SPN Reversebang 2020: The Path of the Dragon
“Every seeker approaches the father on his or her own path.” Trust a reaper to take that piece of advice as unbreakable law.
OR In which Sam and Dean run an errand for the reapers, in order to help Jack with his mission to take out Chuck. It's just a quick trip to Purgatory to find a dragon's lair. What could go wrong? Set in between "Galaxy Brain" and "Destiny's Child".
This work was inspired by a lovely and mysterious piece by tx_devilorangel as part of 2020's SPN Reversebang. Check it out and give it much love! TxDorA's art sent my imagination off in a number of different directions, but I finally settled on this path thanks to my husband, who looked at the image and immediately said, "Purgatory!" He is my first reader and beta, so how could I refuse? The setting merged with the title of the piece, which is now the title of the story, and ultimately led here. So if you like it, you have TxDorA and my husband to thank--as I do.
Art Post: on LJ or AO3.
This whole thing was starting to smell like a set up.
That goddamn reaper. If I see her again, she’ll be missing one of those “clean hands” in a hurry. If she doesn’t tell me where she left Sammy in this hole. Best case, he ain’t even here, and she just stranded me.
Reliving my favorite nightmares. 360 degree Monsterama and me in the muck with them, nothing but a stolen axe made out of something’s leg bone. Nothing but fighting. Nobody but a pure killer rattling around in my skull.
But we wouldn’t get so lucky, would we? Which meant Jessica was being straight about one part of this mess at least, when she fed me that line about following my own path. And Sam his.
Not that she cared enough to point me in the direction of a freakin' road.
The reaper who called herself Jessica stood above Dean on the bank of what looked like a dry river bed and waved a careless hand to the north. “The lair is that way-you’ll know it when you see it. Sam ought to meet you there.”
She was gone before he even had a chance to pull the angel blade out of his jacket.
At least I got the weapons this time. The Grigori sword felt good in his hand, well balanced and not too heavy, while the angel blade that he always carried now rested in the scabbard rigged inside his coat, and his gun bumped against his back. The firearm probably wouldn’t take out the thing they were hunting, and he wasn’t planning on making big noise, so it was a weapon for the last ditch. Still, he would have felt naked without it.
He thought he was still pointed north, but the reaper’s “path” was nowhere to be seen. The air was silent. It was the quiet that convinced him that there might actually be an Alpha’s lair nearby. He’d never known these woods to be still. The next attack was always a snapped twig away. But here-
Last man-or monster-on earth, huh?
Dean pushed off from the tree trunk, but his feet remained planted in the dust at its roots. He knew he had to keep moving into the unnerving silence.
Just cause there might be a lair up ahead, though, doesn’t mean it’s not a set up.
For starters, Jessica was just too damn cheerful for a reaper. Didn’t matter that she’d been that way, welcoming as a flight attendant, every time they’d met. Then there was how she’d shown up in the bunker kitchen just as Sam stumbled in for coffee, bubbling away about some new secret ingredient to a spell to neutralize Chuck.
She says she’s there on Billie’s order, all we had to do was slip into Purgatory, snag some necklace with a diamond the size of a goose egg, and head for the exit. Never said a word about Jack. Dean was glad that the kid hadn’t woken up and come down to the kitchen while she was jabbering on about her protection spell.
Because she talked like she had no idea he was back.
And isn’t that just a little hinky? Unless she didn’t know, and she wasn’t working for Death. Maybe not even really Jessica, come to think of it. Maybe Chuck decided it might be fun to send his two favorite toys off on a side quest. And we just geared up and followed Little Miss Clean Hands into the forsaken ass-end of Chuck’s last world.
Not that I mind getting the chance to slay a dragon.
A shadow passed over his head as he finally poked his nose out from the canopy of the tree, and he jerked his head back. The thing overhead that cast it brushed the leaves with a quiet whoosh as it passed, flapping leathery wings, moving just enough to keep its body level with the treetops. Even from the forest floor, the thing made him feel small.
Huh-
Dean watched it disappear through the trees, and felt his mouth quirk up into a pleased smirk.
Who needs a path when you can track?
Sam followed a small purple globe of light as it darted through the forest, for all the world like a will-o-the-wisp from a fairy tale. He laughed to himself.
Which makes this a bad idea-spectacularly bad. Hope this spell works, Rowena.
He patted the witch’s journal in his pocket where he’d stashed it after working the location spell to be sure that it was still there, to take a moment of unconscious comfort in the knowledge she’d left behind for him. He knew, as long as he’d pronounced the incantation correctly, that the light was busy seeking out the creature that was connected by blood to the sword that now hung at his side in the rough scabbard that Dean had fashioned for it.
Should say, the sword shard.
He touched the hilt of Bruncvik’s sword in another half-conscious move.
Aragorn, Dean called me when I came out of the storeroom with it in my hand. And he calls me a nerd. Like he wasn’t the one who spent days re-honing the broken edges of this thing into a reasonably sharp short sword.
He felt a pang as he thought of his brother, lost again somewhere in these grey woods. They were supposed to be doing this together. But Jessica said-
After she brought us here and split us up-
“Every seeker approaches the father on his or her own path.”
Trust a reaper to take that piece of advice as unbreakable law.
So here he was with the location spell and the sword that could damage the dragon, and Dean was wherever Jessica had dropped him, with an angel blade and a fallen angel’s sword.
In the fifteen minutes the reaper had given them, they’d rounded up their supplies, and Dean laid out a range of blades on the library table, including the stone axe he’d brought out of Purgatory, the thing that had nearly ended his life, and then saved it as he fought by Benny’s side. Sam wished now that he’d taken it when Dean had offered, but he’d shaken his head, as he strapped the legendary sword to his belt.
Dean had sighed, slid a finger along the axe’s obsidian head, but picked up the more useful Grigori blade that Cas had left in their armory after Jack’s return. “Look-this is a quiet job, right?” he’d said. “And if these guys are anything like the ones we met topside, bullets aren’t gonna do a damn thing.” But he took his Colt, too, before gesturing at the wrought iron stairs. Jessica was meeting them outside at the top of the hill behind the bunker.
“Sneak in. Locate the jewel, and get out-”
“Just like the little hobbit dude-”
“Like Bilbo, right.”
So quiet job-quiet tools, right?”
Right. He couldn’t hide the gleam in his eyes as he hefted the angel sword, testing its feel in his hand. Not from me.
Ahead of him he could see the trees beginning to thin, and beyond-
Was that smoke? Steam?
The purple globe bobbed in the air ahead of him, as if it waited impatiently for him to catch up.
Dean heard a crackle in the tree tops as the thing he followed landed on another branch up ahead. He froze…
-Like a damn rabbit-
And studied the trees in front of him. It had disappeared into the gray leaves, and must have been just as motionless as he was. He silently adjusted the sword in his hand, bringing it up to a defensive position, and waited. He hadn’t been able to get a clear view of the thing in his quiet pursuit. A flash of a green leathery wing tipped in a set of curved talons, a long body that reminded him more of a gargoyle than a dragon-that was all he had been able to make out.
The branches in front of him rattled again, and one trunk began to sway and creak softly. Dean stepped back under the nearest canopy of leaves and looked around until he spotted the better cover of a clump of brush a few feet away. He stepped backwards as silently as he could and crouched behind the brush, craning his neck up to peer through his hiding spot to follow the thing’s movements.
It was making its way towards the ground, climbing head first down the trunk. If that was a dragon, then Game of Thrones had gotten them all wrong. Sure, its head was massive, and it had wings like a pterodactyl instead of front arms-
Wyverns, that’s what Sam called Dani’s kids-
-but it was much smaller than he thought it ought to be. It was only a little bigger than those pretenders in their Nordic meatsuits that they’d met in the sewers all those years ago. Its body was heavier than a man’s though, and its skin was a mottled green and brown, with a ripple of orange at the base of its neck. Its face was the most dragonish thing about it, with its long jaw, ridged brows, and prominent nostrils. He watched it raise its snout, sniffing the air as it cleared the main branches of the tree. It leapt from this trunk, its head bobbing left and right until it honed in on its destination. His cover.
Wonderful.
Nothing to do but let it come, and hope he could get the first blow in, keep it from signaling to any others that might be around. His muscles tensed, but he forced himself to stay as still as possible. He realized that he was holding his breath only when his lungs began to bitch, and he let it out slowly through his nose. His heart beat into his ears, so loud that he wondered if the Mini-Drogon that was stalking him could hear it.
If it could, the thing gave no indication that it had spotted the hunter. On the forest floor now, it stretched, brought its front claws to the ground, and began moving towards his hiding place. Dean caught a glimpse of its bony back and its tail.
Swear to god, Sammy, the thing has a ten foot long tail.
The thing was only a dozen feet away now, and its head had stopped bobbing. He saw its jaw opening, ready to strike at its prey. It moved still closer. And then it gave a gravel-deep snarl.
Or maybe it’s laughing.
The stripe of orange at its throat began to glow, and Dean knew it was time to move. Its mouth gaped open now, and it seemed to suck in a huge lungful of air. He wasn’t going to stick around to be on the receiving end of whatever it was getting ready to do.
He bolted upright and sprinted away from its head, not stopping to check its reaction. He ran parallel to its body, his sword poised, scanning for a weak spot on its body. It reared up, swatted at him with its wing, but he managed to duck under as it twisted itself around.
Dean heard a popping sound behind him, his brain flashing wildly on the image of the gas grill in the bunker flaring to life. The creature’s body rolled away from his path as it swung around, but he shifted course and followed it, sliding under another blow from the thing’s massive wing. He felt the heat at his back, saw a shaft of fire flow just over his head, as he brought the blade down on its nearest leg. The edge caught it just above its joint, a lucky shot between two scaly mounds of flesh, and the thing whipped away from him.
So angel weapons work--at least for this guy.
He pulled back, cutting the length of the blade across the thing’s skin as its leg buckled, looking for his next opening.
But the thing-wyvern, Mini-Drogon, whatever-struck first, pulling its tail around and smacking him in his own knees. Dean’s legs swept out from under him and he tumbled forward, right into the thing’s body.
It hissed, and brought its wings down to pull him towards its mouth.
Somehow he still had the sword in his hand, and managed to stab it upwards, jamming it into the softer skin under its jaw even as it opened its mouth for a bite.
“Ha!” he heard himself say. It reared up again, pulling the sword out of his hand, its hilt rising in the air above his head as it loomed over him. It shook its head back and forth, and he saw the orange strip begin to glow again, heard the popping sound of something igniting. It stretched its wings wide, getting ready to take off, with his sword, and then it was going to fry him.
But he wasn’t done yet. Dean reached his hand into his coat, where the smaller angel blade waited in its sheath, and he flung his other arm towards the creature’s stomach. He was as surprised as the wyvern when his fingers caught hold of the edge of a scale on its neck and lodged there. He let its sinuous movement pull his body upwards as he freed the angel blade and swung it upwards, slashing towards the strip on its throat and swinging his body weight into the blow. He lost his fingerhold on its neck when the blade connected, but it was enough. The three edged weapon cut into Mini-Drogon’s flesh and the glow abruptly disappeared. The creature gurgled, crumpled, began to fall to the ground.
“Ah-shit-” Dean rolled out of the way of its head and body, but could not get clear of the wing as it crashed around him. He landed on his stomach, covered his neck and head with his arms, and winced as the sharp wing-edge struck him across the back.
When he looked up, the first thing he saw was the thing’s eye gazing back at him. He could hear its week, bubbling breaths. It was done, he thought, even if it didn’t know it yet, but still it fought to move, to get back up. The eye fixed on his face, and the thing hissed again, bringing its wing up and trying to brace itself with its claws. The hilt of the Grigori sword gleamed under its jaw as it rose, only two feet from his face, and he rolled to reclaim it, grabbing the hilt and pushing off with his feet as he freed it in a gush of warm blood.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but he didn’t hesitate to plunge the sword into its eye. The blade destroyed it almost too easily, and the wyvern collapsed back to the forest floor with a final screeching sigh.
He hadn’t had time to pull the sword back before a bellow rang out from somewhere close. Dean sighed and got to his feet, his back and knees aching with the effort, and pushed the creature’s head to the side so that he could better grasp the hilt. Tucking the smaller angelic weapon back into its sheath, blood and all, he then braced his boot against the thing’s jaw to retrieve the other blade. As he began pulling at the Grigori blade in earnest, another bellow sounded, loud enough to shake the leaves above him. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to meet whatever had made that battle cry. He’d kept the kill as silent as he could, but it seemed that something up ahead heard that last screech, and it was pissed.
The creature under his foot finally gave up the sword, and it slid from the skull with a sickeningly wet, scraping sound. Dean only had time to hold the blade up to his face to inspect it before the treetops in the near distance began to shake and sway with a movement that didn’t come from the wind. Whatever was ahead knew where he was, and was sending the dead wyvern’s brothers into to forest. They were coming for him.
“Hope you made it through, Sammy,” he muttered before he turned and ran into the underbrush, his weapon still in hand.
The purple light hovered behind a tree trunk at the edge of a clearing. Sam reached out his hand, and it floated towards it, winking out as it settled just above his palm. He closed his fist, leaned up against the trunk, and scanned the open area beyond.
At first, he’d thought he was looking at an outcropping of rock, maybe even the beginning of a set of foothills. Then the rock shifted and twitched, ever so slightly, and he realized that the thing in front of him was alive. It was, in fact, the end of a tail. He felt his breathing pause with a surprised huff of air, and brought a hand up to his mouth as he leaned past the tree just enough to really see what they’d gotten into.
The tail sloped upwards into-well, into the body of a dragon. There just was no other word for it. From his viewpoint, probably too close, he could see the thick scales and ridged back, the leathery wing currently folded protectively over the body. Sam craned his neck to peer beyond the tree line, and gaped at the sheer size of the creature, which had to be the Alpha. It lay in the clearing as if on a bed of gold.
He couldn’t tell if the Alpha knew of his presence, but if it-he?-had spotted the hunter, he made no move to attack. It almost looked like his attention was focused at something in the trees on the other side of the clearing. That didn’t mean that nothing at all was moving around the area, though. Sam could make out several smaller, reptilian shapes, maybe six or seven winged, long-necked creatures, that hovered in the air, winging and circling about the dragon’s head. They looked like skeletal versions of the creatures hatched on Dean’s favorite show. He pulled his head back and stiffened, but no alarm was called, none of the smaller creatures moved away from their Alpha to patrol the clearing.
He didn’t have to think too hard to guess at what-or who-had captured their attention. Damn it, Dean. What happened to quiet and stealthy?
He couldn’t see what had them enthralled, and he wondered why, if it was his brother cutting a path towards the clearing like the relentless bulldozer he could be, the Alpha was still crouching in its spot instead of barging into the trees to meet the threat. The dragon’s stillness was unnerving.
Like a cat watching an insect. The thought chilled him. He needed to get to the other side of the clearing, right now. Sam drew Bruncvik’s sword from its scabbard, stepped back into the forest cover, and began to make his way around the clearing. He kept his eyes on the dragon and his children, the wyvern-like creatures paying him no mind. He’d reached the tip of the dragon’s tail before the dragon moved at all.
Sam gasped when the Alpha dragon suddenly reared up and spread its wings as if in sudden alarm. The thing was the size of a house-no, an office building, the Chrysler, Dean might say. Its scales scintillated as it moved, in colors like a rainbow reflected in glass. Its tail swept forward to curve protectively around its hind legs.
And as the dragon’s tail moved away from him, Sam saw the trap door. It was set in the ground, a black slab of stone, easily eight feet across, flat as a slate tile, worked into a perfect circle. Even from here he could see a solid stoned handle in its center, and gold runes inset around its edges. He looked back at the dragon and his wyverns, and saw that the smaller creatures had gathered into a tight group that hovered by the Alpha’s head, waiting for its command.
Sam braced himself, ready to sprint across the clearing to whatever awaited him on the far side. The Alpha then let out a roar, and the wyverns began to fly into the forest, brushing the tree tops and making them rattle. They screeched out their warnings into the forest, and were answered by a series of gunshots that cracked the air. They were Sam’s signal.
He pushed himself out into the clearing, sword first. The door was directly in his path. He didn’t want to lose momentum, but something told him to avoid stepping on the runes. He leapt over instead, trying to clear a corner of the door without breaking his stride.
A mistake. He almost had it but his back boot scraped across one of the inset runes as he brought it down and he cursed to himself, even as a golden light flashed into the sky from the rune. His mind registered, almost clinically, that there must have been some force magic in the workings. It caught his foot like a tripwire, and he stumbled, tipping forward, his momentum now working against him, his knees crashing into the ground. He glanced over his shoulder at the door, and saw that the rune he’d ignited seemed to have set off a chain reaction. Each of the symbols flared into life in turn, until a circle of light surrounded the stone.
THIEF. The voice rang in his head.
Sam’s shoulders jumped, and he turned to face the dragon. The Alpha was gazing back at him, with impassive eyes, his wings folded once more and his neck twisted to face the hunter. He continued the motion, his body almost curving into a spiral as he turned around. Behind the dragon, the racket on the other side of the clearing abruptly ceased. Sam’s heart dropped into his stomach, and he swallowed. He was not going to think about what that sudden silence might mean. The dragon’s mouth opened in a parody of a smile.
YOU HAVE TRAVELED FAR TO DIE AT MY FEET. THIEF.
“Not a thief,” he said. He wanted nothing more than to break for the trees, but he stood his ground, his mind scrambling for the right thing to say. The silence at the far side of the clearing might mean that Dean had managed to slip away. Somehow. He needed to buy time, for both of them.
ASSASSIN, THEN.
Sam looked down at the sword in this hand. St. Bruncvik’s treasure, a dragon-killer, re-shaped in the Men of Letters bunker, by his brother, it was a thing out of legend, made practical for the hunt.
“Neither. A-deal-maker.”
The dragon’s laughter shook him to his core, made him want to cower and hold his hands to his ears. One of the wyverns flitted out of the forest, then another and another. Two more approached the Alpha, carrying between them a third whose neck lolled lifelessly about. From here Sam could see the red streaks that marred its face. They laid it carefully on the ground near the Alpha and landed behind it.
Another followed close behind, holding something in each clawed foot that glinted in the light. The Alpha dragon looked at them, and at some unspoken command, it moved to the center of the clearing and dropped the things on the ground before circling back to land by their fallen sibling. Sam’s face paled as he recognized the Grigori sword and the nickel-plated .45 pistol. Dean’s weapons.
The last wyvern carried his brother.
Dean wasn’t moving much as the wyvern dropped him on the ground by the Alpha’s foot, but he roused when Sam shouted his name, turning his head in Sam’s direction and then rolling to his side. He seemed to become aware of the Alpha dragon’s presence belatedly as the creature bent its head to gaze down at the bloodied hunter.
Sam heard him suck in a breath as he stared up at the Alpha, and his own breathing only began to slow as his brother tried to pull himself upright.
“Big-what big teeth you have,” he heard Dean mumble up at the dragon’s snout.
The wyverns settled into a protective posture on either flank of their Alpha, who turned back to Sam. It shifted, again, pulled one of its forelegs up and then settled it almost daintily between the brothers. Dean groaned audibly, though he continued to move getting as far as his knees before the Alpha flexed the claws on the foot in front of him. Dean froze, his eyes finally meeting Sam’s.
DEAL-MAKER. WHAT DO YOU ASK? WHAT DO YOU OFFER?
“I’m-we are-looking for a gem that we believe you possess.” Sam said, trying to hold his voice steady. “A yellow diamond, as big as a man’s fist, on a silver chain. It may help us save the world.”
AHHHHH-
Sam saw Dean’s gaze drop to the weapons in the flattened grass, laying some ten feet from either of them, and he shook his head, one slight movement. The dragon ignored Dean, fixing his enormous eyes on Sam as if pondering the request.
YOUR WORLD IS NO LONGER MY DOMAIN OR MY CONCERN.
“No. But-our worlds are tied together-
The dragon seemed amused. INDEED. YOU SEND US PREY.
“Right.” Sam swallowed again. “Something-someone-is getting ready to kill both our worlds. The diamond, it’s an essential part, a working of a spell to stop him.”
The dragon considered this. Sam forced himself to remain still when he suddenly lowered his head close to Sam’s face. He knew Dean was tensing up at this. He could hear his brother’s protective growl, before his vision was filled with the dragon’s snout, his shimmering scales and teeth.
HMMMM-YOU SPEAK OF THE SEER? YOU WOULD COMBAT HIM?
Sam tried to meet the dragon’s gaze, but all he could see was the teeth, each one longer than his head and neck combined. Still, he took a deep breath, said, “Yes.”
PERHAPS WE MAY COME TO TERMS. ALLOW ME---
He jumped when a crackling sound came from the trap door behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder. A necklace now floated in the center of the rune light, a long silver chain dangling from a pendant that truly was as big as his fist. Its golden facets sparkled in the light.
As he looked, the necklace jerked upwards and flew out of the circle, over his head, too high to grab and almost too fast to see. He followed its course, though, turning with its path to see it caught by a huge hand encased in iridescent armor.
The dragon had disappeared in a swirling cloud of smoke and the hand retreated into it, growing smaller. The Alpha’s whole body twisted and coiled on itself as it shrank and shifted, its wings growing translucent before fading away. Sam strained to catch a glimpse of his brother at the edge of the cloud, and was relieved to see him standing up and beginning to step carefully away, towards the blade and pistol on the ground.
But he wasn’t fast enough, and the dragon’s maw emerged from the cloud and snapped at Dean, who ducked away. Sam heard the dragon’s booming chuckle as its teeth then flowed back into the swirling mass that began to surround his brother. He looked for a way to get to Dean, or to strike the Alpha, somewhere, anywhere-but how do you hit smoke?
The dragon’s shifting was transforming him into a man. Well, a giant really, clad in scales that shimmered as they settled into shape. His new face, more reptilian than human, was still too large, but at least its mouthful of teeth had shrunk down to size. He stood over Dean, like a mythical titan come to life. Or, Sam thought, like that green alien that Kirk once fought on Star Trek. He stifled a wild laugh at the idea. Dean will be so proud of me, remembering that.
The Alpha brought the gem up for a closer inspection, as Dean again tried to shunt away towards the weapons on the ground. Almost as an afterthought, the Alpha reached his other hand down and grabbed Dean by the shoulder. Sam winced in sympathy as Dean cursed in pain when the black clawed fingers dug in deep.
“Such a bargain requires tongue speech.” The Alpha said, his voice in this form raspy as if unused to use. “So-this is what you seek, yes? Who comes to claim it?” He moved forward, too graceful for such a large being, dangling Dean in front of him until they stopped five feet short of the discarded weapons on the ground. Behind him the wyverns shuffled but remained in their vigilant positions.
“The Winchesters. On behalf of Death herself.” Sam watched Dean eying the sword, glancing at the edge of the clearing.
The Alpha seemed to ponder the claim as if he had nothing in particular to concern himself with. He leaned forward. “And your offer?”
Sam thought for a moment. He had nothing to offer but-“The Sword of Bruncvik, to remain here in your keeping, never to trouble your children in our world again.” Dean’s brows knit together in dismay as Sam held up the blade in his hand for the Alpha’s inspection.
“I thought it would be-longer.” The dragon laughed at his own joke. “But this is a good start. My counter is this. You may have the bauble for the sword-“Sam felt his shoulders relax in relief, but the dragon wasn’t finished yet, and he watched the younger hunter closely as he went on, “-along with the weapons, and the life of the Little Warrior here.”
Sam looked at Dean in shock, and Dean’s face reddened as he stared back.
“Well, Deal-Maker Winchester?” The dragon held the gem out towards Sam, mocking his hesitation as it dangled in front of his face. “You will not receive a better offer. This one-” he gave Dean a hard shake, and the hunter bit back a groan of pain. “-killed my child. I will have justice for that. And if you are-Winchesters-I would keep his head to present to The Mother. She doesn’t like Winchesters very much.”
Dean sighed and looked down, then brought his gaze back to Sam’s face. When he was sure Sam could see him, he nodded at his brother.
Sam felt a flash of anger. He knew Dean meant it. He was ready-ready and willing-for Sam to take the stupid necklace and skip on home. If it meant Sam going free. If it meant the end of Chuck. He opened his mouth to refuse-
And then he saw Dean’s eyes flick towards the forest edge and back, flick to his own hand. Sam saw that he was flexing his fingers, like a movie cowboy getting ready for a showdown. Like a cowboy getting ready for a quick draw. And he understood.
Still, the bile rose in his throat as he choked out, “I agree.”
The dragon laughed again. “You gave so quickly,” he said. “Lay the sword where you stand and back away.”
Sam did as he was told. As the sword left his fingers, he glanced again at his brother, who had begun to reach under his jacket, ever so slowly.
“Very good. Now, catch, Deal-Maker.”
The dragon swung the gem on its chain and let it fly. Sam had to spin and jump to get under it, and caught it just short of the stone slab. He wondered briefly if the dragon had intended to cheat, maybe catch them both, for the Alpha growled as Sam shoved the gem into his pocket and kept going. This time he made it around the trap door, all the while muttering under his breath, “C'mon, Dean, c'mon-your plan, damn it-c'mon-”
As he reached the tree line, he heard the dragon snarl, and he looked back just in time to seen Dean dropping to the ground and dragging the Alpha’s hand downwards. His brother had pulled his angel blade out from underneath his jacket as he moved, and he stabbed the Alpha in the wrist. Sam couldn’t tell if the blade had done anything serious to the dragon, but the combination of sudden movement and the surprise attack did the trick, and his brother fell out of the dragon’s grip and rolled away, coming back up on his feet near the weapons on the ground.
“Dean, let’s go!” he shouted, and his brother waved his blade at him, in the universal sign for keep moving. Sam waited long enough to see Dean scoop up his pistol in his free hand and start following at a dead sprint.
The dragon howled in anger and pursued, but even injured, Dean was a fast runner. The wyverns took to the air too, and as Dean reached the trees, they followed.
“Go, go, go!” Dean snapped at him, and Sam obeyed. The two crashed through the trees, the wyverns close behind. “Don’t let ‘em grab you!”
From the clearing they heard the dragon’s roar, but they ran on.
DEAL-BREAKER! The dragon howled into Sam’s head, and he stumbled, only to feel Dean’s arm hooking his elbow and keeping him upright. They ran as close to the trees as they could, trying to stay out of the wyverns’ direct sight overhead. The creatures hissed and screeched in frustration, some of them unleashing fire on the trees. Still they ran.
Sam caught a glimpse of blonde hair and a black jacket just before Jessica appeared, a few feet in front of them, holding out her arms like a hen offering shelter to her chicks. He steered Dean toward her, and stutter-stepped into her as she grabbed their arms, nearly toppling over before they managed to stop.
“Hi, boys,” was all she said before she plucked them out of Purgatory.
The necklace rattled onto the library table and the three of them stared at it. Sam could tell that Dean wanted nothing more than to collapse onto a chair. Hell, he could use a seat himself, but instead his brother set his now-empty pistol onto the table, and pointed at the diamond pendant.
“So tell me again why we risked our necks for that thing?” He toyed with the angel blade that he still held, switching it into his right hand and twirling it to adjust his grip.
Jessica picked up the gem in both hands and gazed at it, a little smile on her lips. “Call it-insurance,” she said. She murmured to it in a language that Sam did not recognize, and it seemed to come to life, lighting up her face in a soft golden glow.
Sam said, “You said it was for a spell.”
“Did I? Sorry about that. I should have said, it contains a spell. It’s a truth teller.” She looked up at them, and Sam could swear she looked apologetic. “Some of my fellow reapers and I-well, let’s just say, this may prove helpful to our plans.”
“You mean, we fought a dragon for a damn crystal ball?” Dean huffed.
The reaper smiled sweetly at him. “And you have my warmest thanks.”
And then she was gone.
“Sonovabitch--” Dean let himself sag, pulling out a chair and groaning.
“How’s the shoulder, Little Warrior?” Sam asked, a smile quirking at his lips.
His brother fixed him with a glare. “Shut up, Mr. Deal Breaker. That was a hell of a way to spend a morning.”
“Yeah it was.” Sam gave a laugh as he headed towards the infirmary hall for the first aid supplies he knew Dean was going to need. “That’s me, always happy to break a deal for you.”
Behind him he heard the soft metallic clink as the blade joined the gun on the table. And even softer, could swear he heard his brother say, “Thanks, Sammy.”
OR In which Sam and Dean run an errand for the reapers, in order to help Jack with his mission to take out Chuck. It's just a quick trip to Purgatory to find a dragon's lair. What could go wrong? Set in between "Galaxy Brain" and "Destiny's Child".
This work was inspired by a lovely and mysterious piece by tx_devilorangel as part of 2020's SPN Reversebang. Check it out and give it much love! TxDorA's art sent my imagination off in a number of different directions, but I finally settled on this path thanks to my husband, who looked at the image and immediately said, "Purgatory!" He is my first reader and beta, so how could I refuse? The setting merged with the title of the piece, which is now the title of the story, and ultimately led here. So if you like it, you have TxDorA and my husband to thank--as I do.
Art Post: on LJ or AO3.
This whole thing was starting to smell like a set up.
That goddamn reaper. If I see her again, she’ll be missing one of those “clean hands” in a hurry. If she doesn’t tell me where she left Sammy in this hole. Best case, he ain’t even here, and she just stranded me.
Reliving my favorite nightmares. 360 degree Monsterama and me in the muck with them, nothing but a stolen axe made out of something’s leg bone. Nothing but fighting. Nobody but a pure killer rattling around in my skull.
But we wouldn’t get so lucky, would we? Which meant Jessica was being straight about one part of this mess at least, when she fed me that line about following my own path. And Sam his.
Not that she cared enough to point me in the direction of a freakin' road.
The reaper who called herself Jessica stood above Dean on the bank of what looked like a dry river bed and waved a careless hand to the north. “The lair is that way-you’ll know it when you see it. Sam ought to meet you there.”
She was gone before he even had a chance to pull the angel blade out of his jacket.
At least I got the weapons this time. The Grigori sword felt good in his hand, well balanced and not too heavy, while the angel blade that he always carried now rested in the scabbard rigged inside his coat, and his gun bumped against his back. The firearm probably wouldn’t take out the thing they were hunting, and he wasn’t planning on making big noise, so it was a weapon for the last ditch. Still, he would have felt naked without it.
He thought he was still pointed north, but the reaper’s “path” was nowhere to be seen. The air was silent. It was the quiet that convinced him that there might actually be an Alpha’s lair nearby. He’d never known these woods to be still. The next attack was always a snapped twig away. But here-
Last man-or monster-on earth, huh?
Dean pushed off from the tree trunk, but his feet remained planted in the dust at its roots. He knew he had to keep moving into the unnerving silence.
Just cause there might be a lair up ahead, though, doesn’t mean it’s not a set up.
For starters, Jessica was just too damn cheerful for a reaper. Didn’t matter that she’d been that way, welcoming as a flight attendant, every time they’d met. Then there was how she’d shown up in the bunker kitchen just as Sam stumbled in for coffee, bubbling away about some new secret ingredient to a spell to neutralize Chuck.
She says she’s there on Billie’s order, all we had to do was slip into Purgatory, snag some necklace with a diamond the size of a goose egg, and head for the exit. Never said a word about Jack. Dean was glad that the kid hadn’t woken up and come down to the kitchen while she was jabbering on about her protection spell.
Because she talked like she had no idea he was back.
And isn’t that just a little hinky? Unless she didn’t know, and she wasn’t working for Death. Maybe not even really Jessica, come to think of it. Maybe Chuck decided it might be fun to send his two favorite toys off on a side quest. And we just geared up and followed Little Miss Clean Hands into the forsaken ass-end of Chuck’s last world.
Not that I mind getting the chance to slay a dragon.
A shadow passed over his head as he finally poked his nose out from the canopy of the tree, and he jerked his head back. The thing overhead that cast it brushed the leaves with a quiet whoosh as it passed, flapping leathery wings, moving just enough to keep its body level with the treetops. Even from the forest floor, the thing made him feel small.
Huh-
Dean watched it disappear through the trees, and felt his mouth quirk up into a pleased smirk.
Who needs a path when you can track?
Sam followed a small purple globe of light as it darted through the forest, for all the world like a will-o-the-wisp from a fairy tale. He laughed to himself.
Which makes this a bad idea-spectacularly bad. Hope this spell works, Rowena.
He patted the witch’s journal in his pocket where he’d stashed it after working the location spell to be sure that it was still there, to take a moment of unconscious comfort in the knowledge she’d left behind for him. He knew, as long as he’d pronounced the incantation correctly, that the light was busy seeking out the creature that was connected by blood to the sword that now hung at his side in the rough scabbard that Dean had fashioned for it.
Should say, the sword shard.
He touched the hilt of Bruncvik’s sword in another half-conscious move.
Aragorn, Dean called me when I came out of the storeroom with it in my hand. And he calls me a nerd. Like he wasn’t the one who spent days re-honing the broken edges of this thing into a reasonably sharp short sword.
He felt a pang as he thought of his brother, lost again somewhere in these grey woods. They were supposed to be doing this together. But Jessica said-
After she brought us here and split us up-
“Every seeker approaches the father on his or her own path.”
Trust a reaper to take that piece of advice as unbreakable law.
So here he was with the location spell and the sword that could damage the dragon, and Dean was wherever Jessica had dropped him, with an angel blade and a fallen angel’s sword.
In the fifteen minutes the reaper had given them, they’d rounded up their supplies, and Dean laid out a range of blades on the library table, including the stone axe he’d brought out of Purgatory, the thing that had nearly ended his life, and then saved it as he fought by Benny’s side. Sam wished now that he’d taken it when Dean had offered, but he’d shaken his head, as he strapped the legendary sword to his belt.
Dean had sighed, slid a finger along the axe’s obsidian head, but picked up the more useful Grigori blade that Cas had left in their armory after Jack’s return. “Look-this is a quiet job, right?” he’d said. “And if these guys are anything like the ones we met topside, bullets aren’t gonna do a damn thing.” But he took his Colt, too, before gesturing at the wrought iron stairs. Jessica was meeting them outside at the top of the hill behind the bunker.
“Sneak in. Locate the jewel, and get out-”
“Just like the little hobbit dude-”
“Like Bilbo, right.”
So quiet job-quiet tools, right?”
Right. He couldn’t hide the gleam in his eyes as he hefted the angel sword, testing its feel in his hand. Not from me.
Ahead of him he could see the trees beginning to thin, and beyond-
Was that smoke? Steam?
The purple globe bobbed in the air ahead of him, as if it waited impatiently for him to catch up.
Dean heard a crackle in the tree tops as the thing he followed landed on another branch up ahead. He froze…
-Like a damn rabbit-
And studied the trees in front of him. It had disappeared into the gray leaves, and must have been just as motionless as he was. He silently adjusted the sword in his hand, bringing it up to a defensive position, and waited. He hadn’t been able to get a clear view of the thing in his quiet pursuit. A flash of a green leathery wing tipped in a set of curved talons, a long body that reminded him more of a gargoyle than a dragon-that was all he had been able to make out.
The branches in front of him rattled again, and one trunk began to sway and creak softly. Dean stepped back under the nearest canopy of leaves and looked around until he spotted the better cover of a clump of brush a few feet away. He stepped backwards as silently as he could and crouched behind the brush, craning his neck up to peer through his hiding spot to follow the thing’s movements.
It was making its way towards the ground, climbing head first down the trunk. If that was a dragon, then Game of Thrones had gotten them all wrong. Sure, its head was massive, and it had wings like a pterodactyl instead of front arms-
Wyverns, that’s what Sam called Dani’s kids-
-but it was much smaller than he thought it ought to be. It was only a little bigger than those pretenders in their Nordic meatsuits that they’d met in the sewers all those years ago. Its body was heavier than a man’s though, and its skin was a mottled green and brown, with a ripple of orange at the base of its neck. Its face was the most dragonish thing about it, with its long jaw, ridged brows, and prominent nostrils. He watched it raise its snout, sniffing the air as it cleared the main branches of the tree. It leapt from this trunk, its head bobbing left and right until it honed in on its destination. His cover.
Wonderful.
Nothing to do but let it come, and hope he could get the first blow in, keep it from signaling to any others that might be around. His muscles tensed, but he forced himself to stay as still as possible. He realized that he was holding his breath only when his lungs began to bitch, and he let it out slowly through his nose. His heart beat into his ears, so loud that he wondered if the Mini-Drogon that was stalking him could hear it.
If it could, the thing gave no indication that it had spotted the hunter. On the forest floor now, it stretched, brought its front claws to the ground, and began moving towards his hiding place. Dean caught a glimpse of its bony back and its tail.
Swear to god, Sammy, the thing has a ten foot long tail.
The thing was only a dozen feet away now, and its head had stopped bobbing. He saw its jaw opening, ready to strike at its prey. It moved still closer. And then it gave a gravel-deep snarl.
Or maybe it’s laughing.
The stripe of orange at its throat began to glow, and Dean knew it was time to move. Its mouth gaped open now, and it seemed to suck in a huge lungful of air. He wasn’t going to stick around to be on the receiving end of whatever it was getting ready to do.
He bolted upright and sprinted away from its head, not stopping to check its reaction. He ran parallel to its body, his sword poised, scanning for a weak spot on its body. It reared up, swatted at him with its wing, but he managed to duck under as it twisted itself around.
Dean heard a popping sound behind him, his brain flashing wildly on the image of the gas grill in the bunker flaring to life. The creature’s body rolled away from his path as it swung around, but he shifted course and followed it, sliding under another blow from the thing’s massive wing. He felt the heat at his back, saw a shaft of fire flow just over his head, as he brought the blade down on its nearest leg. The edge caught it just above its joint, a lucky shot between two scaly mounds of flesh, and the thing whipped away from him.
So angel weapons work--at least for this guy.
He pulled back, cutting the length of the blade across the thing’s skin as its leg buckled, looking for his next opening.
But the thing-wyvern, Mini-Drogon, whatever-struck first, pulling its tail around and smacking him in his own knees. Dean’s legs swept out from under him and he tumbled forward, right into the thing’s body.
It hissed, and brought its wings down to pull him towards its mouth.
Somehow he still had the sword in his hand, and managed to stab it upwards, jamming it into the softer skin under its jaw even as it opened its mouth for a bite.
“Ha!” he heard himself say. It reared up again, pulling the sword out of his hand, its hilt rising in the air above his head as it loomed over him. It shook its head back and forth, and he saw the orange strip begin to glow again, heard the popping sound of something igniting. It stretched its wings wide, getting ready to take off, with his sword, and then it was going to fry him.
But he wasn’t done yet. Dean reached his hand into his coat, where the smaller angel blade waited in its sheath, and he flung his other arm towards the creature’s stomach. He was as surprised as the wyvern when his fingers caught hold of the edge of a scale on its neck and lodged there. He let its sinuous movement pull his body upwards as he freed the angel blade and swung it upwards, slashing towards the strip on its throat and swinging his body weight into the blow. He lost his fingerhold on its neck when the blade connected, but it was enough. The three edged weapon cut into Mini-Drogon’s flesh and the glow abruptly disappeared. The creature gurgled, crumpled, began to fall to the ground.
“Ah-shit-” Dean rolled out of the way of its head and body, but could not get clear of the wing as it crashed around him. He landed on his stomach, covered his neck and head with his arms, and winced as the sharp wing-edge struck him across the back.
When he looked up, the first thing he saw was the thing’s eye gazing back at him. He could hear its week, bubbling breaths. It was done, he thought, even if it didn’t know it yet, but still it fought to move, to get back up. The eye fixed on his face, and the thing hissed again, bringing its wing up and trying to brace itself with its claws. The hilt of the Grigori sword gleamed under its jaw as it rose, only two feet from his face, and he rolled to reclaim it, grabbing the hilt and pushing off with his feet as he freed it in a gush of warm blood.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but he didn’t hesitate to plunge the sword into its eye. The blade destroyed it almost too easily, and the wyvern collapsed back to the forest floor with a final screeching sigh.
He hadn’t had time to pull the sword back before a bellow rang out from somewhere close. Dean sighed and got to his feet, his back and knees aching with the effort, and pushed the creature’s head to the side so that he could better grasp the hilt. Tucking the smaller angelic weapon back into its sheath, blood and all, he then braced his boot against the thing’s jaw to retrieve the other blade. As he began pulling at the Grigori blade in earnest, another bellow sounded, loud enough to shake the leaves above him. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to meet whatever had made that battle cry. He’d kept the kill as silent as he could, but it seemed that something up ahead heard that last screech, and it was pissed.
The creature under his foot finally gave up the sword, and it slid from the skull with a sickeningly wet, scraping sound. Dean only had time to hold the blade up to his face to inspect it before the treetops in the near distance began to shake and sway with a movement that didn’t come from the wind. Whatever was ahead knew where he was, and was sending the dead wyvern’s brothers into to forest. They were coming for him.
“Hope you made it through, Sammy,” he muttered before he turned and ran into the underbrush, his weapon still in hand.
The purple light hovered behind a tree trunk at the edge of a clearing. Sam reached out his hand, and it floated towards it, winking out as it settled just above his palm. He closed his fist, leaned up against the trunk, and scanned the open area beyond.
At first, he’d thought he was looking at an outcropping of rock, maybe even the beginning of a set of foothills. Then the rock shifted and twitched, ever so slightly, and he realized that the thing in front of him was alive. It was, in fact, the end of a tail. He felt his breathing pause with a surprised huff of air, and brought a hand up to his mouth as he leaned past the tree just enough to really see what they’d gotten into.
The tail sloped upwards into-well, into the body of a dragon. There just was no other word for it. From his viewpoint, probably too close, he could see the thick scales and ridged back, the leathery wing currently folded protectively over the body. Sam craned his neck to peer beyond the tree line, and gaped at the sheer size of the creature, which had to be the Alpha. It lay in the clearing as if on a bed of gold.
He couldn’t tell if the Alpha knew of his presence, but if it-he?-had spotted the hunter, he made no move to attack. It almost looked like his attention was focused at something in the trees on the other side of the clearing. That didn’t mean that nothing at all was moving around the area, though. Sam could make out several smaller, reptilian shapes, maybe six or seven winged, long-necked creatures, that hovered in the air, winging and circling about the dragon’s head. They looked like skeletal versions of the creatures hatched on Dean’s favorite show. He pulled his head back and stiffened, but no alarm was called, none of the smaller creatures moved away from their Alpha to patrol the clearing.
He didn’t have to think too hard to guess at what-or who-had captured their attention. Damn it, Dean. What happened to quiet and stealthy?
He couldn’t see what had them enthralled, and he wondered why, if it was his brother cutting a path towards the clearing like the relentless bulldozer he could be, the Alpha was still crouching in its spot instead of barging into the trees to meet the threat. The dragon’s stillness was unnerving.
Like a cat watching an insect. The thought chilled him. He needed to get to the other side of the clearing, right now. Sam drew Bruncvik’s sword from its scabbard, stepped back into the forest cover, and began to make his way around the clearing. He kept his eyes on the dragon and his children, the wyvern-like creatures paying him no mind. He’d reached the tip of the dragon’s tail before the dragon moved at all.
Sam gasped when the Alpha dragon suddenly reared up and spread its wings as if in sudden alarm. The thing was the size of a house-no, an office building, the Chrysler, Dean might say. Its scales scintillated as it moved, in colors like a rainbow reflected in glass. Its tail swept forward to curve protectively around its hind legs.
And as the dragon’s tail moved away from him, Sam saw the trap door. It was set in the ground, a black slab of stone, easily eight feet across, flat as a slate tile, worked into a perfect circle. Even from here he could see a solid stoned handle in its center, and gold runes inset around its edges. He looked back at the dragon and his wyverns, and saw that the smaller creatures had gathered into a tight group that hovered by the Alpha’s head, waiting for its command.
Sam braced himself, ready to sprint across the clearing to whatever awaited him on the far side. The Alpha then let out a roar, and the wyverns began to fly into the forest, brushing the tree tops and making them rattle. They screeched out their warnings into the forest, and were answered by a series of gunshots that cracked the air. They were Sam’s signal.
He pushed himself out into the clearing, sword first. The door was directly in his path. He didn’t want to lose momentum, but something told him to avoid stepping on the runes. He leapt over instead, trying to clear a corner of the door without breaking his stride.
A mistake. He almost had it but his back boot scraped across one of the inset runes as he brought it down and he cursed to himself, even as a golden light flashed into the sky from the rune. His mind registered, almost clinically, that there must have been some force magic in the workings. It caught his foot like a tripwire, and he stumbled, tipping forward, his momentum now working against him, his knees crashing into the ground. He glanced over his shoulder at the door, and saw that the rune he’d ignited seemed to have set off a chain reaction. Each of the symbols flared into life in turn, until a circle of light surrounded the stone.
THIEF. The voice rang in his head.
Sam’s shoulders jumped, and he turned to face the dragon. The Alpha was gazing back at him, with impassive eyes, his wings folded once more and his neck twisted to face the hunter. He continued the motion, his body almost curving into a spiral as he turned around. Behind the dragon, the racket on the other side of the clearing abruptly ceased. Sam’s heart dropped into his stomach, and he swallowed. He was not going to think about what that sudden silence might mean. The dragon’s mouth opened in a parody of a smile.
YOU HAVE TRAVELED FAR TO DIE AT MY FEET. THIEF.
“Not a thief,” he said. He wanted nothing more than to break for the trees, but he stood his ground, his mind scrambling for the right thing to say. The silence at the far side of the clearing might mean that Dean had managed to slip away. Somehow. He needed to buy time, for both of them.
ASSASSIN, THEN.
Sam looked down at the sword in this hand. St. Bruncvik’s treasure, a dragon-killer, re-shaped in the Men of Letters bunker, by his brother, it was a thing out of legend, made practical for the hunt.
“Neither. A-deal-maker.”
The dragon’s laughter shook him to his core, made him want to cower and hold his hands to his ears. One of the wyverns flitted out of the forest, then another and another. Two more approached the Alpha, carrying between them a third whose neck lolled lifelessly about. From here Sam could see the red streaks that marred its face. They laid it carefully on the ground near the Alpha and landed behind it.
Another followed close behind, holding something in each clawed foot that glinted in the light. The Alpha dragon looked at them, and at some unspoken command, it moved to the center of the clearing and dropped the things on the ground before circling back to land by their fallen sibling. Sam’s face paled as he recognized the Grigori sword and the nickel-plated .45 pistol. Dean’s weapons.
The last wyvern carried his brother.
Dean wasn’t moving much as the wyvern dropped him on the ground by the Alpha’s foot, but he roused when Sam shouted his name, turning his head in Sam’s direction and then rolling to his side. He seemed to become aware of the Alpha dragon’s presence belatedly as the creature bent its head to gaze down at the bloodied hunter.
Sam heard him suck in a breath as he stared up at the Alpha, and his own breathing only began to slow as his brother tried to pull himself upright.
“Big-what big teeth you have,” he heard Dean mumble up at the dragon’s snout.
The wyverns settled into a protective posture on either flank of their Alpha, who turned back to Sam. It shifted, again, pulled one of its forelegs up and then settled it almost daintily between the brothers. Dean groaned audibly, though he continued to move getting as far as his knees before the Alpha flexed the claws on the foot in front of him. Dean froze, his eyes finally meeting Sam’s.
DEAL-MAKER. WHAT DO YOU ASK? WHAT DO YOU OFFER?
“I’m-we are-looking for a gem that we believe you possess.” Sam said, trying to hold his voice steady. “A yellow diamond, as big as a man’s fist, on a silver chain. It may help us save the world.”
AHHHHH-
Sam saw Dean’s gaze drop to the weapons in the flattened grass, laying some ten feet from either of them, and he shook his head, one slight movement. The dragon ignored Dean, fixing his enormous eyes on Sam as if pondering the request.
YOUR WORLD IS NO LONGER MY DOMAIN OR MY CONCERN.
“No. But-our worlds are tied together-
The dragon seemed amused. INDEED. YOU SEND US PREY.
“Right.” Sam swallowed again. “Something-someone-is getting ready to kill both our worlds. The diamond, it’s an essential part, a working of a spell to stop him.”
The dragon considered this. Sam forced himself to remain still when he suddenly lowered his head close to Sam’s face. He knew Dean was tensing up at this. He could hear his brother’s protective growl, before his vision was filled with the dragon’s snout, his shimmering scales and teeth.
HMMMM-YOU SPEAK OF THE SEER? YOU WOULD COMBAT HIM?
Sam tried to meet the dragon’s gaze, but all he could see was the teeth, each one longer than his head and neck combined. Still, he took a deep breath, said, “Yes.”
PERHAPS WE MAY COME TO TERMS. ALLOW ME---
He jumped when a crackling sound came from the trap door behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder. A necklace now floated in the center of the rune light, a long silver chain dangling from a pendant that truly was as big as his fist. Its golden facets sparkled in the light.
As he looked, the necklace jerked upwards and flew out of the circle, over his head, too high to grab and almost too fast to see. He followed its course, though, turning with its path to see it caught by a huge hand encased in iridescent armor.
The dragon had disappeared in a swirling cloud of smoke and the hand retreated into it, growing smaller. The Alpha’s whole body twisted and coiled on itself as it shrank and shifted, its wings growing translucent before fading away. Sam strained to catch a glimpse of his brother at the edge of the cloud, and was relieved to see him standing up and beginning to step carefully away, towards the blade and pistol on the ground.
But he wasn’t fast enough, and the dragon’s maw emerged from the cloud and snapped at Dean, who ducked away. Sam heard the dragon’s booming chuckle as its teeth then flowed back into the swirling mass that began to surround his brother. He looked for a way to get to Dean, or to strike the Alpha, somewhere, anywhere-but how do you hit smoke?
The dragon’s shifting was transforming him into a man. Well, a giant really, clad in scales that shimmered as they settled into shape. His new face, more reptilian than human, was still too large, but at least its mouthful of teeth had shrunk down to size. He stood over Dean, like a mythical titan come to life. Or, Sam thought, like that green alien that Kirk once fought on Star Trek. He stifled a wild laugh at the idea. Dean will be so proud of me, remembering that.
The Alpha brought the gem up for a closer inspection, as Dean again tried to shunt away towards the weapons on the ground. Almost as an afterthought, the Alpha reached his other hand down and grabbed Dean by the shoulder. Sam winced in sympathy as Dean cursed in pain when the black clawed fingers dug in deep.
“Such a bargain requires tongue speech.” The Alpha said, his voice in this form raspy as if unused to use. “So-this is what you seek, yes? Who comes to claim it?” He moved forward, too graceful for such a large being, dangling Dean in front of him until they stopped five feet short of the discarded weapons on the ground. Behind him the wyverns shuffled but remained in their vigilant positions.
“The Winchesters. On behalf of Death herself.” Sam watched Dean eying the sword, glancing at the edge of the clearing.
The Alpha seemed to ponder the claim as if he had nothing in particular to concern himself with. He leaned forward. “And your offer?”
Sam thought for a moment. He had nothing to offer but-“The Sword of Bruncvik, to remain here in your keeping, never to trouble your children in our world again.” Dean’s brows knit together in dismay as Sam held up the blade in his hand for the Alpha’s inspection.
“I thought it would be-longer.” The dragon laughed at his own joke. “But this is a good start. My counter is this. You may have the bauble for the sword-“Sam felt his shoulders relax in relief, but the dragon wasn’t finished yet, and he watched the younger hunter closely as he went on, “-along with the weapons, and the life of the Little Warrior here.”
Sam looked at Dean in shock, and Dean’s face reddened as he stared back.
“Well, Deal-Maker Winchester?” The dragon held the gem out towards Sam, mocking his hesitation as it dangled in front of his face. “You will not receive a better offer. This one-” he gave Dean a hard shake, and the hunter bit back a groan of pain. “-killed my child. I will have justice for that. And if you are-Winchesters-I would keep his head to present to The Mother. She doesn’t like Winchesters very much.”
Dean sighed and looked down, then brought his gaze back to Sam’s face. When he was sure Sam could see him, he nodded at his brother.
Sam felt a flash of anger. He knew Dean meant it. He was ready-ready and willing-for Sam to take the stupid necklace and skip on home. If it meant Sam going free. If it meant the end of Chuck. He opened his mouth to refuse-
And then he saw Dean’s eyes flick towards the forest edge and back, flick to his own hand. Sam saw that he was flexing his fingers, like a movie cowboy getting ready for a showdown. Like a cowboy getting ready for a quick draw. And he understood.
Still, the bile rose in his throat as he choked out, “I agree.”
The dragon laughed again. “You gave so quickly,” he said. “Lay the sword where you stand and back away.”
Sam did as he was told. As the sword left his fingers, he glanced again at his brother, who had begun to reach under his jacket, ever so slowly.
“Very good. Now, catch, Deal-Maker.”
The dragon swung the gem on its chain and let it fly. Sam had to spin and jump to get under it, and caught it just short of the stone slab. He wondered briefly if the dragon had intended to cheat, maybe catch them both, for the Alpha growled as Sam shoved the gem into his pocket and kept going. This time he made it around the trap door, all the while muttering under his breath, “C'mon, Dean, c'mon-your plan, damn it-c'mon-”
As he reached the tree line, he heard the dragon snarl, and he looked back just in time to seen Dean dropping to the ground and dragging the Alpha’s hand downwards. His brother had pulled his angel blade out from underneath his jacket as he moved, and he stabbed the Alpha in the wrist. Sam couldn’t tell if the blade had done anything serious to the dragon, but the combination of sudden movement and the surprise attack did the trick, and his brother fell out of the dragon’s grip and rolled away, coming back up on his feet near the weapons on the ground.
“Dean, let’s go!” he shouted, and his brother waved his blade at him, in the universal sign for keep moving. Sam waited long enough to see Dean scoop up his pistol in his free hand and start following at a dead sprint.
The dragon howled in anger and pursued, but even injured, Dean was a fast runner. The wyverns took to the air too, and as Dean reached the trees, they followed.
“Go, go, go!” Dean snapped at him, and Sam obeyed. The two crashed through the trees, the wyverns close behind. “Don’t let ‘em grab you!”
From the clearing they heard the dragon’s roar, but they ran on.
DEAL-BREAKER! The dragon howled into Sam’s head, and he stumbled, only to feel Dean’s arm hooking his elbow and keeping him upright. They ran as close to the trees as they could, trying to stay out of the wyverns’ direct sight overhead. The creatures hissed and screeched in frustration, some of them unleashing fire on the trees. Still they ran.
Sam caught a glimpse of blonde hair and a black jacket just before Jessica appeared, a few feet in front of them, holding out her arms like a hen offering shelter to her chicks. He steered Dean toward her, and stutter-stepped into her as she grabbed their arms, nearly toppling over before they managed to stop.
“Hi, boys,” was all she said before she plucked them out of Purgatory.
The necklace rattled onto the library table and the three of them stared at it. Sam could tell that Dean wanted nothing more than to collapse onto a chair. Hell, he could use a seat himself, but instead his brother set his now-empty pistol onto the table, and pointed at the diamond pendant.
“So tell me again why we risked our necks for that thing?” He toyed with the angel blade that he still held, switching it into his right hand and twirling it to adjust his grip.
Jessica picked up the gem in both hands and gazed at it, a little smile on her lips. “Call it-insurance,” she said. She murmured to it in a language that Sam did not recognize, and it seemed to come to life, lighting up her face in a soft golden glow.
Sam said, “You said it was for a spell.”
“Did I? Sorry about that. I should have said, it contains a spell. It’s a truth teller.” She looked up at them, and Sam could swear she looked apologetic. “Some of my fellow reapers and I-well, let’s just say, this may prove helpful to our plans.”
“You mean, we fought a dragon for a damn crystal ball?” Dean huffed.
The reaper smiled sweetly at him. “And you have my warmest thanks.”
And then she was gone.
“Sonovabitch--” Dean let himself sag, pulling out a chair and groaning.
“How’s the shoulder, Little Warrior?” Sam asked, a smile quirking at his lips.
His brother fixed him with a glare. “Shut up, Mr. Deal Breaker. That was a hell of a way to spend a morning.”
“Yeah it was.” Sam gave a laugh as he headed towards the infirmary hall for the first aid supplies he knew Dean was going to need. “That’s me, always happy to break a deal for you.”
Behind him he heard the soft metallic clink as the blade joined the gun on the table. And even softer, could swear he heard his brother say, “Thanks, Sammy.”