Title: Shepherd Moon
Author: alakewood
Warnings: Spoilers for AHBL. AU.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1550
Summary: What happened to Sam during that in-between time of his confrontation with Jake in Cold Oak and when he woke up in that abandoned house?
Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing.
oxoxo
Sam pulled the six-pack of bottles from where it was wedged between a duffel bag and a pile of miscellaneous crap in the back seat, closed the door, and started towards Dean. He slipped a condensation-slick bottle from the flimsy cardboard container and wordlessly passed it to his brother as he stared up at the full moon. It disoriented him – the fathomless distance – and he stumbled, Dean's snort of laughter not going unnoticed in the silence of the desolate countryside so far from any other person, so far from the city lights the star-rife arms of the Milky Way could be seen in all their awe-inspiring glory.
Sam knocked his elbow into Dean's knee in retaliation causing Dean to lose his leverage on the hood and slip forward, but he caught himself and grinned at his brother under the moonlight.
Nights like this, stretched out side-by-side with the solid comfort of the Impala beneath them, they'd go for hours without speaking, lose themselves in their own thoughts and the night, nothing but the moon, the stars, and each other.
Sam chanced a brief glance at his brother, watched him take a long swig of his beer before settling back against the windshield.
It was perfect. Sam was at peace.
He took another sip of his beer and joined his brother against the glass, felt the alcohol begin buzzing through his veins making him feel light, weightless. Almost like sleep, it spiraled through his limbs, effervescent in his fingers and toes. It tugged and lifted, beckoned up, towards the sky. The stars were whispering and he was fading, pulling free from his body and drifting like dust heavenward. Intangible, his particles twisted and turned until he caught sight of the ground below, the Impala and Dean, his own body nowhere to be seen. It was strange, disconcerting, to see Dean alone, a half-empty bottle of whiskey miraculously balanced on the slick paint of the Impala's hood and Dean sitting there with his boots on the gleaming chrome of the front bumper with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees.
The breeze that carried him aloft changed course, it's laziness turned into purpose. Caught in a moonbeam, he felt Earth loosen her hold on him, revoke her claim and release him into the gravity of the moon. Even as the Impala, the copse of trees, the town, faded into the distance, Dean became clearer. Beyond the thinnest of clouds, beyond the atmosphere, and into the cold vacuum of space between the earth and the moon, Sam drifted.
He had no sense of time but the turning of the earth below him. The moon still pulled at him, he passed it by, strayed beyond the earth's shadow and into the harsh sunlight that struck him and made him glimmer like stars, like the swirl of a galaxy and his brilliance was blinding, inescapable, and he felt his consciousness slipping away.
He focused on Dean; focused on his brother, his lone tether to reality. Couldn't let the light burn him away into nothing.
Sam struggled, fought against the gravity pulling him away, reached for the moon and its comforting glow.
Dean returned to view; the Impala was gone, but Sam was there – his body was there – yet something was wrong. They were both on their knees on a dirt road, Dean's hands shining darkly when they released their grip on the back of Sam's coat. His fingers shook and he let loose a scream that shimmered like electricity through Sam's ethereal form. The utter agony and despair made him ache worse than the cold.
The earth continued to spin and he moved with the moon like a satellite, lulled like the tides, completely unable to influence anything beyond buffeting a few atoms of gas that filled the distance between the earth, moon, and every star in the universe.
The stars began whispering again, a siren's song that merged Jessica's voice with his mother's into a melody he couldn't ignore. It called to him, begged him back towards the sun's blinding rays, but he couldn't – could never - let go of those thinnest of threads that tied him to his brother. Those invisible filaments anchored themselves within the ether he had become, Dean's anguish flowing through them like the blood that flowed from Sam's corporeal body on Earth.
Something changed and he was no longer weightless. His ether condensed and crystallized, fragments of ice and dust, and he became heavy, collapsing in on himself. A black hole on the most miniscule scale. Dense, dark, he disappeared. And he didn't want to. Longed for the moon and its glow, its view of his brother.
But he didn't have a choice.
He struggled to remain anchored to the slim strands that bound him to Dean, felt the tug as conflicting forces tried to tear him apart. Then searing pain and heat lanced through him, burned and evaporated away the ether until he was nothing but dust suspended in the void before he was flung into oblivion.
He hurtled towards Earth, towards Dean, faster than sound – than light - and slammed back into his cold, motionless body with a gasp, filling starving lungs with the oxygen they craved. His heart beat an irregular rhythm, pumping stale blood through shrunken veins and capillaries. His organs slowly began to function until whole systems were running – respiratory, circulatory, then nervous was last to come back on line, pain arcing through every nerve, every fiber of his being, radiating out from the center of his back like a solar flare.
The pain dulled to an ache, breath easing from harsh pants to something slow and almost steady. It took endless moments for his eyes to focus, for rods and cones to pick up light and the slight fluctuation of colors in the dimness of the musty, earthy-blood scented room. He couldn't recognize, couldn't place his surroundings – an abandoned house was his best guess. And how we'd gotten there, he couldn't recall. Couldn't remember much more than seeing Dean-
Dean. Uncertain heartbeat faltering, a stuttering retrograde, His brother was-
Dean burst through the front door, green eyes wild, gaze unbelieving. "Sammy," exhaled on a shocked breath, and Dean was at his brother's side dizzyingly fast. Galaxies on a collision course, Dean's body stopped a hairsbreadth from impact, dropping to his knees at Sam's feet, filthy hands clutching at the front of Sam's heavy jacket. His eyes were shining, staring wide like moons in the dark shadows of his face. One of Dean's trembling hands moved to press against Sam's cheek, testing.
The contact of skin on skin, transferring heat and faint sparks of electricity, replenished the fragments of the most fundamental parts of Sam he hadn't even realized were missing, stolen.
"Thank God you're okay." Dean's eyes and hands looking and touching, searching and checking, making sure Sam was whole.
Sam, at first, didn't understand his brother's actions, the fear in his eyes that spoke louder than any words ever could. "Hey." A sound, not much more than a raspy breath. He swallowed, the flesh that lined his throat dry, rough. The muscles caught, stuck, and he choked, coughed, body still trying to remember how it had functioned before. Before. Cold Oak, Jake, the knife, the dull throb in the middle of his back. He tried his voice again. "Dean," a broken whisper, but a word.
Dean's eyes, already locked on Sam's, softened. He moved to sit beside his brother on the falling-apart and now-bloodstained mattress, shoulders and thighs touching, still needing a physical reassurance.
"What...what happened back there? -to me?" Sam questioned, dry tongue darting out to lick at dry lips.
Dean shook his head, scrubbed a hand over his face as he shrugged a shoulder. Wouldn't look at Sam. Whatever it was, he couldn't tell the truth and he wouldn't lie. "Doesn't matter," he finally said, anguish briefly eclipsing his stoic mask.
And that – that told Sam that, yes, it did matter. He abruptly stood, atrophied muscles stretching beyond the point of comfort as the sudden altitude difference made his head swim, made the earth tilt beneath him.
Dean rushed to steady his brother with hands clenched tightly in the canvas of Sam's coat, held firm, didn't let him stray. Always guiding. "Sammy?"
"Don't lie to me, Dean," Sam said murmured fiercely. "Not to me. Not now."
Dean looked away, steeled himself, red-rimmed eyes focusing back on Sam's. "'m not, Sammy. All that matters is that you're okay." He slowly released his grip on Sam's jacket, fingers trailing down the fabric as he stepped back. "You okay?"
Sam honestly didn't know, took stock of all his physical pains as quickly as he could – the still-erratic beat of his heart, the thinness of the breaths his lungs drew in, the cramping tension in his muscles. At least that initial feeling of absolute incompleteness, the scattered sense of his mind, lessened with Dean near. But he still didn't feel right. Felt off, tilted on his axis. "Yeah. I'm good." Not the truth, not a lie. They both had their secrets.
It wasn't perfect. But it was enough.