(Disclaimer: Don't own anything except the following story)

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Dragon Slayer.

Chapter One.

It raised its head, its eyes blinking slowly as it felt the first rippling of a disturbance on the wind. It moved cautiously out of its cave and into the sunlight, its head turning left and right as it felt for the disturbance again. Its tail swished back and forth, a low rumble beginning in its belly as the disturbance was borne on the winds again. It spread its leathery wings wide, its head thrown back as it opened its jaws and roared. A roar that was joined by its brothers and sisters; a roar that echoed through its homeland... and a roar that echoed in a distant mind and awakened one that had been asleep too long.

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He opened his eyes slowly, the bare cement floor cold against his cheek. He blinked once, then again, his eyes slowly adjusting to the early morning light that was just starting to filter through the broken window. He rolled onto his back, his mind automatically assessing his body for injuries. He found none. He put his arm over his face, he hated the first few minutes of this, he knew what had happened…well not exactly what, but ...'it' ...had happened again…the waking up and not knowing where he was or what he'd done.

He finally pushed himself up and sat, taking in his surroundings. It looked like he was in the basement of an old tenement building. There were empty boxes and crates leaning against a disused boiler, cobwebs and dust everywhere …well everywhere except for a rather large area not far from him. He wasn't surprised to see that, the circular pattern was now a familiar sight. He looked at his watch, almost 6.30am…time to figure out where the hell he was, how far away he was from Sam...and how long he'd been missing this time.

He found the Impala two blocks down from the tenement building, checked her over and making sure no-one had touched his baby. He removed his black leather coat; the coat he had a strange attachment to …but had no memory of how it came into his possession. He never wore it…he only ever woke up in it.

He threw it on the back seat, got into the car, gunned the engine and headed out.

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Sam was pacing the room of the latest crappy motel when Dean walked in "Where the fuck have you been?"

Dean shut the door behind him, refusing to look into Sam's eyes "Out"

"It happened again, didn't it?" he grabbed at Dean as he went to walk past him "Didn't it?"

Dean shook Sam off him "I just went out for some air Sammy, that's all"

"Bullshit! You left to get food two days ago! Two fucking days ago, Dean! Or did you forget that too?"

"Let it go, Sam" and he walked into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

Sam stared at the door for a while before going out to the Impala. He saw the coat on the back seat and shook his head, he only ever saw that coat when Dean came back from one of his disappearing acts. This one had been a relatively short one, most usually lasted about five days. He went to the trunk and opened it, checking the weapons. He looked at the old sword Dean had picked up in a military disposal store; it had been sharpened and cleaned again. He'd never seen Dean use the sword but he knew Dean was using it when he disappeared. Those damn disappearances that were on the increase, the disappearances that had started not long after the dreams had. He looked back at the motel room, what the hell was going on with his brother?

He closed the trunk and went back to the room. Dean was still in the shower, he sighed, went to the laptop, pulling up the site he'd found, the site he hoped would give him an answer as to what had been happening to his brother this last year. He'd been tapping away for a few minutes when he heard a crash from the bathroom. He got up quickly and went to the bathroom door.

"Dean, you alright, dude?" he got no response "Dean!" he knocked on the door "DEAN!" he pounded on the door "DEAN!" he tried the handle, locked. He stepped back, raised his foot and kicked the door open; Dean was slumped in the shower, bleeding heavily from a gash to the head and there was blood streaming from his nose "DEAN!" He ran to him, turning off the shower and lifting his brother out and onto the floor. He grabbed a towel, putting it the gash "Dean…wake up, dude. Come on…" he patted Dean's cheek and noticed his eyes moving rapidly under closed lids. "Dean…hey, Dean…"

He called the paramedics when his brother starting seizing.

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Sam sat in the chair by the hospital bed, waiting. Waiting for Dean to wake and waiting for the damn doctors to give him some kind of answer as to what had happened to his brother. He chewed on his thumbnail as he watched Dean sleep; they'd sedated him to stop the seizures and told Sam it was just a waiting game now.

He looked up when an orderly came and cleared the empty coffee cups from the bedside table, giving Sam a smile filled with pity. It took all of Sam's strength not to slam the man against the wall and punch the living shit out of him. He waited and waited, watched as nurses came and went, checking Dean and giving Sam perfunctory smiles and hollow words and deflecting his questions for answers.

He was talking quietly to Dean when a doctor finally came to see him. He checked Dean over quickly, made notes in his chart before finally turning to Sam and giving him a genuine smile.

"I'm not sure if this is the answer you're looking for Mr Hetfield, but apart from the cut to the head and some unusual brain activity, your brother is the picture of health"

"What do you mean 'unusual brain activity'?" asked Sam.

The doctor sat on the edge of Dean's bed "First off, you need to understand that what we don't know about the brain far outweighs what we do" Sam nodded "The CT scans have shown no masses of any kind, there's no bruising or swelling, nothing to indicate the fall has caused any type of injury. What I have noticed is increased brain-wave activity in the part of the brain that governs memory"

"Sooo…what does that mean exactly?"

The doctor smiled again "Not sure, and until your brother wakes, we won't know if there's been any damage in that area. Has he had any problems with memory lately? Losing track of time, unable to remember what he just did, loss of childhood memories…anything like that?"

Sam thought long and hard before answering. Dean would seriously kick his ass if he found out he'd told anyone about his 'mystery trips' "No. Not that I've noticed"

The doctor nodded and rose from the bed "He's in good hands here, Mr Hetfield. I'll speak to you when he wakes" he patted Sam on the shoulder and left the room.

Sam looked over at his brother and whispered "What is going on in that head of yours, Dean?"

Dean didn't know what was going on in his head at all. He was asleep, in a sleep so deep that nothing was registering in his conscious mind. But deep within the recesses of his mind a battle was waging. A battle that had started as a whisper almost five years ago, a whisper struggling to be free of its imprisonment. The whisper grew slowly, chipping away at the walls that surrounded it but the walls were high and strong and the process was a difficult one. But the memories that were held within those barriers were too powerful to be kept hidden, their determination to escape, to be free, driving it relentlessly forward. The memories gave its owner small glimpses into its world, trying to give him the tools he needed to break free. Not realising the clues it was leaving were slowly pushing the man over the edge.

Sam watched as the rapid-eye-movement began under Dean's lids again and he wondered what it was Dean was dreaming about this time, unaware that he was watching his brother fight a battle, a battle for which even he was unaware.

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Dean opened his eyes slowly, the pounding in his head and ache behind his eyes almost unbearable. He turned his head and looked into the smiling face of Sam "Hey, Sammy" he croaked.

"Hey, yourself. How're you feeling, dude?"

Dean pushed himself up in the bed, leaning back against the pillows "Fine" he looked around "I'm in hospital? Why the hell am I in hospital?" he pushed the covers back and swung his legs out of the bed.

"What are you doing?" said Sam, trying to push Dean back into the bed.

"Getting the hell out of here" he looked around "where are my clothes?"

"Dean, you're not going anywhere. You fell in the shower and started having seizures" he grinned "You don't have any clothes here"

"Where's the Impala?"

"Outside but Dean…"

Dean grabbed a blanket from the bed, wrapped it around himself and went to the window, first floor, good, and he could see the Impala in the parking lot. He opened the window and felt Sam's hand on his shoulder.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

Dean grinned at his brother "Getting out before they bring in the hospital food, dude…well that and I want to avoid any excess probing" and he slipped out the window.

Sam clenched his hands into fists as he stared at his brothers retreating figure. He turned grabbed his jacket, Dean's chart from the end of the bed and followed his brother out the window.

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Sam sat watching his brother sleep, this time he was asleep in the motel bed, happily snoring away and seemingly not a care in the world. He picked up Dean's chart again and reread it, trying desperately to decipher the doctors writing. He rubbed at his eyes and looked at his watch, he'd been awake for almost forty-three hours. He got up, stretched and put the chart on the table, closing the laptop before stripping down to his boxers and climbing into his bed. He was asleep minutes later, the exhaustion of the last two days making his trip into deep sleep almost immediate.

Dean was in a deep sleep as well, although not as deep as his brothers. He was aware of the sounds of Sam moving around the room and finally falling into the other bed. One part of his mind registered this while another part ventured into a dream-state his sub-conscious was starting to become accustomed to.

He saw flashes of a place, an unreal scene laid out in front of him. He knew this place couldn't be real, nothing was this colourful or this beautiful. Blue fields were laid out in front of him, the sky was a wonderful swirling mix of oranges and pinks; distant red, snow-capped mountains reached towards the sky and he smiled. He turned when he heard a far-away roar carry on the winds and he knew it was time to get to work.

Dean's eyes opened, he turned and saw his brother crashed on the other bed, good. He got up, dressed quickly and left the room quietly, locking the door behind him. He went to the car, opening the trunk, grabbing the substitute sword, not his sword, his swords were missing but this would have to do for now. He put the sword over his back, grabbed the leather coat and put that on as well. He got into the Impala, releasing the handbrake and easing the car out of the parking lot before starting the engine and heading out. His mind functioning on auto-pilot…you see Dean Winchester was still asleep.

To be continued…