd ever even seen them again.
But that time with Sam he was always going to remember, and for all-round conflicting reasons. He recalled Sam's excitement – as well as his own – as they'd climbed up to the outcrop, day packs slung over their shoulders, despite the early hour and the chilled air. It hadn't been long before the shaking had started, strong enough that they would have felt it down in the township without any trouble, and then the blast of gritty dust that had told Dean immediately that Jake was getting an Earth dragon. He might not have known the Talley's all that well, but he knew enough to think that it was a fitting match for Jake.
He remembered the overwhelming pull he'd felt once the dragon had appeared, the longing of his heart to have one of his own. He'd watched the bonding with avid fascination – the connection forming through their touch, the innate knowledge of each other passing through skin and scales.
But he'd been torn from the moment by Sam's soft words, and they'd ripped at him deeper than he'd ever imagined was possible. The thought of ever leaving Sam, of ever not seeing him again, wounded him horribly. He had no idea what the future held, but a future without his little brother was not an acceptable one. His father was a rebel. Dean would fight the system too, if it ever came to that. He'd pulled Sam into his arms, then. The kid was growing up fast, only twelve and already edging towards the height of Dean's nose. But the sensation of his breath on Dean's neck, the straight-up heat of him, was the first instance of his life that he'd though of his brother in a less than wholesome way. It felt right and sick and it tore him up all over again.
When Sam had pulled back from him Dean had worried what might show on his face. But he needn't have bothered. Sam had frozen, his head turned towards the outcrop, and Dean had quickly followed his lead. He'd found the Earth dragon looking at the two of them, studying them intensely, and the weirdest thing had happened.
Something had tugged on Dean's consciousness in that moment, uncoiling like a hidden spring from the back of his mind. He'd felt it stretching, growing, and the hint of a whisper echoing through his inner ear. The sort of whisper that was beyond mere human ability. And it shook him to the core.
The spell broke suddenly when Jake jumped onto the dragon's back and headed off into the sky; sleek, leathery wings carving through the air. He'd muttered some half-hearted jab at Sam, and then dragged them both towards the track home, still slightly dazed from the whole ordeal.
Dean had made a sudden detour towards another flattened area he'd discovered during his own childhood explorations, a place he'd named the 'carpet ledge' due to the unexpectedly thick mat of grass that grew there amongst the rocks. He hadn't taken anyone there before, not even the pretty girls from town that he'd tried to impress at one point or another, but he didn't mind Sam knowing about it. They'd spread out a blanket that Dean had brought in his pack, and taken out their lunch despite that they were a little early for it. The conversation had been a little awkward at first, mainly because of Dean and mainly because of his ridiculous fears, but in no time things were back to normal.
"So it was an Earth dragon, right?"
"Gold star for Sammy. Anything else your genius brain wants to share?"
"Jerk," Sam said snidely around a mouthful of sandwich.
"Bitch. But it's a good match, I reckon. The Tulleys are farmer types, it makes sense that Jake would end up with an Earth dragon. There's always some sort of deeper connection and a reason why a Rider ends up with a particular type of dragon, you know that, right? I mean, Water and Ice and Wind types are the most common, and there's still a Fire or two around. There's a lot of types that seem to have died out, though. Dunno why."
"Like what? Most of the books and stuff I've looked at only talk about the common types."
"Well, yeah, it's not like everyone knows everything about them. They're still a mystery to us common folk."
"You'll probably find out when you're Fully-Fledged and the Riders confide their secrets to you. But then you'll have to come back and tell me, okay? So I can write it down. Make my own text book."
"Whatever you say, Sammy. But, um, there are Lightning and Storm types - you've seen them around by now - Smoke types, Iron and Copper types… I think I heard dad's was a Crystal type, diamond-hard and all edges. Spat out shards of white rock that would slash you to pieces."
Sam was quiet. "I never knew that."
"Yeah, well, you didn't hear it from me, alright? But anyway, Jake's got an Earth dragon and he'll be an excellent fighter, I can tell. It'll send those Apes running before they even come close to the border."
"I've heard Uncle Bobby call them Apes before, but I don't get why?"
"Dad told me this one," Dean said, his words slightly muffled by his mouthful of lunch, "Apparently up North where the invaders come from the land is really low and flat and it rains a lot, so they basically live in the forest – hence we call them Apes 'cause they live in the jungle. But then they call us Yetis in retaliation because we live up in the mountains."
Sam nodded, finishing off his sandwich. "Fair enough, I guess."
"You are so weird, little bro."
~
His brother was always a bit of an oddball. Always preferring to have his head buried in a book rather than let Dean teach him a new hand manoeuvre, or asking questions about dragon biology when they were trying to discuss battle strategies at the dinner table, and it only got worse when he hit his teens. Their father was a stern man these days, angry more often than not, and didn't always appreciate Sam's lack of willingness to be 'all about the battle'.
Dean got used to playing mediator right quick.
Being an experienced Rider and battle commander made their father hot property, and other towns were often asking him to come and look at their fortifications, or help develop their defence mechanisms. From when Dean had been about ten years old he'd started taking jobs that required him to travel. John only dragged them along when he felt like it, which suited Sam fine since he preferred being able to consistently go to lessons and do his homework without fail, but Dean liked being able to explore the world a bit more. Even Sam enjoyed it once they got going, always taking notes and making sketches of the things they passed by.
As they got older John took more and more jobs away from their home town, and Sam became more and more adamant about staying behind. Even from a young age Sam had quite the defiant streak about him. Dean did his best to cushion the verbal blows, and thankfully he was the one person that Sam always seemed loathe to disagree with. Although, for all that he liked travelling about, Dean could agree that being stuck on the back of a horse or in the back of a wooden cart wasn't the most comfortable of experiences.
It was on one of those trips when Sam went missing for the first time.
They were in the East somewhere, as far East as they'd ever gone before (not that that was terribly far). John was off doing whatever he did, leaving Dean and Sam to their own devices. He'd seen Sam wandering off towards the mountains, but hadn't thought anything of it at the time. He often went off on his own to sketch, or make notes about the landscape, or question local Elders about their dragon knowledge. But when he'd been gone all day and all night before finally coming back to their lodgings, Dean had been livid.
Sam had laughed him off, saying he was over-reacting.
~
Dean was a few months past seventeen when Bobby told him that Elder Cain was finally going to test him. Everyone was excited for him, even John gave him a hearty slap on the back. However, while Sam was happy on his behalf – and why wouldn't he be – he was all the more disappointed by the fact that he wouldn't be allowed to go with Dean. It was the perfect opportunity for 'observation and analysis of an event both sacred and intrinsically linked to Riding'. It was a given that Sam wouldn't want to pass something like that up.
But some rules were important to maintain, so Dean did his best to be firm about it. Yet when midnight hit and Dean quietly crept from their house up towards the nearby mountain caves, he couldn't shake the suspicion that he carried an extra shadow in his wake. Dean bit his lip and tried not to let his brotherly pride get the better of him – Elder Cain was one scary sonofabitch and Dean didn't want to be on the receiving end of his wrath if he could help it.
The path up to the right cave was thankfully dotted with small pots of burning oil – what good would it do for Dean to stumble and crash in the dark only minutes before his big moment? So he tried to quell his eagerness and not rush up the path too hurriedly, but still he reached the top quick enough that he was panting. He schooled himself as he entered the cave, lit by fiery torches tucked against the walls. Cain was waiting for him as he reached the main cavern, standing behind a huge altar of polished rock. Sitting proudly in the centre of it was what looked like a giant crystal ball, except in the vague shape of an egg.
"Come," Elder Cain beckoned with a curl of his finger, "This won't take long."
He bid Dean to stand where he had been, on another fancy, circular stone which had been embedded into the floor. It brought him right up to the edge of the altar and within arm's length of the egg – from there it would be easy to reach out and touch.
"Your old man in town?" the Elder questioned.
"Nah, he's two towns west, helping them sure up a new fortification on the cliff's edge. Last attack caught some damage."
Cain nodded, his face not betraying anything, but Dean still got the impression that he wasn't pleased.
"Do you have any questions before we begin?"
Dean thought for a moment, trying to think of something Sam might want him to ask. He remembered once on one of their trips East that their dad had asked some mystical seer to read them. She'd apparently confirmed (through all her bizarre wailing and shrieking) John's hopes that Dean would be a great Rider, but that Sams' fate was not to be on the same path. Their dad had never told Sam directly, but Sam had been smart enough to figure it out. Dean had hated John that day, and hated him still for the disappointment he harboured for his youngest. In his stead, Dean did his best to encourage whatever endeavours Sam took upon himself.
"Can you tell me how… how you know when to test someone?"
The Elder's eyes were shrewd and Dean had a mind that he knew exactly what Dean was trying to accomplish.
"Alright, son, I'll bite, but just this once. And you're not to tell anyone else, understand?" His eyes wandered to somewhere at the back of the cavern before returning to Dean. "I'm of an ancient people who lived deep in the earth. There are very few of us left now, but so long as we reside within the mountains we can live to hundreds of years old. My people were innately linked to the dragons of old, could sense their emotion and converse with them. You might say we were 'as one' with them.
"The dragons of this generation are not the same. They have lost many of their old abilities. However. There are some things that remain as they were. My role, such as it is, is to listen for the calling amongst the children of our village – I heard it from you some time ago but I have waited to test you until I felt it was right. This test is a trial of your untaught strength and affinity."
"So, if this works out it means a Pledged will come for me?"
"Dean, I know instinctively that there is already a dragon's soul in existence that bears your name. I hear it calling on occasion. But neither of you are ready. These things will only come about when the time is right."
Dean nodded unthinkingly, trying to take it all in. Sam would be over the moon.
"Okay, then. Let's do this."
Cain indicated the egg. "We call this a dragon's egg, but while it is made of a dragon's belly, it is not an egg as we know it. Touch it with true intent, open your heart, and let your soul fill it up."
Exhaling, Dean shook out his limbs and cleared his mind. He gently placed his hands upon the stone and tried to put himself out there as Cain had instructed. His heart was an unsound place at the best of times – lingering scraps of his mother, shreds of his father, and full to the brim of all facets of his brother. But his intent was true, that was for sure. He'd always felt his dragon would be his saviour, and he believed it utterly. Please, please, please, don't leave me…
He blinked as the egg began to glow. The inside of the crystal was not clear, it had white-coloured seams of imperfection as any rock or gem might have, but it was still glaringly obvious when the centre of the egg began to glow red. The central light expanded, growing until the red filled the entire egg, and Dean imagined he could feel the pressure of it pushing against his hands. In fact, he wasn't imagining anything. Too soon egg began to shake, growing heavy and hot against his palms. He wanted to put it down but somehow couldn't manage to back away.
The egg continued to tremble. Until it broke.
The crystal cracked unevenly through the middle, tumbling onto the altar into two parts.
And Dean could finally step away.
Cain moved in to his side and frowned.
"That could either be very good or very bad."
"That's not exactly giving me much encouragement."
The Elder clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, I've not seen that happen for an extremely long time, so I'm not sure what to think. Get yourself home now, son. I'll call on you if and when I reach a decision."
Disheartened, Dean left the cave and stumbled down the pathway home. He found Sam leaning against a boulder about halfway along.
"Dean?"
"So you saw all—? Wait, what's wrong?"
"Dunno," Sam let his head drop to his chest, "Feel weird."
"Well, the Earth knows what kind of funky Eastern incense Cain's burning in there. Let's just go to bed. Today's been a fucking drag."
~
He didn't know what to make of it. Probably never would. And when Sam somehow fixed the egg? That just threw a whole other spanner in the works – into their already spanner-abundant life.
Dean couldn't deal. Couldn't deal with a whole week's worth of unimaginable inconceivable fuckery. So he tamped it as deep down as possible, and kept on moving.
~
Dean made sure Sam trained a little every day, even when John was away and even though he hated it on principle. At some point Sam began to help in the assault when the Apes got to close to the cliffs. He would hole himself up in one of the outlying lookouts and use complex slingshots and spears, and crossbows and arrows, all of his own making. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't, but he told Dean that the weapons themselves weren't the point. He was investigating the dragon's reactions to different attacks and materials, or some such thing.
Dean didn't pretend to understand it – they had dragons for a reason, did they not – but Sam seemed to know what he was doing so he didn't debate the point. It was only when Sam went and got himself injured that he spoke up. He wouldn't have his little brother putting himself out there with so little protection. Even their father didn't face a battle without his plated armour on. But Sam was a Winchester, and stubborn as a mule, so Dean was left to stitch him up every now and again, guiltily indulging in the chance to stare at the smooth expanses of skin and counting all the scars of the various wounds that had come before.
Out of the blue Sam asked him why he thought the enemy attacked them. Was there something they wanted? A point they were trying to make? But Dean didn't have a clue, and it wasn't exactly his job to care, so he asked Sam right back. He must have had a theory if he was bothering to ask Dean.
"I've been thinking about it a lot," Sam confessed, worrying his lip with his teeth, "The attacks have been going on as far back as any of the history books I've looked at. Although at some point our own counter attacks were lessened until they eventually stopped, which is why we're only ever on the defensive."
Dean wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that information, so he said nothing and wandered into the kitchen to start dinner.
~/S/~
Sam hadn't meant to do it. Or, not exactly. He hadn't known what he was doing, was the thing.
He'd watched the entire performance of Dean's testing from a small niche in the cavern wall, his heart in his mouth the entire time. But when the egg had broken? That's when he'd hightailed it out of there. Something about it made him feel sick, and he hadn't needed to stick around to hear Cain tell his brother that that hadn't been normal.
For days after he'd been plagued by strange dreams and sudden dizzy spells. Dean had started sharing his bed, worried about him being sick. But Sam was pretty sure he wasn't that kind of sick.
It was exactly a week later when something came over him. Some sort of feeling that compelled him to come awake in the middle of the night and step out of bed. He threw on a coat and shoes and headed out the door, not even noticing the biting chill of the night air. He headed up towards the caves, easily navigating the rocky path, and wandered straight into the cavern, right up to the altar where Dean had stood only a week before. He sensed his brother's presence somewhere behind him, but didn't acknowledge it. Instead, he looked at the broken halves of the egg and laid his hands on them, ignoring the wave of nausea that rolled over him. He pulled the halves together and willed them to fuse.
And they did.
Slowly, slowly, there was a give in the two halves and they melted back together with a snap of light.
Sam drew back from the altar and felt his knees go. But Dean caught him before he could hit the ground.
"Let's go home now, Sammy. I've got a feeling you'll be able to sleep now."
He nodded, sensing the extra pair of eyes watching them from the shadows further down in the cavern.
~
There was an attack one day where the enemy dragons got closer to the township than usual, though thankfully not close enough to do much damage. Sam sat in a nearby lookout, watching intently and making notes. Dean was going to be up there one day, soaring about on a dragon and driving it relentlessly through the battles. But before that time came Sam was going to be ready. He was going to know everything there was to know about the Pledged and he was going to make damn sure Dean won every fight, that their town would not be hurt again in the span of their lifetime.
At some point, he didn't know precisely when, Bobby joined him in the lookout hut, casually watching the fighting as if it were some spectacle of entertainment rather than what it was. Sam glanced up at him every now and then, taking in the look on his face. Where at the beginning it had been carefree and content, it gradually turned into something akin to unease.
"Bobby? You look…"
The Elder glanced down at him sombrely, arms tucked around his chest. His words were short and sharp, almost as if he were annoyed at having to talk in the first place, but Sam knew better. Bobby was all bark with rarely a bite.
"I look what, exactly, boy?"
"Umm, thoughtful? Something about the dragons on your mind, maybe?"
Bobby snorted and reached out to ruffle Sam's hair.
"If I hadn't known y' mother at all I would've wondered where y' got those smarts from, because they sure as shit weren't from y' dad. But you're right, Sam. I was thinkin' 'bout the dragons. I don't wanna say there's something wrong with 'em, but there is something wrong with 'em. Not like they're sick, exactly, but they're not quite like I remember from when I was a kid."
Sam's face scrunched up in thought, remembering what he'd heard Cain say back in the cave, but deciding to play dumb for secrecy's sake. "So they're changing over time?"
"That they are, kiddo. The ones those Apes ride seem only slightly less ferocious than ever, but ours? It's almost like they're becoming tame. They don't have the same power they used to, or the same personality, for that matter. Thankfully our lands are better protected and we've got the better battle strategies, but it's a fine line that's sittin' between us and defeat."
"Do you think… they're becoming like the Stone dragons?"
Bobby looked at him quizzically before breaking out in a sudden grin.
"You been in Rufus' study readin' his dragon lore again, haven't'cha? Well, I don’t think this is quite the same as the Stone dragons, but you know what? You keep researchin', you put that nifty brain of yours to work, you might just save us all. Dragons included."
Sam slightly resented the fact that Bobby seemed convinced he could 'save them', but at least it was some sort of acknowledgement of his efforts. And yes he had been raiding Rufus' study, including the basement where he kept all the old archives. It was the largest collection of lore and records in the whole town, and some of the older parchments had proven surprisingly insightful. The fate of the Stone dragons was one of the greater revelations he'd discovered. In the present time they were kept mostly as pack animals – bigger and more hardy than horses or donkeys, though they were considerably slower – but despite their small, residual wings, their bodies were far too heavy to fly. One of the accounts Sam had discovered seemed to infer that Stone dragons hadn't always been that way, that once upon a time they had been as fearsome in the fight as their former peers.
It was just a pity that the words were written in an older and more ambiguous version of the language, as well that the actual parchment was slightly water damaged. He couldn't quite make out one last part on the page, thus it remained a mystery whether the Stone dragons chose to become land-bound, or whether someone chose it for them.
~
His quest for knowledge was a dangerous and interminable task, so several people told him, but Sam was not to be stopped. Thankfully Rufus, the mayor's own personal scribe and chronicler for the entire own, was on his side, encouraging his thirst. He secretly gave Sam a key to his archives once he'd turned fourteen, and told him he'd be grateful if Sam could attempt to put all his mess of papers in some sort of order as he researched. And Sam was all too happy to oblige.
Eventually Sam had made it through every scrap in the archive, and his own notebooks were all the richer for it, but he still felt as though he'd been left with more questions than answers. When he'd approached Rufus to ask about other archives in other towns that might be of use, Rufus had sat him down and told him a story.
He'd said first that he didn't want Sam to go wasting away in dusty basements while he was still a kid, that he deserved to be outside running around and hanging out with his brother. But then he'd confessed that there were stories of past Elders storing books and records further up in the mountains, all secret-like. The very thought lit a fire in Sam's stomach, and stoked it for days. Just imagining what he might find if he could locate one of those secret archives was enough to drive him mad with excitement.
But time went on.
Dean began training more with the few other Fledgling Riders. On very special occasions one of the Fully-Fledged would visit to take stock of their progress and give them further instructions on what to work on. Any time it happened it would take Dean weeks to get over talking about it. And Sam – he had more time to himself than ever, and he took Rufus' story to heart. He would pack a sleeping bag, a change of clothes, and supplies, and head out into the mountains, searching for his ultimate prize.
He would only stay gone for a couple of days at a time, not wanting to alarm Dean just in case he got a break from training and came home. His caution paid off for the most part, but it often meant cutting short his explorations when he knew he should really be going further, not stopping.
He did it for Dean, though, turning around at the very last minute and heading back to town.
Sam came back empty handed every time, the feeling never leaving him that his fingertips were just brushing the surface, only needing to take the time to dig. But it was worth it for some of the scenes he came back to – Dean sparring with one of the other Fledglings, sometimes hand-to-hand or sometimes with a weapon or two, always in a light shirt that would cling to the sweat beading on his skin. It was like his brother was putting on a show, taunting him with his lithe limbs and expert skill, and Sam liked to pretend that it was just for him.
Barely into his teen years and already capable of such possessiveness. Sam didn't rightly recall when it started or when his desire had grown so strong, only that it was.
He would make a point of not letting himself be seen straight away, sneaking home to put all his gear away first. Then he'd go back to the training grounds, or else wait there in the house for Dean to return – either way he got to see that bright spark flare in Dean's eyes when he would catch sight of Sam and start yammering away incessantly about all the things he'd learned. On the odd occasion, however, Sam would decide to keep himself hidden for a while longer. It was just an experiment, to see what might happen, but after all the times he'd been disappointed by the result, one would think he should know better. But hey, he was a teenager with a tainted heart, what did you expect?
Sam tried not to hate on the pretty girls that would come up to sweaty, post-sparring Dean and flutter their eyelashes at him. He got it completely, and couldn't blame them one bit. If he were in their position he'd probably do the same. And he got that Dean was more of a people person, that he needed the attention. He'd seen Dean kissing girls now and again, and Dean had talked about the times he'd done something more with them, but only when it was just the two of them and it was late at night with the lights already out.
Sam's quest for knowledge was what got him through. It was the only thing encompassing enough to keep his thoughts focussed and steady enough to stop him from falling into a slump of desperation.
It was one of those slumps that finally caught him unawares, prompting him to lose track of time completely whilst on one of his treks. He didn't mean to do it as such, but he hadn't taken his usual care to keep track of the time. It was just that he could feel it, calling to him, bidding him to go further…
He'd been gone nearly four days once he finally returned. Dean was beside himself, angry and crazed and holding Sam close in his arms, and he made Sam promise.
He promised.
~
John took more and more trips, farther and farther away. To the point where Sam could barely remember when the last time he saw him was.
Eventually there came an instance where he didn't come back.
Sam and Dean were on their own, completely. Not that Sam minded so much. He didn't wish his father ill, but their fights had gotten more poisonous lately, and Sam saw the toll it took on Dean and his constant, fruitless efforts to keep things smooth between them.
Weeks later Dean muttered something about a woman and a town several days ride away. At least he was alive, Sam supposed.
~/D/~
Part two ==>>
