Even Monsters have a Social 11/?

[emebalia]

Chapter 11

Cute? Harold didn't peg Dean as a man who would describe anything as cute. And the younger Winchester brother was the last thing coming to mind for being cute.

However, when Harold stole a glance around Dean, who still stood there with a rather amused expression, he had to admit that cute was the right word.


Sam Winchester lay on his stomach in the back seat with one leg awkwardly folded under him and the other one the floor. It was the only way a man of Sam's size had a chance to fit in there. And his foot still stuck out too far to close the door.
He had his face buried in what looked like a jacket which he was hugging like a pillow.

"Dude, that's my jacket you're drooling on." Dean protested but in a low enough voice to not disturb his brother.

"Is he sleeping?" Harold asked when the young man didn't stir. This wasn't exactly the time for a nap.

Harold's eyes fell on the knife on the floor. Lying in a puddle of coagulated blood.

No matter how cute he looked, this man had stabbed Rachel in the chest. Repeatedly. How she'd managed to get away from him Harold could only guess but he would bet on John interfering.

The glimpse of the other Rachel Martin was back on Harold's mind. And with that the questions.

"Something like that." Dean answered with some delay. The fondness was gone and now he sounded concerned.

However, before Harold could ask, Sam shifted with a pained noise and buried his face deeper in the fabric of the jacket.

"Nothing we can do." Dean said, one hand gently resting on his brother's back. Sam let out a sigh. "Let's get them back to the motel." He rearranged the leg so he could close the door. Not with one last sad look at his brother's broad back. "There they can sleep it off more comfortably."

Five minutes later Harold sat in his car with a still unconscious John in the back seat and followed Dean who had a similar cargo in his car. Dean had taken care of John with a temporary bandage and had mumbled something about stitches under his breath.

Harold knew the way to the motel the Winchester were staying at so he didn't have to pay too much attention to the car in front of him to stay on track.

He had time to think. To over-think the last few minutes.

He should bring John to a hospital, he really should. If he was honest, there was no real reason against it. This wasn't a gun shot wound, it wouldn't raise any red flags. The people who were still looking for the Man in the Suit haven't seen John's face, Harold was sure about that. And he had several working IDs for both of them.

So he really should bring John to the ER, let a doctor attend to the wound and take some x-rays, just to make sure. But he didn't. Instead he followed the battleship of a car to a cheap motel to let a supposed to be mass murderer take care of his friend. It was irrational, Harold knew that, but all he could think about was: Rachel Martin had been a nurse.

Dean parked in front of his room at the end of the building and Harold took the spot next him.

It was a no-name motel, cheap and shabby, with only a few cars in the parking lot and Harold was pretty sure the next few rooms were empty. Nobody would hear if things went ugly back here. Not that Harold expected anybody to care.

Nobody cared when Dean first carried his still unconscious brother inside and then came back to get John.

Harold followed them with Bear at his side, one hand at the dog's collar. At least he wasn't alone in this.

"Close the door." Dean ordered while he stretched John out on the bed next to the door. Sam lay on the one farther away. Neither man showed any sign of waking up.

Harold closed the door and had a look around. Papers on the table, two coffee mugs, beer bottles and empty take-out containers in the trash can, clothes spilling out of a duffel bag at the end of one bed.

"You're playing nurse." Dean told him and shoved Bear out of the way who tried to get closer to John.

"What do you need, Mr. Winchester?" Harold asked. If Dean was waiting for him to faint or something like that he was going to get disappointed. Harold knew he didn't look like a tough guy, he knew he wasn't a tough guy, but he wasn't somebody to back down either.

Dean knew nothing about Harold and by now Harold wasn't so sure anymore what he knew about Dean Winchester.

Carefully Dean cut John's pant leg open to get better access to the wound. The fabric was soaked and stiff, the smell of blood heavy in the air. Harold dared to look at the gash in his friends calf and swallowed thickly at the sight of the ragged wound. Dean however nodded to himself and Harold couldn't help it but he felt like John was in good hands.

Without a word to interrupt Dean's concentration Harold handed him the things he requested from the first aid kit. Well stocked, he had to say.

Mr. Reese didn't wake up during the procedure, didn't stir when Dean disinfected the wound, didn't make a sound when the needle penetrated the skin.

"Good as new." Dean taped the last corner of the gaze down and set back with a satisfied look on his face. "I'm gonna wash my hands."

He disappeared in the bathroom, leaving Harold with the two unconscious men alone.

Unconscious wasn't exactly the right word, Harold noticed. Sure, John hadn't reacted to Dean patching him up but he wasn't just lying there either. A thin layer of sweat covered his face and now, maybe with the most intense pain gone, a low whimper escaped through the thin line of his lips.

Harold caught some movement out of the corner of his eye and when he turned to have a closer look at the younger Winchester, with his focus on John he'd ignored him completely until now, he noticed how uneasy the man's sleep actually was.

Sam turned his head, a pained expression on his face and his breathing sounded ragged.

"They won't wake up for at least a few hours." Dean stood in the bathroom door, drying his hands with a towel.

"What happened to them?" Harold asked again. Something Ms. Martin had done to them, that much he understood. But what? And how?

"They were touched by a Nachtmahre." Dean threw the towel somewhere behind him and closed the door. "And believe me, it's nothing like being touched by an angel." He paused. "Not that you want to get touched by an angel, they're douchebags."

Harold nodded as if that made sense.

"Anyway." Dean shock off his thoughts. "Rachel touched them and that's enough to send them to dreamland for a couple of hours. Nightmareland to be exact."

He sighed and washed a hand down his face. He looked tired.

"Like a drug?" That was the only explanation he had.

"Something like that." Dean sat down on the edge of his brother's bed who had started to move in his sleep. "It'll wear off."

Harold followed his example and sat down on John's bed but chose the side facing away from Dean, the one closer to the door. Bear settled down with him, head resting on the mattress.

They sat in silence for a while, the only noises coming from the men in the beds, a light rustle when they moved, a moan, a whimper. Sam even let out a small cry at one point and his brother was quick to brush the sweaty bangs out of his face and mumble reassuring words in his ear. Too low for Harold to understand them but they weren't meant for him anyway.

"They are reliving their worst nightmares." Dean explained without losing focus on his brother's face. "Guess your friend has seen some bad shit himself?"

Fishing for information, Harold realized and couldn't help but smile to that. It was unfair, he had read the Winchesters' files and thought he knew everything there was to know about them and Mr. Winchester knew nothing more about them than their first names. And even with that he couldn't be sure if they were their real names.

"He has." Harold confirmed but left it at that. "Mr. Winchester?"

"Yeah?" His tone was neutral which spoke louder than any words that Dean knew exactly what Harold was about to ask. Harold didn't know if he wanted to ask but there were too many questions, too many things not adding up and he liked things to add up.

"Ms. Martin." He started and paused again. Dean waited patiently for him to continue. "She wasn't human."

Dean let out a sigh. "No, she wasn't."

He heard more than he saw the other man shifting until he sat on the edge on the bed, fully facing Harold.

"Look, man, I know this sucks." Dean said. "I don't know who you guys are but you're no hunters so this is a lot to take in. There are things out there, monsters, who hurt people. Who kill people. Who eat people. Rachel was one of them. She fed on humans."

Harold didn't say anything for a long moment. This turned everything he'd ever believed upside down. There were things out there? Monsters? He couldn't believe that.

But on the other hand, there was a machine out there which saw everything. Which predicted violent crimes based on bits and pieces gathered from cameras, computers, phones and every other source it could get access to. That was something people wouldn't believe was out there, too.

Granted a super computer was way more believable than monsters who gave people nightmares with one touch. Nowadays. Fifty years ago people would have taken the machine as a myth. Stories about monsters were way older than that. People had been scared by monsters since they'd gathered around a campfire in a drafty cave, fearfully listening to the sounds of the night.

Science had overcome the superstition, though.

It wouldn't be the first theory proven wrong.

"You're awfully quiet over there." Dean interrupted his thoughts. "Not freaking out on me, are you?" For a mass murderer he was very emphatic and caring. Harold wasn't a psychiatrist but that doesn't seem to fit. Like a lot of things he thought he knew about Mr. Winchester.

"You call yourself hunters?" Dean had used that word a few times now.

"That's us." He gestured between himself and his still sleeping brother. "Supernatural pest control."

"I saw the video of what happened in that diner." By now Harold felt comfortable enough to mention it. He was pretty sure Dean wouldn't kill him for it.

That was the one that stood out. Maybe their other victims had been not human, maybe there was another story behind their crimes.

But there was the video. It had been them no doubt about that, they even had said their names straight into the camera. They had killed everybody in that diner.

And that wasn't the man Harold saw sitting over there, still a comforting hand on his brother's chest.

Dean let out another sigh, he knew what Harold was talking about.

"Out there." He started. "There are a lot of evil sons of bitches. Ghosts, demons, werewolves, vampires, almost everything you know from old horror stories is out there. Things, that can change their appearance. Things, that can look like other people, imitating them so well nobody notices anything different about them." He fell silent and turned towards his brother when Sam whimpered in his sleep.

"You're saying, they looked like you but they weren't you." It wasn't a question. That would explain the bodies. The faked deaths. If things like this were real.

"Yeah."

When Harold stayed quiet Dean spoke again.

"Believe whatever you want to believe." He said in a low tone. "Whatever lets you sleep at night."

Chapter 12
Masterpost