Summary: Life is tough when you're seventeen. It's that awkward period when you experience the last few inches of your growth spurt. When you worry about acne and body odour and hair in unusual places. When you feel lonely and abandoned. When you're almost killed by a hitman hired by your stepfather. When you meet a stranger with amnesia who makes you question your sexuality. Yep, seventeen is tough, but luckily for Sam, he might not live long enough to see eighteen.

Timeline: Alternate reality: Sam is 17, Dean is 21, and they're not brothers

Rating: M

Warnings: Foul language, drug use, violence, adult themes, and sexual content. Contains SLASH. Some pretty messed up things happen in this story, so if you're sensitive to life's crappy curveballs, then please don't read any further.

MERCY

Chapter I

/

"When you fall what happens when you're landing?"

- Wooly Wolly Gong, Tuneyards

/

He was going to kill me, and it took a while for that fact to fully register in my mind. After all, this was the man who had sometimes murmured 'be careful' when I decided to sneak out of the house. This was the man who had told the odd corny joke and smiled a little when I laughed. He was probably one of the few decent people who worked for my stepfather, so of course it made sense that he was the one who had been sent. I had always wondered how Bobby earned his large pay check, and now I understood. Bobby was my stepfather's personal hitman, and today his job was to kill me.

Yet that was ridiculous, because hitmans were for informants and rats, dirty politicians who went against their word and thought they could get away with it. I was a nobody. I was the son of a dead woman. I was the teenager my stepfather pushed aside and ignored on a daily basis. I wasn't the type of person you ordered a professional to pop.

Yet here I was, cornered outside of a moving train, somewhere between a locked compartment and a man holding a gun. There was nowhere left to run. I felt the wind whip my hair furiously to the side, the dark strands flying over a sheer fifty foot drop to a sparkling lake below. I didn't have time to admire the view, however, because the train was rocking dangerously beneath me and I was having a difficult time keeping my footing.

It was tough to believe that it had been only minutes ago that I had sat comfortably in one of the passenger seats, staring out at the fleeting scenery while on my way to some unfamiliar state across the country. Sneaking onto the train had been surprisingly easy, but I had a feeling that I would be getting off before the next stop. Behind me, the door that led to the subsequent compartment was locked, and trying desperately to open it again was going to be of no use. It wouldn't budge.

Bobby looked grim as he stared at me from across the tiny bridge that connected the two booths. Part of the man's face was cast in shadow from the usual cap he wore, but I could still discern the lines that bracketed his frowning mouth. He didn't want this any more than I did. In fact, 'I'm sorry' had been the first words he had said when he appeared standing in the train's empty aisle, looming above me. My first thought had been that he was there to drag me back to my stepfather, but there was no way I would allow that to happen. I would rather die, and apparently I was going to get the chance to prove it.

"You don't have to do this!" I shouted, my words almost torn from the air by an angry gust of wind. "Bobby, please!"

I hadn't intended to beg for my life, but as tears blurred my vision I found that I was absolutely terrified. I was only seventeen, for god's sake. I still had my entire life ahead of me. I still needed to experience so many things, like my first job and my first beer and my first kiss. I still needed to live. I suddenly felt resentment towards myself for having spent my high school years with my nose stuck in a book. Way to fucking go, Sam.

The train rocked back and forth violently and I almost lost my footing and I let out a yelp. Twisting my hand on the door handle I held onto for dear life, I ignored the pain that tore up my arm. My mind was too preoccupied by the fact that Bobby now had the gun pointed at my chest.

"I'm sorry!" Bobby called again, and I knew that he somehow meant it. The man's teeth were clenched, his jaw firm, and his greying eyebrows were slanted downward in what appeared to be anger - perhaps hatred towards himself. A part inside of me prayed that he hated himself for this. But Bobby was obviously a professional, and I understood that nothing I did or said now would stop him from pulling that trigger. So I did the only thing I could think of.

I jumped.

In the future, when I recalled what happened afterwards, my memories would be draped in a thick haze mixed with feelings of terror, alarm, and awe. I was falling, and then I was gazing up at the train, the locomotive disappearing into a dark tunnel carved into the mountainside. It was leaving me and no one but that man I had once laughed with knew that I had even been aboard.

Panic consumed me, making my vision dim and my heart pound, but for a moment I caught a glimpse of the lake below. The water was sparkling like a pool full of diamonds, and I couldn't help but think it was absolutely beautiful. But then I realized that I was about to fall on those sharp edged diamonds, and another scream was ripped from my throat.

/

My strongest sensation when I awoke from unconsciousness was the cold. The freezing numbness that encased my body was like a blanket of icy needles that wrapped around my limbs, turning them into useless weight. It spared no surface, a million pinpricks, and as I opened my eyes, brown smudgy darkness was what greeted them. There were no sounds in this strange place, and no air, for when I opened my mouth something else poured in. Now I was choking, but I couldn't move to eradicate the liquid from my throat. The numbness had crept too deep and I was just a floating body.

Now nothing but a mind, unaware of its limbs and attachments. A motionless object in a silent world.

Then something pulled me away from the comfort of the passive sleep I was quickly slipping into. I was suddenly aware of my body again, but as soon as sensation flooded back I wished that the numbness would take its place once more. I didn't care if I never tasted chocolate or if I never felt the pleasure of hot water pounding onto my back from a shower head again. I was in pain, and I would do anything to make it stop.

No such luck, though. Someone was pounding on my chest, and whoever it was, they weren't being gentle about it.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Something soft against my lips and then a pressure deep in my torso, like a balloon being inflated. The force grew stronger as the pain in my chest intensified dramatically. I wanted to scream, to clear my lungs and breathe, but I couldn't move. I was completely helpless, and the panic coursing through my body was only making it worse.

Something burst, and suddenly I was coughing up huge amounts of water. I felt like I was drowning all over again. Then I was inhaling deeply and I could feel sweet, precious air fill my lungs. I coughed and inhaled until my body began to relax and I found that I could breathe normally again. My eyelids slid open and I was met with a bright glow that nearly blinded me. I couldn't help but wonder if I had died and gone to heaven.

Damn. I must have, because a man with an angelic face was leaning over me. His hazel eyes were almond shaped and flecked with gold, like shiny treasures lying beneath the surface of a shadowy river. They were the strongest feature amongst a sculpted face. With a strong chin, Greek nose, high cheekbones, and full lips, he was definitely some sort of angel, as fucked up as that sounded.

"You alive?" he asked. His voice was deep, and I studied the words, trying to interpret them in various ways. My mind was obviously disoriented, because I couldn't come up with an appropriate response. Of course I was alive. I was breathing and thinking and the pain in my chest was still burning away, so I was definitely-

That's when I realized I wasn't in heaven, and this wasn't an angel leaning over me. My muscles protested as I skittered back, sand flying outward and clinging to my wet clothes, encrusting them in an uncomfortable grubby layer. My eyes widened, the colour returning to my face in a flush across my cheeks.

"Who're you?" I demanded. A strand of dark hair hung before my eye, and I swiped it back angrily as I waited for an answer.

The stranger was kneeling in the sand, dressed only in a pair of drenched boxers. His dark blond hair was plastered to his head, his face emotionless. "You were drowning," he announced.

"I was…" I trailed off and my eyes narrowed for an instant before I tilted my head upwards to the bridge that stretched above us. "I was riding the train."

Yes, and then Bobby had shown up and had tried to kill me, forcing me to risk my life by pulling off the stupidest stunt I had ever performed. Jumping from a moving train and into a lake fifty feet below definitely topped throwing water balloons at tourists in Central Park.

"Then you were falling," the man added, speculating that I may have forgotten that part. "And then you were drowning."

My eyes flicked back to the stranger. "You saved me?"

He nodded his head, one slight dip. "No one else here to save your sorry ass."

I said no more as I shifted my body, testing my limbs out. They were sore and every inch of my skin still smarted from impact with the lake, but my muscles relaxed somewhat. Pulling my knees to my chest, I began to wipe the sand from my jeans as best as I could, but after a few strokes I gave up and leaned back on my hands instead.

Someone… had tried to kill me. Someone I knew and had even liked. It was a strange feeling, and I was not sure if the shock of it had left me yet. It all felt like a bad dream. In fact, this whole week had been a nightmare. I half expected to wake up in my bed at any moment, covered in sweat as I laughed at what a stupid dream I had just had.

The stranger suddenly rose from his knees and ruffled his hand through his hair, messing it up. The light from the setting sun painted his outline in a soft glow, his short hair almost like a spiky halo around his darkened face. He looked like a shadow surrounded by light, and I couldn't help but let out a little gasp at the contrasting image.

That's when the stranger turned, revealing a display that I knew I would never forget. They were angel wings. Painted with black ink across his entire back was an intricate tattoo of angel wings. The curved tops covered his shoulders and cascaded down in florid feathers until the tips disappeared just below his boxer line. All I could do was stare. The sun was setting to the left, just behind the bridge, and the softly glowing rays were hitting the man's back at such an angle that the wings actually looked real. For that moment I almost believed that there was an angel standing before me.

But the effect was instantly ruined as the sun disappeared below the horizon, the valley being plunged into a dusty twilight. The man walked over to a pair of jeans that were strewn across the beach near the water's edge, picking them up and pulling them on. I shook my head in an attempt to clear it of the image I had just witnessed, the being in front of me now just a human being with a strange tattoo. However, the picture refused to fade, and I felt my irritation level begin to spike.

"Who are you?" I asked again, finally disrupting the stillness. The man turned his head, glancing over his shoulder.

"I don't know," was his reply, and that was enough to add to my confusion.

"You don't know?" I asked with plenty of scepticism. "How can you not know who you are?" The stranger opened his mouth to respond, but I cut him off before he got the chance. "Okay, I get it. You're a whack job, right? There's probably plenty of you around here. There are a lot where I come from too. I'll just leave you alone."

I tried to stand up, my sudden alarm enough to allow me to forget the pain in my chest and the weakness sheathing my limbs. However, before I could take a single step my legs buckled beneath me and I crumbled to the ground. The man caught me just before I suffered my second fall of the day, moving with a speed that rivalled an athlete's.

"You wanna walk after that kind of fall?" he asked as he set me down softly on the sand, his hands gripping my shoulders gently to steady me.

"I'm fine," was my weak comeback, but the panic had vanished as quickly as it had come, and now I just felt exhausted. I wanted to brush his hands away, to tell him not to touch me, but instead I let my limbs relax as I settled on the ground.

"Yeah, you're definitely fine," he said as he looked down at me. "Did you injure your head as well?"

"Fuck off," I mumbled. When he smirked I could hardly believe it.

He sat down beside me, choosing a cross-legged position that looked oddly childish. "I really don't know," he insisted, his eyes trained on the darkening lake as the amusement vanished from his face. "I don't know who I am."

"What, you mean you have amnesia or something?" Like I was going to believe that.

"Maybe." He inhaled deeply. "Maybe not. I can't remember."

"Yah, I think we've cleared that one." Letting out a sigh myself, I ran a hand through my tangled hair as I watched a small breeze skim across the water's surface. It was just my luck to be rescued by a nutcase. "Do you at least know why you're out here in the middle of nowhere?"

I waited for a response while trying to wring the water from my shirt, but when the man said nothing I stole a glance beside me. His head was tilted downwards, his back perfectly straight with his hands resting on his knees. Damp hair stuck up at odd angles from his scalp.

He looked… completely lost.

"Wow. Not even your own name, huh?" I stared at him for a little longer as the water cooling on my skin caused me to shiver. The man didn't seem to hear me, lost in his own thoughts. "Well," I grunted as I attempted to rise slowly, testing my legs before I trusted them with standing again. "It was nice meeting you, but I really have to get going."

He looked up, his face blank. "You're leaving?"

"Yep. So, um, thanks for saving me and everything. And good luck with…" I looked around the area; at the lake and the narrow beach that surrounded it, the trees and the mountains. "Remembering."

I began to walk away, prepared to trek through whatever wilderness I had to in order to reach civilization again. I needed concrete and asphalt, towering buildings that soared above my head and blocked the sun. Green, leafy trees and rocky mountains simply unsettled me. I felt like I was on an alien planet or something.

The swish swish of the man's jeans told me that he was following me. "What are you doing?" I asked without stopping or turning around. I kept my tone patient, unwilling to upset this guy purposely. He may have saved my life, but that didn't mean much if he was secretly planning to murder me in the woods. Or do worse things.

"It'll be dark soon."

"Your point being?"

"It's not safe in the woods at night," he answered. "You could get hurt."

That stopped me in my tracks. Honestly, I didn't know whether to take his words as a threat or not. Did he mean he'd kill me if I left right now? Or was he truly concerned about my safety?

"Look," I began, my back still turned to him but my ears strained and my legs ready to run. "Thanks for saving my life and everything, but trust me when I say that you don't want to get involved in my business."

I waited for a moment, even now refusing to look back. Let him figure out if my own words were a threat or not. When no objection arose, I took another step forward and-

He followed.

I whirled around, my tangled hair whipping painfully across my face. The sting only added to my annoyance. "Did I say you could follow me?" I shouted at him, the aggravation clear in my voice. At this point I didn't really care if he was some psychotic murderer. I escaped death one time today. I could do it again.

The man came to a sudden halt as well, one foot hovering above the sand. He raised an eyebrow before responding, "No."

I shook my head furiously, unable to comprehend how a human being could be so clueless. "Then why are you following me?"

He smirked as he folded his arms across his chest. "I'm not."

"Right." Hands clenched in fists and eyebrows slightly raised, I adjusted my tone until it was pleasantly sarcastic. "So if I decide to turn around right now you're just going to keep on going?"

"Maybe." The man nodded his head slowly, his eyes never leaving mine.

I snorted. My voice had lost any fake pleasantry it had once harboured and was now an angry cutting knife. "You're so full of crap, you know that?"

Nevertheless, the man simply stared, his face a smooth mask. "I saved your life."

"Yeah, and I said thanks already. What else do you want?"

He shrugged. "Help me remember who I am."

I stared at him, flabbergasted. "How do you propose I do that?"

"Well, you can start by telling me where we are."

"You really don't know?"

"Would I be asking if I did?"

I narrowed my eyes. "You're really rude, you know that?"

"I could say the same about you," he said. "Especially since you won't even do this simple thing for me after I saved your life."

"Fuck you," I retorted, angry that this guy thought I owed him something. "I didn't ask you to save me."

"Look, it's obvious you don't value your own life very much but it should at least be worth what I'm asking."

"What the hell are you talking about? I value my-" I shook my head angrily. "Never mind. Let's just make a deal. I lead you to New York City, and then we split ways. Sound fair?"

"New York?"

"You do know what New York is, don't you?"

He looked at me like I was stupid. "I have amnesia. I'm not an idiot."

I didn't feel like arguing anymore, but I mumbled "Could have fooled me" underneath my breath as I turned around. With those last words, I continued my trek into the forest that lined the narrow beach, the sound of a second pair of footsteps barely discernible behind me.