Here There Be Dragons for septembers_coda
Title: Here There Be Dragons
Artist: kuwlshadow
Author: blackrabbit42
Recipient: septembers_coda
Words: 2K
Rating: G
Pairing: Gen
Summary: Deep in the bunker, there's a lever with a warning sign that more or less says, never, never, under any circumstances pull this lever.
OK, so Sam’s been keeping a secret from Dean. Because, well, he’s Dean. He likes cool things. He likes getting into stuff. He completely lacks any sort of reasonable sense of self preservation. So all in all, it’s probably a good idea not to tell Dean that there is a dragon underneath the bunker. Deep underneath the bunker.
That lever in the far-back room that says something to the effect of NEVER, NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PULL THIS LEVER? Sam had learned pretty early on what that lever does. It releases the dragon. Something, which according the records of the older generation of Men of Letters, they should never, never under any circumstances do. Unless…
“It’s not spontaneous human combustion,” Dean says from the doorway.
Sam looks up from the piles of books scattered around him. Books about spontaneous human combustion. He’d been hoping against hope that his hunch had been wrong, and the spate of charred human remains in Eastern Wyoming was something a little more run of the mill. Like human combustion.
Dean looks decidedly… singed, but otherwise more or less unharmed as he descends the staircase, leaving sooty boot tracks on each step. He smells like ashes, and something oily, slightly spicy.
“What is it then?” Sam asks, carefully folding up an 18th century missive on a rash of human combustion cases in Hungary. Because he really doesn’t want this to be what he thinks it is. “Salamander? Lampad? Hellh-”
“A dragon,” Dean says. Sam uses the power of his disapproval eye-beams to keep Dean from touching any of the books with his sooty hands. Dude drove all the way back from Wyoming without even washing his hands? And so, yeah, a dragon.
“And not the kind of dragon that steals virgins and looks like an extra from Mos Eisley either. A real dragon. I mean like-” he holds his arms out wide, “like a dragon dragon. Wings, scales, fire breathing, the whole nine yards.”
Dean is definitely enjoying himself. His eyes glitter with child-like delight. Which is exactly why Sam has not told him about the lever in the war room thing. The dragon under the bunker thing.
“How big?” Sam asks, trying to sound casual. Because there are six known types of dragons, and four of them can be killed in more or less conventional ways, and the remaining two, although generally harmless, had to be dealt with in other ways which were much more of a pain in the drain. Guess which kind was hiding in a secret underground lair approximately beneath their kitchen? He crosses his fingers under the table, hoping against hope for one of four killable kinds.
“Wingspan, fifty, maybe sixty feet. Dark red, like the color of wine, golden scales underneath. Smelled like…. Cinnamon?”
Well shit. In 1957, the Men of Letters had determined that there was no way to kill this particular type of dragon, and that the only option was to trap it underground. From the catalogue:
Item Number 64.42286.a
Draco Cordisuinicus, Live specimen, Female. 128 feet cranio-caudal, wingspan 42 feet. Burgundy scales on dorsal dermis, luminescent metallic scales on ventral dermis. Lack of dorsal plates as noted in other female specimens, as well as shorter tail to torso ratio also noted for this sex. Age approximately 500-600 years, expected lifespan, unknown. According to records, eight to ten other specimens suspected to exist. No known mortal vulnerabilities. Susceptible to enticement by electro-magnetic pulse as described in Volume 17 of Herman Harrigan’s treatise on Dragons in the Modern Age, as well as the more traditional hoard-lust. Specimen hoards keys, but random sampling reveals presence of cutlery, copper piping, bullet casings and fountain pens as well.
Security protocols alpha-sigma-rho in place, see Security Manual v. 6 for details.
“Ok,” Sam says, “we’re going to need a blood sample.”
By the time Dean gets back two days later, Sam’s had more time to research, now that his worst fears have been confirmed. Dean’s leather coat is smoking slightly and one eyebrow has been completely singed off, but he couldn’t look happier. “Sam,” he says, “you should see this thing. It’s glorious. Fought like a son of a bitch too.” With reverence, he hands Sam a vial filled with blood so dark it’s almost black.
Sam’s seen the signs before. Hero worship. Dean is completely smitten. Make no mistake, he’d kill the dragon if Sam told him he had to, but still. Dean has this look in his eyes like a kid who’s friend just got a puppy and now he wants one too. It makes Sam very, very nervous about the plan he has in mind.
“Did you get a look at its lair?” Sam asks casually.
“Nah, it met me out in the woods.” Dean plucks a two-inch long dragon tooth out of the seam of his coat and peers at it closely, eyes shining.
“Uhh, I uh, need you to go back,” Sam says, cringing. Dean just got here. Sam would have told him as soon as he realized what they needed to do, but Dean’s phone had apparently been melted and completely out of order at the time.
“Really?” Dean asks, a dopey, love-struck grin spreading across his face. “I mean, um, dang. I was just there.” Sam isn’t fooled.
“I need you to take a peek in its lair. Tell me what you find in there. And how much. Definitely how much.”
++++++++
When his phone rings and displays the number for Lawrence Memorial ER, he’s in the middle of a good news/bad news situation. Bad news, the electro-magnetic pulse generator is broken beyond repair. He might be able to fix it someday, but it’s going to require specialty parts flown in from Japan and a crash course in metaphysical mechanics. The good news is, the blood sample shows the Wyoming dragon is definitely male, and on the younger side. Less than 100 years.
Which is perfect. Considering his plan is more or less lifted from a Looney Toonz episode.
Dean is fine, more or less. Nothing that a skin graft and a couple of days on an IV won’t fix up. He’s weak and dopey from the morphine, and when Sam gently pulls away the oxygen mask, he’s got a beautiful lovesick grin on his blistered lips. In his delirium, he only manages one word for Sam.
“Teapots.”
Perfect. Sam waits till Dean falls back into a medicated sleep. He picks up some coffee beans on the way back to the bunker; he’s got a long night on Ebay ahead of him.
++++++++
Dean is actually in the hospital for a week. When he comes back, he remembers nothing about the trip or the teapots, so he’s completely surprised to find the bunker completely inundated with overnight packages, and more being delivered on the hour.
“What’s all this?” he asks.
Sam blushes. “So, you know all those episodes where bugs bunny dresses in drag to lure the Tasmanian Devil into a trap?”
“Yeah?” Dean picks up a package and gives it an experimental shake.
Sam dives at him and gingerly takes the package, pointing at the word FRAGILE stamped in large red letters across the top of the box. “Well, this is sort of the dragon version of that. Now we’ve got about four thousand packages to open. Start helping.”
++++++++
“Okay Dean, you need to promise me you are going to be a grown-up about this.”
Dean is grumpy. Working until four in the morning opening boxes, wading through packing peanuts and tiptoeing through the ever-growing mountains of teapots around the entrance to the bunker was not his idea of how he should get to spend his first day home from the hospital. Especially once he had learned about the dragon under the bunker. On the plus side, they have about a two year’s supply of slightly used bubble wrap, and it’s helping take the edge off.
“I am a god damned professional Sammy. Just what is it already?”
Sam shows him to the room with the lever. Of course, Dean has to touch it, first thing. Sam fixes him with a glare and points at the sign. “Dean, seriously? Always with the touching. Did you learn nothing from the incident with the gnomes?”
Dean just pops bubble wrap aggressively.
“Okay, so this is how it should work. We let the female out, and she’ll build a hoard for the male to attract him to her lair. Once they’re down there, they’re no longer a threat, we’ll close them up and never, NEVER touch that lever again. Agreed?”
Somewhere in the middle of all that, Dean stops popping. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying Sammy?” He’s got that gleam in his eyes again, and Sam wishes he really could get Dean a puppy. “We’re going to have a pet dragon?”
Sam takes a deep breath and prepares to launch into his prepared speech about what a big responsibility it will be and how dragons are a lifelong commitment, yada, yada, yada, but stops short when he sees the look on Dean’s face.
“Yes, Dean,” he says, “two of them.”
++++++++
It takes about four months for the female to remove all the teapots from the yard, the piles shrinking by undetectable amounts each day, but eventually, she gets them all. They never see her do it, never see her at all in fact. The lore indicates that once D. Cordisuinicus has a properly curated hoard, they’re completely harmless. The incinerated victims up in Wyoming were just the unfortunate casualties of the male’s journey through puberty without a female to show him how to nest.
Most unsettling of all is the fact that four teapots and the entire set of Royal Doulton with the hand-painted periwinkles disappears from inside the bunker one night as they sleep. Sam reflects that the female has a 42-foot wingspan and despite being an expert on key-hoarding, probably doesn’t actually know how to operate the deadbolt on the bunker door.
When all the teapots have disappeared, they start doing stake-outs. The entrance to the lair is about twenty miles north of the bunker, a fact that never fails to impress Sam as they make the drive out there each evening at twilight. A twenty-mile long tunnel. And that’s assuming it begins at the entrance and ends at the bunker. From what Sam’s read, it could be much, much bigger. Like that huge fungus in Michigan.
Dean brings snacks, and beers, and insists that Sam set up their digital telescope with the night vision and HD camera with airdrop. He sits on the hood of the Impala with his finger on the shutter, ready to spring into action and hit record at the first sight of action. Sam just wants the job over and done with. He’s cold and cramped, and just wants to be back in the bunker, researching that Rakshasa case that came over the wire last week.
And then, he sees them. Silhouetted at first against the fading evening light, massive wings undulating in massive flight. The sun glints off their backs, turning their burgundy scales to fire, and glinting off the golden hued ventral plates. Lazily, the male, only a bit longer than the female, but quite a bit heavier, rolls onto his back midflight, and the female flies around him, twisting her body, folding her wings, diving, rising again, rubbing her head against his flanks. A low rumble, like a satisfied purr fills the evening sky.
They dive into the lair as one, wings folded against their bodies, and touch down with a dramatic clattering of porcelain beneath their talons.
“Wow,” Sam whispers, breathless.
Dean just smiles, and doesn’t even bother taking pictures.
++++++++
So yes, now they have pet dragons. Two of them. From time to time, a teapot will go missing from the bunker, or Dean will have to have a new set of keys ground for the Impala. Sam checks the room with the lever daily, but all the dials and gauges indicate that the lair is perfectly secure.
But life with Dean wouldn’t be life with Dean if there weren’t at least some secrets between them. So Sam resolutely refuses to mention to Dean what he’s read about the incubation period for dragon eggs.