Title: Harder to Swallow Than Most (1/30)

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.

Warnings: AU with a side of deep fried crack

Thanks go to: My wonderful betas Wild Wolf Free17 and Livejournal user SamCanDoIt

Author's Notes: 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.

Connor had learned a lot since Sunny. There was a mess of new vocabulary words swimming around in his brain. Crack, heroin, PCP, cocaine, Angel Dust, ecstasy, crystal, he knows them all now. Gunn and Fred had lectured on their dangers. Shows that flickered across the T.V. screen gave him their effects in the form of a glossy lie, and the men and women huddled in the alleys of L.A. gave him the jagged truth. He'd learned a lot about these things that could make you twitch, and moan, and cry, and beg. What he didn't understand were the people who took them, and he avoided them when he could. He didn't want another Sunny.

Unfortunately, that's what he found in the light of the blue moon. Another kid in an alleyway. Another Sunny. Another junkie. Another lost cause that would paw at his chest with gratitude while trying to slip cracked fingernails into his pockets, searching for crumpled dollar bills.

The kid was bleeding at the neck, two shallow puncture wounds caused by a vampire who hadn't had time to really sink his teeth into his dinner.

It wasn't the shaking the clued him in. That was what most people, other people, people that weren't him, did after they'd had a vampire pulled off of them. It was the words that spilled out of the mouth that let Connor know what he'd found.

"You're impossible. You can't be here."

He was tall, taller than Connor, but a tall human didn't mean much to a teenager who could jump off tall buildings, and walk three miles on a broken ankle without a whimper.

Long arms pressed long fingers against the brick wall. Long legs threatened to buckle until he shifted his weight and stumbled back into the fence that blocked his retreat. He hid his height, hunched his body over, and let dark shaggy hair fall into wild hazel eyes that darted from Connor's face, to Connor's hands, and back again.

"You went in from the left, but you never came out."

Connor might have though the two of them were the same age if he'd known what his own age was.

"Get out of here," Connor said.

"He went in from the left, but he never came out either."

The young man took a step forward, and Connor turned to leave. "The moon was watching." The words raked down Connor's back as he headed for the street. "But it was made of paper and waning, and it couldn't help anybody."

"Go home," Connor called over his shoulder.

It was a long night, and the sunrise chased him back to the warehouse. The young man was waiting for him.

"There are twenty-seven steps between today and tomorrow." Large dirty hands ran through greasy locks, and when the bangs were lifted high Connor saw a line of dark blue bruises decorated the kid's hair line. The blood around the vampire bite was dry, and a thin trail of it disappeared under the collar of the torn t-shirt. The young man lowered his voice, and leaned close. Connor kept his weight on the balls of his feet, and his hand wrapped around the hilt of the knife in his jeans.

"I took the first twenty-six," the young man confided in a soft voice. The dimpled smile that followed was tentative and hopeful. "They hurt."

Connor reached around him, and pushed the front door open. The hinges creaked, and light that spilled in had to muscle around the tall body of the stranger before it could flood the room. "You can stay until you're not crazy. Then you go home."