rivers_bend

Title: Strap on your Spaulders and Ride out at Dawn
Fandom/Pairing: Supernatural AU, Sam/Dean
Words: ~3200
Rating: NC-17
A/N: A gift for arglikeapirate for spn_j2_xmas. This is what the muses brought when I read your likes and prompts. I hope that you like it, even though I mashed things up a bit.
Summary: With chargers brave, and armor bright, Sam and Dean ride across England, saving people, hunting things, and hustling knights' tournaments when they need cash. Or, if A Knight's Tale met Merlin and their lovechild starred Sam and Dean, you might get this.



"Sam," Dean said, sounding stern, but also exhausted, "You cannot take that horse."

"You stole a horse not five days ago. Why is it alright for you, but not for me?" It seemed to be the story of Sam's life, Dean and his double standards, trying to protect his little brother. But Sam was not so little anymore, and he did not need the protections Dean couldn't seem to stop bestowing on him.

"I couldn't care less if you steal a horse. I only said you may not steal that one." Dean jabbed his sword in the direction of the field's sole equine occupant, which Sam had been about to appropriate for his own use.

"How much do you weigh, Sam?" Dean asked, before Sam could protest again.

Sam wasn't sure, but he guessed, "Fifteen stone?"

"And your armor?"

Sam started to follow the direction Dean was headed. "Another four?"

"And does that horse look like it could carry twenty stone?"

Truthfully, it didn't. Now that Sam looked closer, he wasn't sure it looked as though it could carry its own weight. He didn't want to give Dean the satisfaction of agreeing, however. He would find another horse. The moon would not be full yet for another thirteen days, and even walking, it wasn't more than seven days journey to where the pack of garoul had been reported.

Sam would rather win a horse than steal one, but the tournament season was over, and so that wasn't possible. Their own horses had been killed by a gryphon on their last hunt, hence their need for new ones. Fortunately their pack animal had been left safely behind at their camp, so while they walked, at least they did not need to carry their belongings. Sam had once been forced to walk carrying full armor, sword, shield, hauberk, silver blade, iron blade, five-pound sack of salt, food, water, flint, spell book, herbs, scales, brass bowl, iron bowl, silver bowl, mortar, pestle, flasks, tinctures, and bedroll. He would not choose to do it again.

Dean had mourned the loss of his charger, a fine jet-black animal who was sweet as honey to Dean and not unkind to Sam, but who snapped or kicked at anyone else who tried to come close to her. Near dawn on their second night walking, they had come upon her near match, tethered to a fallen tree. There was no scent of fire nearby, and a search of the woods unearthed no man to claim her, and so, leaving Sam with the pack horse and a hurried promise to meet him again fifteen miles down the road, Dean leapt to her back and took off.

It would be an hour, half a day at best before Sam was overtaken by an angry man missing his horse, demanding information, or worse, believing Sam knew where she was and taking everything Sam had as retribution, Sam was certain. But there was no one. He passed a party in a cart—two men and a boy headed to market by the look of them—at midmorning, and a man walking in the opposite direction not long after Sam stopped for lunch, but that was all.

As the sun set, Sam had started to wonder if he would see Dean again before he was forced to stop and make camp, but soon, Dean appeared from between the trees, leading his new mare, clucking to her like she was his old Chevrolet, giving her bites of apple. "There, baby," he said to her. "It's only Sam. You'll get to know him soon enough." He looped her reins over a branch and moved to stand in front of his brother, sliding an arm around his waist and resting his forehead on Sam's shoulder—a greeting he had taken to when Sam outstripped him in height, to replace a hand round Sam's neck and his forehead on Sam's own. It was a greeting they both took comfort from.

"You're here," Sam whispered into Dean's hair.

"We need a fire," Dean answered, not one for speaking his affection, but he slid two fingers under Sam's jerkin and stroked the skin there softly, just once, which was welcome enough for now. They would lay out their bedrolls after supper, and Sam would show Dean then how much he'd missed him.

And he did. Under the disturbingly watchful eye of Baby, which was all the name Dean would give his new horse.

Four more days of walking while Dean rode—heaven forbid Sam get his hands on the new horse before Dean had won her over completely—got them closer to Leeds, but did not turn up another unattended rouncey for Sam beyond the one too old to carry him.

Then on the fifth day, they came upon a hunting party in chaos: two men and a stallion gutted by terrible claws, mounts scattered, terrified, men and horses screaming—and a distinctive smell of burning that made both Sam and Dean immediately decide a dragon was to blame. They stopped far enough back so as not to spook their own horses and began to suit up.

Though he made Sam wear it far too frequently, Dean often didn't bother with full armor himself, even in situations where Sam thought him insane not to. He tended to keep it for the times he could use his carefully forged decrees to enter tournaments and win them enough gold to hold them over in leaner months.

But no one in his right might would go up against a dragon without all the protection at his disposal, so this time they had to help each other. Never having had a page or a squire or anyone but themselves, they had learned long ago to do the other's buckles up even while encumbered by bulky vambraces, and they made short work of donning their armor.

With crosses of vetivert oil hastily thumbed onto their foreheads, and their double-forged swords in hand, Sam and Dean hastened towards the core of men who had recovered from the attack enough that they might be able to tell the brothers Winchester in which direction the beast had gone.

North, it seemed, and flying low, which likely meant it was close to home. Finding a boy of the party who had dried his tears, and pressing a piece of silver into his hand, Sam and Dean charged him with watching their horses, then set off in the direction the dragon had flown. It took an hour and more to reach the beast's cave but it was easy to identify once they got there. Scorched all around and rich with a stench of sulfur, the opening in the rocks had recently seen battle. The brothers intended that it would soon see its last.

Dean insisted that he be the one to lure the dragon from his cave, in a voice Sam knew better than to argue with. When he was injured, Dean might let Sam ride a joust in his stead, and lately he had even allowed Sam to compete in a tournament all his own—which Sam had won, thank you very much—but Dean had never yet let Sam take point in a hunt, and now was not the time to try to convince him. Besides. This was not their first dragon, and it was silly to change a pattern that had worked three times before.

Sam took up a post to the side of the cave's mouth so that he would be both out of Dean's way when Dean fled the charging beast, and in a position to thrust up under the dragon's ribs as it emerged from its cave, allowing Dean to turn and get his sword under the dragon's jaw, piercing its brain. Much sooner than he expected, Sam heard a roar, and the clank of Dean's armor as he ran, and Sam widened his stance and brandished his sword.

"Sam!" Dean cried, bursting from the cave only inches in front of a great, licking flame. He skidded to a stop and turned, nearly falling, as the biggest dragon Sam had ever seen poked his head out into the late-afternoon sun.

Its bellow echoed in the clearing, vibrating Sam's bones, setting his teeth to aching. But still, only its head was visible. Sam had no angle to get his sword into his body. The beast had clearly done this before, and was not stupid.

"Go for his throat," Dean yelled, trying to get his own sword up, but mostly still finding his footing after his scramble from the cave.

They had never tried a kill shot without the damaging chest blow, and Sam had never taken the kill shot at all. But if he were ever to prove to Dean that he could take on more responsibility, now was surely the time, so Sam bent at the knees and took his sword in both hands, lowering the hilt so the blade angled up and out and the thrust would have as much power behind it as he could muster. Just as the dragon began to open his jaws to shoot another jet of flame at Dean, Sam uncoiled, knees, hips, chest, shoulders, elbows—driving his sword up through the monster's jaw, piercing its tongue, the soft roof of its mouth, the brittle membrane across the base of its skull, and finally its brain.

The thrust was true, and not even a trickle of fire escaped before the beast dropped to the ground, dead.

Dean whooped in victory, and before Sam quite realized that it was over, he was being borne to the ground under the combined weight of Dean and nearly four stone of metal plate.

They both lay winded for a moment, and then helped each other to their feet. "You did it!" Dean cried again, as though he couldn't actually believe it.

Sam didn't blame him; he couldn't really believe it himself. But there the dragon was, head in a pool of green-black ichor, scales already dulling.

They had intended to sever its head to bring back to the hunting party as proof that the monster was dead, but they reckoned it weighed as much as the two of them together, so in the end Dean climbed over the dragon's shoulder and back into the dark of the cave, and cut off the thrice-barbed tip of his tail. Still unmistakably dragon, but weighing no more than ten pounds, it was infinitely preferable as a trophy. Still, they took turns carrying it.

When they got back to the scene of the dragon's attack, the hunters had already dug graves for the fallen, calmed the still panicked, and gathered the scattered horses. When they saw what Sam and Dean carried with them, they let up a cry of victory that rattled the leaves in the trees.

"You must allow us to repay you," the group's leader, who introduced himself as Rowan, said, once the cheering had died down. "We notice you travel with only one horse for riding, yet there are two of you."

"Our other horse was killed by a gryphon," Dean answered. No need to let them know that their heroes were also horse thieves.

"You must take Willem's destrier," Rowan continued. "He has no need of the steed in his grave, and a finer beast I have not seen."

The horse that a young man was leading towards them was tall and chestnut brown, with sturdy legs and a strong back. He had a black streak in his forelock and a spark in his eyes. He looked as though he could carry Sam in full armor and not break a sweat.

"Will you have him?" Rowan asked.

"If you insist," Dean said. "We do have need of him."

Sam was too busy dreaming of riding the creature to be able to answer for himself.

"We do insist," Rowan said, and his words were echoed by the others. The boy pressed the reins into Sam's hands.

"We've miles to go still today," Dean said. He handed the dragon's tail to Rowan. "You may keep this. He won't bother you anymore."

The exchange of gifts brought on another chorus of thanks and well wishes, but Sam and Dean managed to escape in time to strip out of their armor and set off before the sun went down. With both of them riding, they made it another five miles before they had to stop and set camp.

While Sam laid a fire and snared a squirrel, Dean used river sand to scrub the dragon gore from their armor. It was nice to have three horses in camp again; things felt right and good. They didn't speak while they worked, just did their chores in comfortable silence, but Sam felt Dean's eyes on him more than once, a heavy hot gaze, different in every particular from the monitoring of a little brother's work. Sam couldn't help but preen as he skinned their dinner and set it on a spit.

"Now aren't you glad I didn't let you take that wretched beast?" Dean finally broke the silence as they moved together to brush the horses while the squirrel cooked over the fire. He was still watching Sam, hot eyes on Sam's fingers where they wrapped around the brush, but only teasing tinged his tone.

"Yes, Dean." Sam let Dean have his told-you-so. This was the finest horse Sam had ever had under him. Finer than most of the beasts ridden by the real knights and royalty at the tournaments they attended. A hand taller than Dean's new baby, and broader at the shoulders and the withers, he'd nonetheless had no trouble keeping pace with the lighter animal. The stallion was worth the price of letting Dean gloat. Especially if it meant Dean would sooner follow through on the promise of all this staring.

Sam only had to wait until they'd finished eating, though that was torture enough, watching Dean lick meat juices from between his fingers. Eager to have Dean beneath him, it wasn't long after the food was gone that Sam had ensured the horses were moved to fresh grass and the bedrolls were laid.

"You slew a dragon, Samuel," Dean whispered once Sam had kissed him breathless.

"As you have done before." Sam nosed along Dean's cheek, lit by the fire's warm glow, and then kissed his lips again, flushed anew with his success.

"And did the sight of it stir your blood as watching you did mine?" Dean drew Sam's hand down to the fold of his breeches where his manhood strained upwards as though trying to escape on its own.

In truth, at such times, Sam had always been rather too filled with his determination to keep his blade buried in the dragon's belly so that Dean would not meet his end on a dragon's teeth, but he saw no reason a white lie wouldn't serve under the circumstances, given that the sight of Dean doing almost everything made him eager.

"Yes," he said, and moved Dean's hand to Sam's own cock.

"All the better for you to fuck me with."

Dean did not often ask for that—happy to acquiesce if Sam desired, but just as happy to be brought off quickly with Sam's hands, return the favor, and settle into sleep. Their life was not such that lent itself to time for indulging in pleasures. Having Dean ask, and with such want in his words, was almost as thrilling as the act itself.

Or so Sam convinced himself until he was sliding, slick with oil, into his brother's heat. Dean lay on his back, one leg tight around Sam's waist, the other bent almost impossibly back, propped on Sam's shoulder. Even rarer than letting Sam enter him, this, letting Sam watch his face as he did, letting him in, in every possible way, and Sam tried his best to take advantage of it. It was difficult to move slowly, to not close his eyes with the overwhelming sensations, but Sam had few assets greater than his determination, and he succeeded.

When he could no longer resist his brother's softly parted lips, Sam let Dean's leg slide down to the hook of his elbow and leaned in to kiss him. As though that were the permission Dean had been waiting for, he started snapping his hips up against Sam's thrusts, urging Sam to go harder, faster, deeper. He had one hand in Sam's hair, holding him close, and the other he snaked between them to take himself over. The sounds he made every time Sam drove forward were muffled by their kiss, but Sam imagined he was saying, "Please, please, please."

Sam tried to last until Dean shook around him, but it was too much and he finished first, collapsing down on Dean's chest, only remembering at the last moment to let Dean's leg go so that he didn't break it. Dean tipped them sideways so Sam rolled off and Dean's hand was free to finish what he'd started. Sam wanted to help, he did, but his limbs were so heavy all he could do was mouth at Dean's jaw and rest his hand on Dean's chest.

Dean didn't seem to mind, clutching at Sam's arm and crying Sam's name as he came. He didn't even try to pull away when Sam crushed him to his chest afterwards. Sam held him, waiting for him to announce which one of them would take first watch.

Instead Dean rested with his head on Sam's shoulder and then eventually said, "Do you want first watch tonight, or do you want me to take it?"

The choice rendered Sam momentarily speechless. "I—I'm awake," he finally said. "I can stay here until you fall asleep, and then get up and make sure our new horses are still with us in the morning."

"Okay," Dean answered, much to Sam's surprise. But then Dean added, "Be sure to wake me in a few hours. Don't watch all night." That was more like Dean.

Sam let his fingers play with the hair at Dean's neck, thinking Dean was likely to have the knives out soon, make Sam cut it off. He couldn’t stand to have it longer than the bottom of his helmet. Sam was not thinking that Dean was about to ask his opinion on how they should go about hunting the garoul. Dean told, and Sam listened and learned. That's how it had been since Dad rode off and never came back, when Sam was only thirteen. Five years of something, and you get to thinking it's the way the world works.

But just when Sam thought Dean had drifted into sleep, Dean murmured, "It's said there are five garoul at least, running in a pack when the moon is full. How do you think we should catch them?"

He said it like Sam was a hunter. Not just his assistant. Not just his brother. Not just this—this that kept them together through thick and thin and against all the odds against them. He said it like Sam was his equal.

It would take some getting used to.

"We'll talk about it in the morning," Sam whispered against the top of Dean's head.

Dean sighed in response and went heavy in Sam's arms.