Title: Harder to Swallow Than Most (21/30)
Author: Silverkitsune1
Summary: Connor finds Sam Winchester, a young man whose mind has been ripped apart.
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. I don't own Angel.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: AU with a side of deep fried crack
Thanks go to: wild wolf free17 and Samcandoit my wonderful betas.
Author's Note: The start of this universe is set at the beginning of Angel, season four, right after the season's second episode Deep Down. That means the year is 2002. Connor is about 18 (I don't think the show every specifically says) and Sam is 18 or 19. There are spoilers up the wazoo for all five seasons of Angel, and spoilers for the first three seasons of Supernatural…kind of.
Ephemeral
A week before his death, Dean discovered a cavity in his left molar. Unable to leave it alone, he played with it while studying maps of Wyoming woodlands and reading archaic texts on wendigos. He'd press the tip of his tongue into the sensitive crease, and wiggle the tooth back and forth. Hot foods and cold drinks caused his entire jaw to ache, and while saner thoughts told him to tell Dad he needed a dentist, crazier thoughts wanted to see how long he could last.
A week before his death, Dean noticed a thickening in his dad's voice. He found a stash of square red gel caps tucked into the bottom of the green duffle that bore the name "Winchester" in bold block printing, a remainder of his dad's marine life, and stray coughs from the other bed sometimes woke Dean in the night. Dean left a bottle of cough syrup on the bathroom counter, and made sure tall glasses of pulpy orange juice found their way down Sam's throat that week, hoping to fend off the cold that would most certainly attack his brother next.
"Almost done, Sam," Fred said, her small hand resting on top of the tall young man's. "I just need one more blood sample for the lab, and you can go back to sleep."
Sam's free hand clawed for Dean's arm, and slid through the flesh. It itched a little, and Sam shivered. "Am I wrong?"
"Sammy, I told you yesterday, (and the day before that, and the day before that). You're not wrong. I'm real. I'm just a little dead right now."
Sam reached for Dean's shoulders this time, and a low strangled cry fell from his mouth and shattered on the floor when his fingertips wiggled out the other side. "I've been to London to visit the cat." Sam shifted away from Fred, growing more agitated with every failed attempt at contact. "I made him give back what was mine. He had his claws deep in them, but he had no right to them. I was Jack and he was the giant. That's why I'm doing better. Unless, I'm wrong, which means you're nothing but stardust."
Sam leaned back into the mess of pillows that kept him upright. "If I'm wrong, then I'm not doing better at all."
"You're doing better," Dean promised (or maybe lied). "God, you got so tall."
Fred's smile was kind, but sadness weighed down at the edges. "Are you hungry, Sam? I can ask Gunn if he wants to come up and eat with you."
Sam ignored her. His hand hovered above Dean's eyelids, close enough so that Dean should have felt a tickle along his eyebrows. It ghosted down his temple, and dipped along the line of Dean's cheekbone where warm skin and comforting solidity should have been.
"There are always two bears in the story," Sam said. "I'm not wrong. There are always two."
The door to the suite opened with a bang, and Angel stumbled over the threshold. Using his back to keep the door open, the vampire juggled boxes, papers and disks in his full arms.
"How's the patient, Fred?" Angel asked glancing over at the bed where Sam lay.
"I've got the final blood sample right here." Fred gently pulled the needled out of Sam's arm. "He's got a tiny fever, but nothing so bad it would make him delirious. Of course, that means he's been talking to invisible people on purpose again, but that's normal for him so I'm taking it as a good sign."
Angel dropped his pile on the edge of the bed and pulled a headset off from around his ears. He advanced, one arm rising to hook Sam closer.
"Don't you touch my brother," Dean said, low and soft as Angel took a seat on the bed. The vampire missed the spot that would've had him falling through Dean's non-corporeal lap by inches.
Dean's list of personal goals was pretty short. At the moment, "Kill Angel" was warring for top billing with "Get Undead." Far as he could tell the vampire (and Jesus Christ if Sam was going to get kidnapped by a supernatural creature couldn't he have picked one that wasn't such a cliché?) was keeping Sam as some kind of pet. Thankfully, his brother's neck bore no puncture wounds, he wasn't being used as a midnight snack, but Sam was bruised and bleeding, and it didn't take a law degree to see that two plus two equaled evil creature of the night.
"Are you feeling better, Sam?"
Sam dodged away from Angel's seeking hands. Dean tensed, waiting for the backhand, but none came.
"Yeah." Sam bit his lower lip and looked over at Dean. "Because I'm right."
A week before his death, Dean's fourteen-year-old brother had been nose deep in Watership Down, sullen over their latest state jump, and sporting a set of indigo colored bruises along his torso from a particularly rough training session. Five years later, Dean opened his eyes and found he'd unknowingly traded open roads, adrenalin rushes, and scary smart siblings for a brother whose broken vocabulary left him feeling sucker punched, a dead father, and things in well-cut suits that made his bone marrow curl.
"You're not wrong, Sammy." Dean placed his hand on Sam's chest, and let it hover above the amulet that was his tie to the world of blood, and bone, and brothers. "And even if you are, don't worry. I'm going to fix this."