Chapter Text
When Dean wakes up first he has no idea where he is.
It’s oddly quiet around him, with only a light breeze brushing the leaves of the trees.
He opens his eyes and tries to rub his hands against his face when a jolting pain in his arms and legs has him cry out.
Oh. The pain. How could he forget.
He is roped to a pole in the middle of the forest.
He’s been there for hours, at least- he remembers the ritual taking place before sunset, but now it’s the cold hours after midnight but before dawn, and the moon is already halfway across the sky...
He must have woken up to the pain. Hours roped to a pole with no moving place at all do that to you.
Years of experience tell him he must have blacked out from the pain, too, because his wrists feel bloody. He was trying to free himself. It apparently didn’t work.
He hates his town even more now than he did before.
He tries again, but the ties are too good, too expert, too neat, he stands no chance. Still, he won’t go down without trying.
A fierce roar echoes through the night, making the trees and his pole shake from the force of it, as if it were trying to warn away everything. Well, there’s really no need for that as the woods are empty from all humans and animals, save Dean.
Save Dean. Yeah, someone could really humor him.
He’s not really a virgin sacrifice- he’s far from virgin, has been for more than a decade, and the village despises the word ‘sacrifice’. They call it ‘peace offering to show gratitude and ensure friendship’ with the beast that have announced its presence by the roar already.
Dean calls it bullshit.
Yet still here he is, because he fucked up good and didn’t realize it in time to make a move and run for his life.
He rubs against the ropes faster and tries to comfort himself with the thought that at least it’s not Sam in his place.
First a giant shadow blocks the moon above him as it passes over the sky. Then he hears the flaps of what must be giant wings, though he’s not speaking from experience- after the ritual is done once (or sometimes twice) each year the people of the village run for cover, not wanting to be around when the thing arrives. Dean was no exception on those rare occasions he was forced to witness the madness.
The ground shakes as something huge lands on it. He hears the rustle of the grass and fallen leaves as the beast moves around to the clearing Dean is placed on, but it still is out of sight.
Dean is not sure if he is thankful for that. He is sweating and shaking a little bit- sure, he has faced dangers and was the first in line when it came to bravery bordering stupidity, but this is different. He is tied to a rope, lacks all weapons, and is sore from the ropes cutting to his flesh. Plus, he is about to face a giant-sized dragon that is here to eat him. If he can’t get loose (which, he supposes, is the case this time) he’d rather be over with the dying part already, thank you very much. This waiting and guessing is worse than probably anything he’s ever been trough.
He’s so lost in his pathetic thoughts that first he doesn’t even catch sight of the pair of incredibly blue eyes staring at him from the cover of the trees.
Dean freezes.
He’s beyond hope this time - this must be the beast.
He takes a deep breath and braces himself.
‘Well come on, you ugly sonofabitch’ he calls out, before he has the mind to stop himself. ‘Wha’cha waiting for?!’
From the shift of the eyes Dean guesses the beast tilts his head to the left and blinks. Then it moves, slowly but steadily, and moonlight shines upon it as it gets to the clearing.
It’s fucking huge. It’s massive, long head is about twice the size of Dean’s whole body, not counting the sharp horns on each side and the back. And it keeps on coming and coming but the tail is still beneath the trees, it’s body is so long it doesn’t even fit to the clearing.
Dean is so fucking fucked.
He wishes he could just pass out, but he’s not that lucky.
When the beast comes close he can see more and more details that he wants not to see, like the spikes on its back and the long claws and the strong muscles. He’s not sure of the color, though. Seems black, but that could only be the night light doing.
The blue piercing eyes never leave his own and Dean swallows as the dragon lowers its head and--- sniffs him.
‘What’ is the only thing his mind can come up with, but then it dawns on him. He’s food. The beast is just making sure he’s edible.
‘Oh c’mon’ he mutters to himself, but the dragon stills so it must have heard too. ‘Just get it over with, I’m not poison. I’ve been cleansed for days before they brought me here’ he doesn’t want to share this piece of information, and he definitely doesn’t want to think of it, because being with Alastair was nothing like cleansing, but it’s too late.
The dragon draws back and growls. Dean’s sure his heart couldn’t go faster or it would jump out of his chest, but apparently he’s wrong again because when the dragon’s head snaps towards him he lets out a manly yelp and blacks out, thankfully.
When he comes to mind next time he doesn’t need time or movement to remember what happened previously. He sits right up, and blinks around to check his surroundings.
He is no longer tied up. The pole is gone, and so is the forest- he is in a large room without windows, so large he guesses even the dragon would fit in. But the thing is nowhere in sight as it turns out.
Dean realizes he is cocooned, or was until he sat up, in a soft fur, probably bear by the color and touch of it. His legs are still sore, his arms slightly trembling, but his wrists are-- his wrists are covered in some weird green mixture of herbs. He smells it and realizes it to be roughly the same he himself used to use on injuries. It’s covered in big green leaves that are mostly dried, and he doesn’t poke more. He doesn’t understand why anyone would want to cure him, but he’s not ungrateful.
He gets to his feet and checks the room. The walls are rough, with marks of claws on it- was a dragon or something equally horrifying held captive here? The cob ground is easy to walk on and solid. There are neither windows, nor anything else really, just the pile of fur he climbed out of. And a hole in one wall without a door or a doorframe, but that is where the light is coming from.
Dean goes for it. He has no idea where he is, where the dragon is, and he really doesn’t want to find out. He wants to leave like yesterday.
He gets to a corridor, same walls, same ground, same sizes- it looks like they were crawled in, but in what he can’t tell. Still no windows, so he turns right because more light is coming from that way.
On the next turn he sees the sky above him. Well, the sky and the ceiling, because there are windows carved above his head, like forty feet up high. The sun is already up high, so he must have slept through the rest of day and is already tired of dehydration and lack of food, plus the stress and pain of the previous day, but he doesn’t wait.
He goes on and on, trying to remember the way he came from but his mind is foggy and this place is like a friggin’ labyrinth. If there are opening to the outside they are too high to reach, and there are no door whatsoever, just large holes and walls and no weapons. Not like he expected a magical dragon-slaying sword in the possible lair of a dragon, but one never knows.
He doesn’t know how long he wanders, or how loud the sounds he makes are, but he tries to keep it down. He’s sweating after climbing some stairs, then descend the next corner, and is about to give up already and make peace with death when he reaches the largest room so far.
Its whole side is missing, letting the light flow through the many corridors starting here. As he moves to the opening and drinks in the view before him, he realizes where he is.
It’s an odd mixture between a castle and a cave. It’s carved in the side of a mountain, and is so far above the normal ground level that the nearest trees basically under his feet look like the size of his thumb.
The room ends abruptly, and there is no stairs or anything, just the straight wall down, then the rocks of the hill.
But of course, dragons can fly in and out as they wish.
Humans can’t, though.
He’s sure now that it is a dragon’s, or possibly more dragons’ lair, not built for humans. He doesn’t realize the surrounding smaller hills and valleys, so he must be pretty fucking far away from home.
Home. Well, the place you got stuck after your family fell to pieces.
He’d probably die if he fell down on that edge. He’s already dizzy, apparently he hates heights.
But which is worse, staying here for dragon food or getting smashed on the rocks beyond?
Well, depends; which would kill you faster?
As if on a cue, a loud roar vibrates through the castle-cave, a roar Dean has heard before. His instincts kick in instantly; he takes a step and launches himself into air.
‘This was a stupid idea’, his brain supplies too late but only a fearful scream leaves his mouth. He’s going to die, he’s going to crash, the rocks are getting bigger and sharper and closer incredibly fast and it’s a wonder he’s still alive, but he’s going to see Mom so---
No, he won’t. Not now, anyway.
A huge, clawed paw grabs him and he is lifted violently up again. He turns his head as much as he can to see the dragon, and now that he’s not falling again he can hear the flaps.
Those wings are huge.
The dragon takes him back towards the room he fell out from, but doesn’t stop there. The fly in deeper and deeper, and Dean again has no idea where he is when they land.
He braces himself for a crash, or the tear of teeth, or anything, but nothing like that comes.
He is put down gently, and the beast withdraws a good few feet and just looks at him.
Dean stands up, legs shaking, but he grabs hold of the wall for support and faces the thing.
It’s still huge, but not black. Well, mostly black, yes, but with dark blue and dark purple scales scattered everywhere that flash in the light coming from the window above them. He’s sure it’s wings are scaled too, but now those are folded against its back. Its huge tail is waggling behind it on the floor.
‘What do you want from me?’ Dean manages after thirty seconds of intense glaring.
Dean doesn’t know what he expects, again, but for the dragon to lower its head and look astray isn’t it. It looks back at Dean instantly, and it suddenly looks sad.
Dean knows it’s not supposed to look sad. But animals can do that, sometimes, though he mostly experienced it with Impala, his awesome horse before he sent her off with Sam on her back, but sometimes cats or dogs too had that look on them, the look that you could write books about. Or well, Sam could.
But it’s a dragon, a huge man-eating lizard, and it looks sad.
Then it waves its head to the direction on Dean’s right, opposite from the direction they flew from.
Dean risks a glance, and gasps- there’s a hole, a dragon-sized hole in the wall, and it even has a door but it’s open, and Dean can see the open sky and land through it.
He looks back at the dragon. The thing looks withdrawn upon itself, but sensing Dean’s glance it looks up and waves again.
Dean limps to the door, and looks out.
It’s not a door to thin air, like the other one he came across, and there’s a path starting outside the cave. The trees start a few feet away, and Dean is certain they hide the entrance from sight above if you don’t look close enough.
He turns back to the black thing.
‘Do you want to chase me?’
The dragon looks offended- outright offended- and shakes its eighteen-foot long head.
‘Do you even understand what I’m saying?’ Dean goes on, unbelieving.
The dragon scoffs and nods.
‘Then why---’ he’s cut off when the dragon is suddenly beside him, and nudges him with its head.
The scales are dry and warm.
Dean takes a tentative step to get rid of the dragon, but still doesn’t believe.
‘You- are you letting me go?’
The dragon sits back, closer than before and nods, looking smug now that finally it’s will is understood.
‘Why?’ Dean has his hands on his hips without thinking, forgetting about his wrists and the leaves which rustle at the sudden movement. Most of them have fallen off as he did his air dive, he notes.
The dragon squints, blue eyes narrow on him. He waves, fiercer than before.
‘But I don’t understand. You eat people. You eat our sacrifices every year.’
The dragon is shaking its head so fast Dean’s sure it’ll get dizzy.
Dean must be looking disbelieving, because the dragon just sighs, like, literally puffs out a breath of air and waves again with its head at Dean, though this time it’s towards the opposite direction, and before Dean can react the beast is already on four feet and moving along the corridor, away from Dean.
He is not sure what is happening. No, lie. He has absolutely no idea what is happening. Is he free to go?
He looks at the path and trees, still at the doorway.
Half an hour ago he threw himself out of a window to get away from this place, what is he waiting for?
But half an hour ago those blue eyes didn’t look sad, and that black creature didn’t say (or show, or sign or whatever) that it didn’t want humans.
And Dean’s totally not believing it, because it’s against everything he’s ever known or learned about nature’s ways.
So when he turns from the door and follows the huge lizard waiting fom him at the first corner he tells himself it’s because if he’s being eaten alive, he’s not gonna tire himself with walking or running from it, but he’d go head first and face what’s coming, like he was always taught to.
The dragon leads him up some stairs. They are big and made for dragon-sized creatures and hard to climb; then there are corridors, chambers, windows... Dean has no hope of finding the way back on his own if it ever came to that. But the dragon goes slow, making sure that Dean can fall into step behind him after it has realized Dean is coming.
Then one thing strikes Dean- there is no furniture. Well he supposes dragons don’t need much, but still. There’s nothing. All the chambers, all the walls, everything- it’s completely empty.
‘Dude’ Dean says, and has those blue eyes on him in an instant. ‘Doesn’t your kind hoard stuff?’
There’s the head tilting again, and the dragon shrugs one shoulder.
‘Oh, c’mon, it is something embarrassing?’ Dean finds himself grinning, and then mentally kicking himself for teasing a dragon. But he knew that purposely nonchalant expression in those eyes.
The dragon growls and sets to a faster pace so Dean has to jog to keep up.
He wonders where they’re going, and if he’s going to survive this whole adventure, and what could possibly be embarrassing for a dragon to hoard- Dean knows for a fact that all dragons are hoarders, but what they hoard differ from dragon to dragon- when he realizes the creature stopped.
They’re in front of a door. An actual door with a doorknob and lock and doorframe and all. The second one Dean’s seen here.
The dragon can still fit through it, though it has to crouch a bit after it pushed it in with its nose.
Dean follows.
The door leads to another stairway that ends in a trap door. The dragons and Dean both climb through it.
He has to blink many times to get acclimatized to the bright light above his head. There no walls around him, not near enough anyway, though the steep hillside on the north side blocks the view from the eye, but not the sunlight.
He is in a garden, his mind supplies when the light is no longer blinding. The ground beneath his feet feels different than of the inside, it is brown soil, and a nice amount of plants grew in it. It goes on to the north from the hillside to east and south to the walls, but it looks like this is the actual roof of the cave on that part. The west is open, so Dean guesses that’s where the dragon takes off if it wishes just after gardening.
Gardening.
A gardening dragon.
A dragon doing gardening.
He recognizes most of the plants around him, though there are some that he’s seen nothing to the likes of- one has red leaves the size of his own head, and some have spikes or odd dots or are just different from size than the ones he’s used to.
All in all, it’s pretty amazing.
The air is a bit chilly and windy up high so far, so they don’t get burnt, and there are some evergreens to give shade in every few row, and they are actually a bit shorter than Dean and they don’t block much of the view. The rows are spacey, so the dragon can maneuver its large body without causing damage.
It sits and looks expectantly at Dean.
‘This is what you hoard?’
Shake of head, then its right front foot touches its belly and mouth.
‘It’s what you eat?’ Dean feels his eyes go wide.
Enthusiastic nod of the head. The dragon goes to a big bushy herb Dean’s never seen before and chews on a branch, looking at ease.
‘You... but you eat meat, right? I mean, you’re a dragon.’
At that the creature fixes Dean with a long stare. Then it nods, slowly, but like it is against its better judgment. Not wanting to or just being unable to elaborate it turns and leaves, but before Dean decides if he wants to follow or not the dragon is back with some green leaves in his pawn. He lets it fall to Dean’s feet and brings one sharp claw to his wrists.
Dean jerks back before they can touch though, and the dragon looks crestfallen.
Guilt bubbles up in Dean, no matter how hard he tries to swallow it down.
‘Sorry’ he says, quietly, but remains where he is, out of touch. Of course, if the giant reptile decides to make a move he would have no chance, but things like logic never stopped Dean from doing something. ‘Will you rip it off if I, um...’ he doesn’t have a clue on how he planned to finish that, but he doesn’t have to. The dragon shakes its head, and leans forward but his paws remain glued to the ground.
He’s letting Dean make a move. Smart.
Dean thinks it through, and decides that the dragon hasn’t done any harm to him so far, and if it wanted to it could without his consent anyway, so he steps tentatively towards the creature and lifts his left hand.
The dragon takes it into its front paws, lightly, and the warm touch is foreign but not bad. Then it chooses a few leaves from the ground and rolls them around Dean’s wrist. It’s amazing, watching him using those sharp claws as humans use fingers. The fresh herbs cool Dean’s healing wounds instantly, and he doesn’t even care about not knowing their names.
The dragon then asks for his other hand with open paws, and Dean complies. When they are done Dean is honestly surprised (and relieved) to find that he doesn’t have any new scratches.
‘Thank you’ he says sincerely to the dragon, and realizes he doesn’t know its name. ‘Do you have a name?’
The dragon tilts its head to the left and nods.
‘Can you tell me?’
The dragon hesitates, then with one sharp claw draws three symbols to the ground. One looks like a half circle, the middle one is a weird messed-up triangle and the last one is a snake.
Dean knows they are called letters and some people can read them, but he’s not one of them.
When he looks up to the dragon he realizes he should have said something because it looks hurt.
‘I... I can’t read that’ Dean mutters and averts his eyes.
It was always Sam who learned those things, books and numbers and letters, from Pastor Jim, while Dean was out working and earning money so they wouldn’t end up starved to death or frozen to death or anything like that when the winter season arrived. His own father never cared about his studies, as Pastor Jim called it, and by the time they were left with the old cleric he was already too old to study and had to work.
And there was no need, really, although he would have liked to impress some ladies with his reading skills. Sam always did that. And all the nice girls learned to read and write, so he didn’t go after nice ladies that often afterwards.
The dragon nudges Dean with its nose, and still has that sad look in its eyes when Dean looks up. He gets the meaning of the nudging, though, after a while.
‘I’m Dean’ he introduces himself, and the dragon’s eyes light up to that. It pulls it’s paw over the ground to erase the letters, and draws four new symbols instead- one of them, the third one is the same weird triangle that was in the dragon’s name as well. The first is a circle with a straight side, then there is a funny one with three lines connected with a fourth, and the last is three lines again but in a different constellation.
The dragon practically beams at Dean, and lays his head beside the four letters, eyes never leaving Dean’s.
‘That’s it? That’s my name? Dean?’
The dragon, still lying, nods.
‘Well I’m sorry I can’t read yours’, but to that the dragon only shrugs and looks back to the four letters. ‘But... if it’s not too much... are you a male dragon?’ Dean’s afraid he’s stepped over a line the moment the words are out, but the dragon nods again, and Dean lets out a relieved sigh. He’s not getting eaten alive for stupid misguessings.
The dragon’s eyes smile at Dean, and he finds it hard not to smile back.
They walk back to the door on the same way they came from, but this time Dean’s not afraid to be side by side with the dragon. He’s actually disappointed for not finding out it’s -not, his- name, because always calling him dragon sucks. Unless his name is Dragon, but that would be stupid.
Why on earth would he be calling him any name, after all? He’s leaving. For good.
The door appears at the end of the corridor, and Dean’s stomach clenches with every step he takes. He doesn’t understand- he wants to leave, doesn’t he?
But for what? He has no family. Sam is away, studying, and isn’t likely to come back. He probably has no idea that Dean was supposedly sacrificed. Mom is dead and Dad... well, Dad is Dad. They haven’t seen him, haven’t heard from him in years.
And that’s all. He doesn’t have friends, because he’s the village’s troublemaker, he doesn’t have a pretty lady at home because he goes after skirts but never gets committed and Uncle Bobby lives days of journeys away. He has no home apart from his kid brother and horse that he sent away good three years ago.
He... he wants to go, he really does, because as much as he doesn’t have any particular someone waiting doesn’t mean he shouldn’t go, or should stay, but he’s in no rush.
The dragon stops before the door, though, and just looks lost in the middle of the big cave. When Dean looks at him, he just waves with his head and waits.
Dean makes up his mind quickly.
‘You let everyone go? Every sacrifice?’
The dragon nods, clearly not getting why this matters now.
‘Just ‘cause... they never come back to the village.’
The dragon shrugs.
‘Well-- it’s pretty far away, isn’t it?’
The dragon cautiously nods.
‘How many days journey? On human foot?’
The dragon considers this, then draws three lines to the dirt.
‘Well I just... look, it’s almost dusk. I wouldn’t even get to the foot of the hill’ Dean is telling the truth here, really. ‘Would it be okay if I stayed overnight? I could walk tomorrow faster and go further if I set off at morning.’
The dragon nods and his eyes smile, but then his face falls.
‘What?’ Dean asks this time cautiously.
The dragon just unfolds his wings, flaps them twice though stays firmly on the ground and crouches, his first feet bend.
‘Oh no, no way- I hate flying, dude, and I hate heights. I’d rather walk tomorrow, thank you.’
The dragon just shrugs again, but Dean’s sure he’s not imagining the smile on his face.