Even Monsters have a Social 10/?

[emebalia]

Chapter 10

For a long moment nobody moved.

Lost for words Harold stood there, eyes fixed on Rachel's dead form. She looked human now but he would need time to convince himself he hadn't seen what he thought he saw. Because that was impossible.


Still in his crouched position, knife dangling in his loose fist, Dean didn't move either.
It was Bear who finally broke the eerie moment. With a low whine he inched forward and wormed his head under Dean's left arm. Absently the man scratched him behind the ear before he let out a sigh and stood up.

"Didn't look that horsy after all." He tried to joke but when he turned around to face Harold, there was no humor in his eyes.

"Mr. Winchester." Harold tried again. "What did just happen?"

"She wasn't human." He said, hand still on Bear's head who stood now pressed to the man's leg. "She was a Nachtmahre. Feeding off people's life force through nightmares." He thought about that for a second before he nodded as if he wanted to shake something off. He wiped the blood off the knife with a tissue before he put it away, not sparing a glance in Ms. Martin's direction.

"Let's find the others." With that he stepped past Harold. "Sam!"

Harold couldn't move. He couldn't tear his eyes off the body in front of him, didn't dare to blink in fear of missing a flicker of the other thing.

He must have been hallucinating. A drug maybe. Mr. Winchester must have drugged him. The witness reports from his file came to mind. People claiming the Winchester brothers had saved them from some...thing.

"Harold?" Dean was at his side, a comforting hand on his shoulder and Harold didn't have the strength to pull back.

"What did you do to me?" He had been drugged before but this was different. He didn't feel like he was under the influence of something. And except for the one moment he'd seen Ms. Martin change into …, there hadn't been any other hallucinations.

"Look, man." Dean wanted to go and find his brother, that much was obvious, but his voice was calm and emphatic. "I know this is hard to take in. Blame me if you want. Call it a trick of light. I just killed an innocent woman if that helps you sleep. I don't care. But right now my brother and your partner are out there. They're caught in a nightmare they can't just wake up from and we have to find them. Now. Are you with me?"

Harold nodded and finally turned away from Rachel.

"It wasn't a trick of the light, was it?" It would have been easy to explain it away and if it had only been this one glimpse he'd caught he would have explained it away. But that wasn't the only fact pointing in this direction. He couldn't dismiss the data only because he didn't like the outcome. He couldn't.

"No." Dean shook his head. "I'm sorry."

Harold opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by a scream.

"John." He recognized the voice. As did Bear. The dog took off running.

John ran. At least he tried to. If his legs would cooperate.

He stumbled over his own feet and landed face first on the broken concrete. Everything was blurry. The sun was too bright, the blood rushing in his ears too loud. And he couldn't think. His mind was packed in cotton, all fluffy and gray without something to hold on to.

Behind him the man shouted something but John couldn't make out the words. If they were words. Could have been just a guttural sound. Something primeval for the hunt is on.

John pushed himself up, skin of his palm scraping off on the rough surface but it was a distant feeling. He had to move. Now.

Behind him the other man came closer. John risked a glance over his shoulder but his vision was blurry. The shape of a tall man. There was blood on his clothes, bright and fresh, and it dripped off the knife in his hand.

John gritted his teeth and ran.

He crashed through a door into a building. The light was dim in here and John sighed in relief when the sun stopped cooking his brain through his eyes.

He tried to listen if anybody was in here or if the man was still following him but all he could hear was his own blood rushing and his harsh breathing. Wiping sweat off his face with a cold hand, John made a careful step deeper into the building.

A whisper.

A shadow moving.

John swirled around, lost his balance and went down. Where was his gun?

"Tell me to wait for you."

Jessica?

John licked his lips and used an empty barrel to get back on his feet.

Get away from the door. Hide somewhere. Sort this out. You can do it. John nodded to himself and let go of the barrel. He half expected to go down again - What had she done to him? Who? He couldn't remember. - but he stayed on his wobbly legs and managed a few steps farther into the room.

Phone. Where was his phone? She'd taken it, along with his gun. Right. Rachel. Who didn't look like Rachel. Or had that been part of a dream? A nightmare?

John shook his head to get rid of the foggy mess in there and made another step. He made it across the room, not even stumbling over the scrap metal lying all around, through a door and another room and another door.

It felt like he'd been stumbling around for hours but he wasn't sure. Could have been only a few minutes. He was tired. Why was he so tired? He should just lay down and sleep.

Rachel. She'd drugged him. Took his gun. Took his phone. The man stabbed her. The man. Sam, his name was Sam, he was out there. Still had the knife. The knife he'd stabbed her with. And John didn't have a weapon. And he was tired. Where was Harold?

He had picked up a metal bar - not the best weapon but it was a weapon - he was sure of that but now his hands were empty. For a moment John stared at his empty hands, willing the bar to come back, but dropped them to his sides when two hands swam apart like four.

He was so tired. He needed to sleep. Sleep it off, whatever it was.

In the end gravity made the choice for him. Stairs, only a few steps, three maybe four he wasn't sure. He could do it. Clinging to the remains of the banister he set one foot down. And then everything went downhill from there. Literally.

Harold had no chance keeping up with Bear and Dean so he just hurried after them as fast as he could. He didn't want Dean to reach John first, that man had killed somebody in cold blood only a minute ago, but there was nothing he could do about it. At least Bear was with him, Harold could count on the dog to protect his owner.

The dog led them to a building on the other side of the small place where Rachel's car stood. When Harold reached the door, broken open a long time ago, he had no idea where to go from there. He stood in a hall with three different doors and no sign of John. Or Dean and Bear for that matter.

"Mr. Reese?" Harold asked into the eerie silent room.

"Over here." Came the answer from Mr. Winchester. Harold hurried in that direction, worried about the fact that John hadn't answered.

Now he heard a muffled voice, Dean's, but he couldn't make out the words. Harold followed a short hallway and when he turned left at the end, he found them.

John's dead, Harold thought and a cold fist clenched deep in his stomach. He lay at the bottom of some stairs in a puddle of blood. And wasn't moving.

Bear sat next to him with a low whine in his throat and the way he inched forward he wanted to check on his owner himself but was held back by Dean.

"He's breathing." Dean informed Harold without turning around. "That got him on his way down."

He nodded towards the banister. It was missing bars, giving the impression of broken teeth, with one snag just sticking out far enough to catch one's leg if he wasn't careful. It was covered with blood.

"John?" Harold came closer to have real look at his friend.

"He's unconscious. Or sleeping." Dean said as if that should comfort him. "Probably both. Cut his leg open, maybe a concussion. I doubt he broke his spine or skull but you better get him checked out by a doctor."

He fished one of the phones he'd taken from Harold earlier out of his pocket.

"Here, call an ambulance." He stood up and absently patted Bear's head. "Let them do some x-rays, just to be sure. If he doesn't wake up any time soon, it's the Nachtmahre, don't worry, it'll wear off after a few hours."

Harold took the phone but didn't dial. "What are you going to do now?"

"I have to find Sam. And I'd like to get out of here before the place is swarming with police." He made a few steps but then stopped. "Aren't you calling it in?"

Harold's mind was racing. He couldn't bring John to a hospital, too risky, he needed somebody else. Off the record, no questions asked. Where to? Think, Harold.

"Harold?" Dean was at his side again. "What's wrong?"

"Officially we don't exist." Harold said, mind still racing but coming up blank. He wasn't sure if the other man got the meaning behind this. "And what we're doing isn't exactly legal."

Dean nodded as if he understood. Thinking about it, he did. The Winchester brothers were in the same situation, they knew. And wasn't that ironic.

"Okay." Was all Dean said before he turned back to John. With skilled fingers he went over his skull and neck. "I can deal with the gash and a concussion. If there's more you have no other choice than a hospital."

With that he scooped John up and had him hanging over his shoulder a second later. John groaned but didn't wake up.

"What are you doing?"

"I get him in your car." Dean started walking. "Then I'm going to find Sam. And then we're going back to the motel where I'll take care of his wound."

Harold doubted that was a good idea but by now Dean was around the corner and half-way down the hallway.

"You're not a doctor." He shouted after him. But neither was John and still, he'd proven that he could take care of minor injuries by himself just fine. Came with the job, Harold guessed.

Aside from the murder John and Dean were much alike, he had to admit.

Thinking about murder brought the image of Rachel back, stabbed and bloody and pretty much dead.

Had it really been murder? Harold wasn't so sure about that anymore but he'd need time to think this through. After they'd taken care of John.

Dean laid John down in the backseat of Harold's car in a swift, practiced move.

"I've a first aid kit in my car." Dean straightened. "You put some disinfection on the cut and wrap it up. That should do until we can take care of it. Meanwhile I'm going to find Sammy."

Bear stayed back, keeping watch over his owner, while Harold followed Dean to his car. He didn't like this at all but he didn't have a choice either.

"Why are you doing this, Mr. Winchester?" He asked but instead of an answer, Dean pulled his gun out. He didn't point it at Harold, though.

"Stay behind me."

It took Harold a moment to notice what had gotten Dean's attention. The back door of his car was ajar. He couldn't remember clearly but he was pretty sure it had been closed when they'd arrived.

Dean crept closer, gun trained at the door. But then he lowered the gun with a stifled laugh.

"Aww, isn't this cute?"

Chapter 11
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