fic: Lionheart (1/2)

[glovered]

Lionheart, 13k, Sam/Dean

Summary: Sam and Dean travel through time to the Middle Ages, and find out there is more than one way to die by the sword. Will they enter a tournament for medieval sweethearts...or be lost to the sands of time?

a/n: A spn_j2_xmas gift for fridayblues! In my mind, Charlie continues to live on as queen of Moondoor. Also please note that this story is not historically accurate. My knowledge of knights and Middle English is very vague. Thank you to oddishly for betaing!



"Ah, Moondoor. We meet again." Dean took a sip of his tepid gas station coffee and watched two dudes run at each other with long sticks. "Overcompensating much?"

"They're jousters, Dean. It's a legitimate sport."

Dean just raised an eyebrow at Sam, who was still tired from their all-night drive. He was cute when he was grumpy, not that Dean would ever tell him that. Not in a million years.

Amidst the thunking sounds of fake lances hitting shields, particolored pennants flapping furiously in the summer breeze, the LARP field was alive with activity. Dean stopped at a booth to inspect an array of medieval weaponry.

"Greetings, good lady," he said to the woman at the table, who looked over Dean's jeans and flannel button-down with an air of the unimpressed. "Might I try out this fine mace?"

"Sure, but you break it, you buy it."

Sam pulled Dean away before he could get his hands on the fearsome bringer of death, and directed him toward the royal tent. "We can look around once we've talked to Charlie about the case."

"Potential case," Dean pointed out.

It was just a run-of-the-mill disappearance, Charlie had explained over the phone the night before, probably nothing. But all the same, Dean had turned the car around the moment he heard those chirpy tones coming down the line. And now here they were, sticking out like sore thumbs at yet another gathering of faux nobility and jousters.

Dean lifted up the tentflap and ducked inside, where they found Charlie bent over a large, yellowed map, shoulder to shoulder with an attractive swordslady - elven, by the look of those realistic clip-on ears.

"Sam, Dean! Long time no see!" Charlie tipped her crown at them. "Thanks for coming."

"Anything for the queen," said Sam, smiling widely back. "So did this guy show up again yet?"

Charlie's face fell. "Well, no… We haven't seen him yet. But I don't know, I probably shouldn't have even called you. You probably drove five states just for some coincidence-"

"Coincidences don't just happen coincidentally," Dean assured her. "Why don't you start at the beginning?" She seemed honestly shaken up, which to Dean meant trouble. After everything, Charlie had a good nose for these things.

"Well, there's a tournament today to win an enchanted sword," she said, then turned to the elven woman. "Lieutenant Meredith, would you fetch it for us?"

"Yes, milady." Meredith bowed low.

Charlie turned back to them. "The guy who brought it was really excited to show everyone, but if I'm honest I don't know what the big deal was. It's kind of tacky. A giant emerald on the hilt. You'll see."

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Somebody's snooty about their weapons."

"Hey, don't forget I've seen the trunk of your car."

"Touché," said Dean.

"Anyway, the guy, Greg, was going to act as master of ceremony and present it to the victor. But then dude up and disappears yesterday!"

"Maybe he got stage fright?"

"No he disappeared. As in, right in front of my eyes. Like, poof." Charlie waved her hands. "In the middle of talking to me! One second he was there and the next he wasn't. And no one has seen him since. I mean, maybe it was a trick of the eyes or something, maybe he did just leave the camp, but that's weird, right?"

"Sounds pretty weird to me," Sam said.

"Yeah, he was really excited about today. Do you think he stepped through like, a portal to another dimension?" Her eyes got big. "Or maybe he found an invisibility cloak?"

Dean shrugged. "Stranger things have happened."

Sam pointed past her shoulder, where the lieutenant had returned carrying a purple, velvet pillow. "That's the one you're talking about?"

"Yep."

The blade in questions lay glinting on the pillow, sharp and sleek. Dean couldn't tear his eyes away.

"I need to get my hands on that sword," he breathed.

Charlie patted his arm. "Said every straight guy ever."

"What?"

Charlie blinked at him. "Nothing."

Dean ignored her and went to take a look. Up close, the sword was not at all the crappy thing Dean had imagined from Charlie's description, dull and forged in someone's mom's basement. This thing was a work of art. Dean didn't know much about medieval weaponry-and definitely not as much as Sammy knew-but the longer he looked at the sword, the more beautiful it seemed to become.

"It's amazing," he said, almost to himself, leaning closer. The gemstone inset in the hilt wasn't tacky at all, but instead alluring and expensive looking, glowing an ethereal misty green. Silver vines wound around it, like it was a...a heart or something. A heart trapped in earthly shackles, trying to break free.

"I'll take this to the tourney field, then?" Meredith asked Charlie.

"Yes, thank you."

"Wait!" Dean said. He was distantly aware that he was overreacting, but he also felt very strongly that he needed to examine the sword a little bit longer. He whistled under his breath. "This is...I mean, this is some fine craftsmanship, don't you think?"

From behind his shoulder, Dean heard Sam ask Charlie, "Who did you say the disappearing guy was?"

"His name was Greg. Is Greg," she corrected herself. "He's just your average LARPer. A good-hearted gamer who loves his mead. He left all his stuff here. I hope he didn’t get kidnapped...or worse."

Dean was only half-listening, his eyes returning to look into the depths of the jewel which was almost the size of his fist and glowing. And now that he was really looking closely, for a moment he thought he glimpsed an image- a figure in the gem. It almost looked like...Sam? But that must have been the sunlight falling in through the cracks of the tent, shining off the gem and making him imagine things. He squinted, trying to make it out.

"No way…"

Yes way. There, in the swirling depths, if he was seeing it clearly, was Sam, in a passionate embrace!

"What the hell!" he said out loud.

"Dean, maybe you shouldn’t touch that…"

Sam, in a passionate embrace...with a man! A short-haired man slightly shorter than Sam, who looked super into the kiss. And was he holding a sword? The image was clear enough to make that out for sure, but a little warbled. Dean reached out to polish the gem to see if he could shine it up to make out just who the mystery man - the scoundrel - was.

But the moment he touched the gem, he felt a tingling sensation run up from his fingertips, and felt the blood drain from his face. He became very aware that he was about to faint.

"Dean!"

Sam grabbing onto his shoulder was the last thing Dean felt.

"Oh son of a-"

-bench.

Dean blinked. The world had gone sideways.

Oh. He found he was lying on his side now, with his face smooshed into a wooden-

"Bench," he muttered, head woozy.

He tried to sit up but the room swam, so he took a moment and then tried again, carefully this time, gripping the edge of the bench beneath him.

"Easy," he said, levering himself up on one arm.

He swiveled his head around, confused. Around him, nerds in knightly gear mingled about, lots of noise and armor, but no sign of Charlie. In fact, this was a different tent entirely, more rustic, less colorful. He must have passed out and been carried here.

He rubbed his face. His head wasn't clear enough for him to focus on what anyone was saying, and they all seemed entirely uninterested in his existence. The smell of sweat and horses was strong and all-pervasive.

"Didn't know they had actual horses," he muttered. Maybe they'd gotten a special permit for the tournament. He blinked a little more and the ringing in his ears subsided. "Sam?"

"Ngh?"

It seemed Sam was under the bench, a suspicion that was quickly confirmed when Sam rolled out onto his back, hair sticking up all over and full of grass, a pissed off expression on his face.

"It's a transportation device," Sam coughed. "The sword."

"Yeah, sure," Dean said, standing and offering him an arm up. Sam's knees wobbled when he got up too quickly. "Hey, hold your horses."

Sam straightened a little slower, only to be nearly bowled over by one of the LARPers - a very huge, very in-character knight.

"Sorry," said Sam, raising his hands in front of him.

"Gobbledygook," said the be-costumed fellow. He gave Sam a once-over and added, "Blah blah blah."

When Sam and Dean didn't respond, he repeated himself.

"Really getting into character there," Dean told him, but Sam elbowed him hard.

"Dude. It's Middle English, I think. Or...or something similar."

"Wow, extra in-character then."

"Dean," Sam grimaced. Then he gave himself a small pep talk. "Come on, you know this. If you can read it, you can probably figure out how to speak it. Just try and understand."

The wannabe knight said something again, and Dean was...hoping Sam was wrong about the transportation device thing. But when he glanced around again at all the very, very rough looking guys milling about he started to get the creeping suspicion that maybe he and Sam really weren't in Kansas anymore.

Middle English. Dean went over the sounds he remembered in his head and what Sam had said about vowels being different and all that. It was similar enough to current English to be able to understand it on paper with a lot of effort. Dean had slogged through his fair share of documents from the late medieval period. Fewer than Sam, that was for sure, but enough to understand talk about monsters and fighting and magic. Enough to read lore and just maybe enough to understand some of whatever it was this guy was talking about.

"Ok," Sam muttered. "Let's try this out." He cleared his throat and stood a little straighter. In what was a cross between English and whatever he evidently thought Middle English sounded like, he said the equivalent of, "Hail, sir knight."

A look of understanding passed over the knight's face, and he threw back his head to laugh, long and hard.

Dean leaned in close to Sam. "That's a good sign, right?"

The man repeated the greeting to Sam, wiping a tear from his eye.

Dean could understand enough to at least understand the gist when Sam responded with something maybe approximating: "Pray I apologize for hitting your body."

"It is no worry," the knight maybe said. He looked them over and said, "Foreign-born men?"

"Aye," Dean said. "I mean- yay?" Because if Sam's theory was actually correct, then this was surely, unequivocally the truth. He felt something much larger than worry start to edge over him.

"Quite foreign," Sam agreed.

The knight - because goddammit, he was almost probably really a knight - nodded like this explained everything. "I am Wyot. Wyot the gigantic. And you?" He reached out to tug at Sam's t-shirt. "What coat of arms is this? Beautiful lions and flowers?"

Dean laughed in shock, both that he could understand anything, and at the insult to Sam's crappy thrift store t-shirt.

"Verily," he said. "Sam is a lass." He raised an eyebrow at Sam, and laughed at him along with the knight, who seemed like a pretty chill dude actually, not at all like he wanted to kill them.

Dean found he was right when the knight grinned and said, "I like you both. When not in battle, I am kind." But then Dean's false sense of security was dashed when the knight probably most likely said, "But just wait until the tournament. Then I am your enemy."

He punched Dean in the shoulder in a good-natured, manly fashion and Dean bent under the blow, wheezing an agreement. Right. He got the idea.

"Can't wait," Sam told the knight, and suffered a heavy, manly blow of his own. "Goodbye."

"Farewell, foreign friends."

As soon as the knight had passed them, Sam's expression changed to one of panic. He leaned into Dean. "Dude, we are in the past. What the hell? What the hell!"

"Yes. We are well and truly screwed," Dean agreed. "And if I understood that right at all, he's expecting to see us in a tournament?"

They turned to see the knight speaking to a man at a table, who then wrote something on a large scroll. After him, the next knight, and then the next. There were twenty or so men and women in various stages of armor who were clearly all in the processes of registering and gearing up for the day's fight.

"That's definitely why all these knights are gathered here," said Sam. "Look, they all have different coats of arms."

A woman walked by just then with a splash of red speckled over her shield, a shield which bore a painting of a crow pulling entrails from a sheep. Dean could tell from experience, the red was definitely not paint.

"Far be it from me to chicken out when a fight's on the table," he said. "But there is no way in hell I'm entering that tournament."

"It doesn't seem strategic, no," Sam said.

Dean shook his head. "Ok, come on. Let's blow this popsicle stand."

And with that he pulled Sam out of the tent, into what he hoped was Charlie's camp of lovely fake-medieval delights.

Instead his darkest suspicions were confirmed when they emerged into a bustling encampment of jovial knights, scampering page boys, tittering ladies making bloodthirsty bets over dice, and the chaotic shouts of artisans peddling their wares-and none of them just pretending.

"Gadzooks," said Dean.

The attempt at medieval cursing fell flat as Sam, his usually stoic-in-the-worst-of-times brother, continued to look like a deer caught in the headlights of a fourteen-wheeler. Dean grabbed his sleeve and swiveled him around in a very important direction.

"Look, Sammy. A beer tent!"

It was like a cheery canvas beacon in this loud and confusing world.

Sam resisted momentarily. "No, Dean. We have to find a way back. Right now."

"Dude, we are doing nothing right now but standing around while a bunch of dangerous dudes with weapons are planning how to kill us. Let's go hide in plain sight, regroup, and maybe get some info from the locals."

Sam clenched his jaw, but then nodded jerkily. They kept their heads down, and strode through the mud to the beer tent, snagging a couple choice disguise pieces along the way. Once in the beer garden they found seats across from each other at a long wooden table, which meant they were now brushing shoulders with ruddy faced men wearing loose shifts and pantaloons, shouting in a foreign tongue, but at least they might get a drink.

A barmaid descended upon them and Dean fixed her with what he hoped was a charming smile.

"Good day, fine gentlemen," she said. "Want you beers?"

"Yay," Dean answered for both of them. He pointed to himself and Sam and gave her a decisive nod.

She poured them out a rough glass of foggy liquid each from a pitcher, and then hovered.

"Oh, right," Sam said, patting his pockets for payment they didn't have.

Dean thought quickly, then tried to look confused. It was not difficult. "Ah, this foreign coin," he said (or at least hoped he said). "I find I am bewildered."

He pulled out his wallet and dug out two quarters, and handed them to her. He hoped they'd look valuable enough to pass for currency. The barmaid examined them in interest, running her finger over George Washington's profile.

"Nay, sirs," she said, eyes widening. "It is far too much."

"You're probably giving her enough to buy a house," muttered Sam.

"I pray you, what is your name?" Dean said.

"Rohese."

"Well, Rohese. Great fortune for such great beauty," Dean said, fluttering his eyelashes up at her.

"Oh, spotted rogue," she chortled, and grinned cheekily back, pocketing the coins. "Thank you kindly."

"Spotted!" Dean hissed when she'd left.

Sam was laughing. "Maybe that means freckled?"

Dean rolled his eyes and sipped at his beer, feeling a bit more grounded.

"Told you this was a good idea," he said, adjusting the rope-as-belt that he’d snagged from a horse saddle. He was feeling a bit better.

In life, he had learned, it was very easy to panic. That's why you needed to find the thing that was familiar and hold on tight. The stein of frothy, watered down beer was strange-tasting and lukewarm in his hand but it was making all the difference.

Seated on the other side of the table, wearing a blanket poncho-style and a cool leather studded sword belt sans sword, Sam was looking around at their surroundings with mixed emotions. He looked like he was warring between annoyance at having his shirt made fun of by a super built knight and the nerdy glee of discovering time travel and hanging out in olden times.

"Oh that's riiight," Dean realized. "You've never done this before."

Sam took another sip of beer.

"Time travel," Dean said. He waggled his eyebrows at Sam. "Your first time."

Sam frowned in thought. "Yeah. You've gone back, what? Three times?"

"Something like that."

"But that's always been divine intervention. Never just random object-induced time travel. We'll have to ask someone about this. When we get back, I mean."

"Hold up," Dean said. "I just realized, we traveled through time and space. Because this is not North America."

"Yeah, we definitely followed the sword. It must have been in England in the..." Sam looked around again. "The thirteen hundreds?"

Then he paled.

Dean paused with the glass halfway to his lips. That expression was never good. "What is it?"

"Oh god," Sam said. "I hope we're in the very early thirteen hundreds. I really don't want to catch the plague."

"Ok, let's just, um, definitely make sure to get out of here. Today."

Sam finished his beer, and they waved down Rohese.

"Anything to eat?" Dean asked her hopefully.

"Is there any food?" Sam corrected, using totally different words. And she nodded to him and left.

Dean asked, "What did I say?"

"I don't know. It sounded like nonsense to me."

"Oh crap." But Dean smiled, feeling a glow of pride. His baby bro, always so prepared. "Thank god for your giant brain, right? You are literally having conversations in a dead language."

"Look who's talking, Dean." Sam's face went from pale to pink in seconds. It looked good on him.

"Huh?"

"Dude, you are really good at this. Communication is all about making yourself understood, not necessarily speaking a language fluently."

"I guess."

"It's just, how are you keeping your cool? I'm freaking out over here."

Dean shrugged. "I'm freaked too. I just figure, time might be different but dudes are always beating each other up and drinking beer, right? That's a universal constant. If we stick with that, we'll fit right in."

"I guess so," said Sam, but looked a little happier, maybe because Rohese was returning with a plate of chicken.

Dean grinned at Sam. "Awesome. Hot wings, just like home."

Rohese stood by the table for a moment as they dug in. "You are from same land as magic man?" she finally asked.

"Magic man?" Sam repeated.

She nodded. "Foreign man. Magic." She pointed across to another table, where a man in an ill-fitting green robe was just standing up, adjusting his very modern-looking glasses.

Dean looked to the food, then back at the dude.

The dude caught Dean staring, blanched, and promptly took off at a run.

"Dammit," Dean said. His choice was made. "Thanks," Dean said to Rohese, throwing down more quarters on the table, and then followed Sam in hot pursuit of the wizard.

When they caught up, Dean fisted his hand in the arm of the very billowing robe and tugged the so-called magic man into a nearby tent. "Why'd you do it!" he barked.

"P-please don't kill me!" the guy stuttered in English. Then his face lit up. "Wait! You're speaking English, too! Oh thank god, you're from real life, aren't you? I thought you were going to kill me back there!"

Sam said. "You're Greg, right?"

"Yeah. Who the heck are you guys?"

"My name is Dean." Dean loomed up behind Sam. "And this is Sam. We came to rescue you. So you better start explaining yourself. We thought you were in trouble but now it turns out you're just livin' it up in the beer tent-"

The way Greg returned to cowering with this hands up in front of him definitely didn't look like the stance of an evil sword enchanter.

Sam put a hand on Dean's arm. "Look, sorry. We're pretty frazzled. We weren't expecting to travel back in time. We just want do figure out how to get back to our time, as quickly as possible, with minimal injury."

Greg peeked at Sam through his hands. "Oh. Oh, thank god. That sounds like a perfect plan."

"But to do that we're going to need your help, some information. First thing's first, did you enchant the sword yourself or did you find a witch to do it for you?"

"The sword…" Greg's eyebrows shot up. "Oh my god, it was the sword."

Sam looked furtively to Dean, then back.

"It all makes sense now," Greg muttered to himself.

"So, I take it you didn't know the sword was some kind of time travel device?"

Greg shook his head. "I just thought it would be the perfect prize for our Tournament of Lords and Ladies. You know, ‘They that vanquish all competitors have the right to sit at the Queen's side, as her honorary vassal.'"

"Charlie?"

"Yeah." His face was dreamy at the mention of her name. "Queen Charlie. She has such shiny hair."

Sam shook his head. "So you accidentally used the sword, like we did?"

"Well, I was just giving the sword a good rub down with polish, and when I started buffing up that green jewel on it, zap! I ended up in this crazy ass place, with horse shit all over my expensive boots and like fifty giant dudes trying to flay me alive." His eyes had gotten crazed again. Dean couldn't really blame him. "They caught me walking around with my cell phone out, trying to get signal. I had to pretend to be a powerful wizard, which I figured was the only thing that would stop them from throwing me in jail, or worse!"

"Dang," said Dean, thinking back to descriptions of medieval torture devices he'd seen.

Greg rubbed a hand over his face, finally muttering, "Maybe I should have paid attention to the warning."

"Warning?"

"Yeah, some mumbo jumbo written on the ebay description."

Dean's eyes widened. "Does everyone around here buy their cursed objects from Ebay?"

"Well, where would you go to look for a sword?"

Sam cut off the argument before it started. "Greg, just tell us what the description said."

Greg frowned in thought. "Something about it being a tool of chivalry, to be wielded by he who needs to learn to fight for his own heart, or prove his heart's intent or something. Then something about the ability to walk between the pages of history by harnessing the power of love. With great power comes great responsibility et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam."

"Oh," Sam said slowly, but at Dean's questioning look shook his head. "Uh, nothing. Go on, Greg."

"Well, that’s it. I’ve been stuck here since yesterday, trying to avoid being killed."

Dean frowned at Greg. "Well, if there was a warning in the description, why'd you ignore it? Why'd you buy a sword like that in the first place?"

"Because it looked cool, duh." Greg's tone turned incredulous. "And because...magic doesn't exist?"

Dean straightened to his full height. "Are you sassing me, Greg?"

Greg looked like he was at the point of taking hold of Dean's poncho and begging for his life. Instead he sagged against a table, defeated. "Please help me. I need to get out of here. I don't want to have to live in a tent. I don't want to till the land with all able-bodied men from my village. I want to live a normal life! Drinking craft brews while watching TV and petting my non-feral cat." He took a deep breath, and looked at them imploringly. "Plus, I was just about to propose to the girl of my dreams. If I ever get back, I swear I won't chicken out..."

"Well, there's no way in hell we're staying here," Sam said placatingly, cutting him off before the waterworks. "We'll figure this out."

"Yeah," said Dean. "Don't worry." Then a thought occurred to him. "Wait, if the sword brought Greg here back, then how was it still in our time period for us to touch?"

Sam snapped his fingers. "Ha. That confirms it. It's-"

"-a temporal conduit that exists across time!" Greg finished excitedly.

"Yes!" Sam said. "And that's why it didn't just follow you here when you touched it."

"Because it's a portal, not a vehicle."

"What it is isn't important," said Dean. "What's important is going to get it, so we can get the hell outta dodge."

Greg's face fell. "Ah. That's actually impossible. You'll never get close to it."

"What? Why?"

"Well, the sword is being offered as a prize. To the winners of today's tournament."

Dean gave Sam the eyebrow, and Sam looked back, a look on his face like he was about to do something very stupid. "Well," Sam said. "It sounds like one of us is going to have to enter that tournament after all."

Greg gave them a horrified look. "No! Don't go, you'll die!"

"We'll try not to," Which was maybe not as comforting as Sam seemed to think it was, judging by Greg's face.

"Goodbye then," said Greg. "It was nice meeting you, but I'm going back to the bar to hang out with the good lady Rohese. On the off-chance that you do survive, please collect me when it's time to go home."

"You betcha."

They left the tent, abandoning Greg to drown his sorrows in drink. Dean could relate; he'd drowned a sorrow or two in his time. But it was a brave new world this morning, and they had a mission. A quest.

Now only a couple people were milling about in the once-packed line of tents and booths. "You know, a tournament explains why this camp has kind of cleared out," Dean said. "And I only just realized that that traffic sound in the distance is definitely not a highway, it's cheering."

He started heading toward it but Sam pulled him back by his rope belt, a move that should have been annoying but was something else instead.

"No, let's go to that first tent we woke up in."

"Why?"

Sam still had that look on his face. He did not disappoint. "Because I'm fighting in the tournament."

Dean stopped him with a hand on his chest, nothing funny about this anymore. "Hey. Look at me," he said. When he was sure Sam was paying attention, he said up into his face, "Like hell you are. No way. After someone wins the sword, we're going to steal it. So let's go to the arena and just lie in wait until we can get it."

"But who's to say the sword won't disappear when the winner touches it?"

"You said it's a portal, right? So it should still be there."

"That's just a theory, Dean. And besides, what do you think's going to happen when a bunch of superstitious people with weapons see someone disappear in plain sight? They'll protect it and we'll have to fight people anyway. It might as well be a one-on-one fight, with clear rules, not us against an army of trained swordsmen. Think about it, we're lucky to get a chance like this. And we can just knock them out, we don't even have to kill anybody."

"That's...true I guess."

"I have to sign up, Dean." Sam went full on puppy dog eyes, as if he expected that to work on Dean every time. "Sure, I don't know much about chivalry or the rules of the arena or what time period we're actually specifically in, but I'm also really good with knives and I can improvise."

"Improvise my ass," Dean told him. "You just want to play knight for a day, don’t you?" But his protest was half-hearted, his resolve weakening. They really did need to get their hands on that sword before it disappeared to some far off kingdom.

"Fine," he said. "But I'm signing up instead."

"What? No. No offense Dean, but I'm-" Sam gripped Dean's shoulder, something like sympathy on his face. "I'm bigger than you."

"Bigger isn't always better," Dean grumbled. "It's how you use it."

Sam smirked. "Sure, keep believing that."

Dean shrugged Sam's hand off, and led the way to the registration tent. The guy at the table wore a viking-style horned helmet with fur around the rim, the type you might see on a cartoon character. Only it was real.

"Hail," Dean said by way of greeting. "I wish to try mine hand at swords."

The dude looked them over, from their blankets to the rope cinched around Dean's waist. Then said, "What?"

Dean mimed unsheathing a sword and swinging it. The man continued staring at Dean from beneath a fierce unibrow.

Dean watched in annoyance as Sam, much better at this language than he was, clearly explained that he himself would be fighting in the tournament.

"Ok," said the man, but then he said something else and pointed at Dean.

"Are you getting any of this?" Dean asked out of the corner of his mouth.

Sam frowned. "I think he's saying we have to sign up together."

"Hey, Game of Thrones, no way," Dean told the guy loudly. He jerked a thumb at his chest. "Just me."

The man chuckled and started speaking.

"Uh," Sam said.

"Sam! What did he say?"

"He said this is the ‘Sweetheart Holiday Tournament,' where people sign up as teams," Sam mumbled. "Or something like that..."

"What!" Dean stared at Sam, who looked sheepishly back at him and shrugged.

The guy kept talking, and Sam listened for a while with a frown before reporting back. "He's explaining that the sword is the prize for winning the tournament, it's super valuable. It was created by a great magician who disappeared into thin air, never to be seen from again. But the love spell he put on it lives on. The sword can only be truly wielded by a soul who must prove their love. Blah blah blah." Sam translated the last bit as the guy finished with, "‘Whomsoever challenges, must play for honor and love.'"

Dean would have gleaned the meaning of that last part on his own from the way the man was waggling his one eyebrow lasciviously. He underlined this by pointing at a man knight and a lady knight kissing nearby.

"Yeah, so basically we can't sign up individually," Sam said.

"Are you just trying to get me to sign up with you--"

Sam talked over him. "And before you get any ideas about signing up together, the answer is no."

"Oh, come on."

Sam continued to look unimpressed. "This is not a joke, Dean. There are serious anti-sodomy laws here. Like, definite beheading. If it was even implied we were, you know, they'd put us in shackles. So you were right, let's steal the sword instead."

"Told you so," said Dean, never one to miss a chance to gloat. "Ask him where the sword is, let’s go steal it now and get it over with."

Sam turned to the man. "So...where's this sword being kept. Just by the by, no reason for asking."

He was way obvious, terrible at lying, despite his entire life of practice.

The man growled something ominous in response.

"He said it's being guarded," said Sam. And before Sam could ask any more questions, the man jerked down his sleeve to reveal a scarred, shriveled arm.

"Oh dang!" Dean yelled.

The man didn't look too bothered by this, just slid his sleeve back down to hide the damage.

"He said the sword's being guarded..." said Sam. "By a dragon."

"So stealing it is out," said Dean. He nodded decisively to himself, then said to the man, "Ok, put us down for two. I am Dean the Brave. And he is Samar the Horrible." He mimed writing and then pointed to himself and Sam.

"Pardon?" said the guy, looking alarmed.

"We're brothers," said Dean. "Brothers of the sacred…brothership. Fighting for the pure of heart. Sam, translate."

Sam did, and the guy's face seemed to clear a little at this. "You are not from this land," he noted, like this explained everything.

"Aye. Hear you not our outrageous accents?" Dean said. "Now write down our names."

The guy looked from Dean's probably constipated expression to Sam's doubtlessly even more constipated one. "Ok." He dipped his plume pen into its inkwell. "Coat of arms?"

Dean nudged Sam. "Show him the shirt."

"Oh my god. The rest were just in the wash," Sam said, sounding embarrassed but lifting his blanket anyway to reveal the Lion King t-shirt. Maybe Dean was imaging it, but Horns looked mildly impressed at the fine detail of the paint on Sam's sleeveless shift as he sketched Simba onto the paper next to their names.

"See Sam?" said Dean. "Easy."

"You will surely be killed," said the man.

part 2