Seattle 2020
Terminal City

"Oh God." Sam's boots took the full impact of his five foot drop to the deck, and he straightened quickly before striding towards the small cluster of activity in front of the heavily fortified door of Terminal City's OCC. Even from a distance, he could tell something was wrong. His senses were not as sharp as his genetically enhanced comrades, he would know the copper scent of blood anywhere.

He darted sideways to avoid Luke, the small, white skinned man dashing off towards the east wing of TC-towards the small, pitifully equipped cluster of rooms they called their infirmary. Someone was injured, dying maybe, and Sam's heart ached for the unfairness of it all. After years spent in battle against the evil of the world, the part of him that was not rendered senseless by scar tissue rebelled against the inhumane treatment of an entire species.

Then Sam pushed past a wide-eyed Dalton, and that ache in his soul became a mind-numbing burn.

Alec.

The young transgenic hung limply between Max and Brennan, his skin as white as snow beneath the blood pouring from an open wound on his scalp. He was so still he could have been sleeping, and once again it stuck Sam just how horribly young he was.

Mole bit off a crude grumble when Sam elbowed him out of the way. "What happened?" He demanded, lifting Alec from Brennan's grip and hoisting him up against his chest. He'd carried Dean this way before, after hunts gone sour, and then at the end, when he had pulled his big brother into his arms, ready to protect his body from that demon bitch in the way he had been unable to do when Dean had lived. Alec wasn't as heavy as Sam's brother, despite his heavier bone mass, but he felt as cold as Dean had, and Sam's heart sped up in fear.

Blood instantly soaked into Sam's shirt. Alec, he noticed, wasn't the only one who was bleeding. Max blinked blood from her eye and shook her head. "We were set up." She said, her voice as cold and angry as Sam had ever heard it. "Apparently peaceful negotiations don't mean the same thing for ordinaries." She resentfully shook her head.

"He warned you this would happen." Sam knew it was childish, but he was unable to resist the gibe. Alec had warned Max that very morning, his loudly voiced opposition only overridden by his desire to fulfill his duty as Max's SIC. He hadn't wanted to attend the City Council meeting any more than Sam had wanted to let him go.

Max regarded him silently for a moment, before her gaze dropped to Alec's unconscious form and softened ever so slightly. Sam doubted Alec would ever believe it, but it was obvious that Max's bitchiness towards him was more for show than the hatred she might once have felt. "I know that." She whispered, no doubt thinking of her own brother. Alec was twined to men they had both loved, and sometimes Sam wondered if he resented not having something that he could call wholly his own.

Transgenic scattered in their wake as Max led the way to the infirmary. Alec was well liked by the community, and talk of his condition followed them around the city in heated whispers. If Alec died, Sam feared it would be war for them.

If Alec died, Sam knew he would not live long enough to see it.

Gem was waiting for them in the infirmary, gloved up and serious with Luke hovering fretfully at her side. "Over there." She instructed Sam to lay his precious burden down on the one and only exam table they owned. The metal was cool beneath Sam's hands, too much like a mortuary table for his liking.

Max's small hand curled around Sam's bicep. He looked up, startled to see her hovering so close by when all Sam had been able to see was Alec, pale, bleeding, and looking so much like Dean that it hurt. "Give Gem some space." She urged him, gentle, but with an underlining hint of steel that set her apart from her peers.

"I can't." Sam said harshly. He couldn't leave Alec, not like he had left his brother.

He barely caught the glance shared between Max and Gem, the two women communicating on a level Sam didn't even want to understand. All he knew was that she let him be, let him wrap Alec's limp hand in his, and watch the seconds pass in silence.

*****

An X5 physiology remained a mystery to Sam. He knew every inch of Alec's body, but was at a loss to explain why wounds that would kill a normal man would fade without leaving a scar, or why after a hunt that lasted for days, Alec would be bouncing on his toes, ready for more, whilst Sam would be all set to sleep for a week or more.

Still, it was nice to know that there was more to it than Sam simply getting old.

When Alec slept, he had the look of a child about him, his features soft and innocent. Unconsciousness was no different. He lay against the threadbare pillow of his bedroll, the blanket Joshua had made tugged up to his chin and his hair a wild mess. Gem had finished her examination, relief in her voice when she announced that the bullet that had struck Alec's head had been only a glancing blow. The wound bled violently, and no doubt the headache that followed consciousness would be brutal, but Alec would live, and Sam could breathe again.

*****

Joshua had dragged a chair from his room and manhandled Sam down into the frayed wicker armchair. "Alec strong." The dog-man had patted him on the shoulder, his sad eyes fixed on Alec's pale face. Sam knew that Joshua was, in Alec's eyes, the closest thing he had to a brother. He smiled at the huge transhuman and tried to impart comfort the way no one had to him.

Sometime after midnight, when the sounds of life had grown no less loud in the city that truly never slept, Alec's eyes fluttered open.

It had been those eyes that had first stuck the killing blow, twinkling playfully over the rim of a beer mug in the middle of some nameless dive of a bar.

They narrowed in pain, a miserable grown escaping Alec's lips as he reached blindly for Sam and the safety he promised.

"Did you let me drink Mole's potato vodka again?" The young transgenic tried to raise his head and failed, a wry smile catching the corner of his lips as Sam stumbled forward and eased a hand beneath his neck.

"Hey, kid." Sam said gruffly, grateful for that his hair hid his eyes from Alec's sharp gaze. "How you feeling?"

"Awesome." Alec lied.

Sam looked away, remembering all the times Dean had said the same.

"Man," Alec grumbled, his eyes squinting against the overhead lights, "you're thinking too much again. Didn't we talk about this already? You'd stop thinking and I'd stop trying to suck you off in public." He flashed Sam a playful smirk that was a mere shadow of his usual exuberance, and Sam couldn't bring a smile to his face, no matter how hard he tried.

His chair scrapped the concrete floor as he rose, unable to face Alec and the stifling memories that ruthlessly availed him.

"Hey." Alec called, propping himself up on one elbow, already bouncing back with that enviable transgenic resilience. "You gonna come back?"

Sam summoned a smile. "Sure. Just gonna get me some coffee. You know us ordinaries can't function without it." The lie was good, Sam knew, and Alec bought it.

Dean would have been proud of him.