Out of Time - Part One
John doesn't understand people who'd willingly go about summoning a demon. If they've gone through all the trouble of finding out how to do it they couldn't damn well have avoided finding out how much of a bad idea it is. It's plain stupid, that's what it is. If they had a lick of sense they'd know that. But hell, over the years John's learned that there's no underestimating how stupid some people can be. Most of them just don't see the truth, even when it's staring them right in the face.
He aims centre mass and doesn't hesitate to pull the trigger. Anyone stupid enough to want to summon a demon is better off dead. He isn't in any mood to try out an exorcism if he doesn't have to, and at least this way he'll spare the life of some poor bastard the demon would have possessed. He hasn't really seen too many demons himself, but from what he knows of them they always ride their hosts hard; the people don't usually live to tell the tale.
The guy falls dead to the floor, words cut off mid chant. An easy job for once and no bullets wasted. It's a fair deal, John thinks; one human dead and one demon still stuck in hell where it belongs.
Well, that's what he thought at least. He thought he stopped the chant in time.
The shadows twist and writhe. The air crackles and sparks and he can smell ozone in the air. John aims his gun, even though he doesn't know what the fuck to aim it at, and takes a step back. The shadows coalesce and it's like a black a hole into nothing, something he hasn't got the words to describe. As soon as it forms, a body tumbles out of it and falls to the ground. Electricity crackles through the darkness and it explodes into nothingness, or maybe it just falls in on itself. Whatever it was is gone, and the only thing left is the smell of ozone and the new body on the floor.
John's damn sure he's never seen anything like it, he's never even heard of anything like it. He's pretty sure that that's not how demons show up though. John's more than ready to admit that there's still too much he doesn't know about the supernatural, that there'll always be things he won't know. But John's made a point of learning anything he can about demons, how else was he gonna find a way to kill the son of a bitch that took his Mary, and he doesn't think he's wrong about this.
He keeps the gun trained on the body on the floor. Even from where he's standing he can see that it's torn up pretty bad. No, not torn up, more like beat up. One arm lies at a strange angle and he thinks he can see the end of a bone in an obviously broken leg. He knows there's probably more.
Whatever kind of monster this is, it ain't getting up anytime soon.
John points his gun steadily at the body and walks around it until he can see its face. It looks like a kid, older than his boys but not by much. Its clothes are torn, but the only blood is on the leg with the bone sticking out. Still, it looks pretty much like it should be dead.
He's almost surprised when it blinks open green eyes and looks at him. They're even brighter than Dean's eyes, which tend a bit toward hazel at times.
It tries to speak and blood bubbles up from its mouth. "Lily?" it manages to whisper. It coughs and blood spatters from its mouth. "Is she all right?" it asks weakly and John sees hope, fear and desperation flicker over its face and in the brilliantly green eyes.
"I don't know," he finds himself answering in a tone that's almost sympathetic. It's hard to hate anything that seems that broken. The thing looks too much like a kid for god's sake, and John's still a human being and a dad. And this here looks like a desperate, scared kid.
It closes its eyes, but not before John catches a glimpse of raw pain. He's seen pain like that before, fresh and sharp and so heavy it drowns out everything else. He saw it in Dean's eyes once - can still see the echoes of it if he dares to look.
It's not human, John reminds himself. He pulls a flask of holy water out of his jacket with one hand and thumbs it open. He splashes some of the water on it. It opens its eyes again as some of the water hits it in the face, but that's the only reaction John gets.
"What are you, kid?" he asks and winces inwardly at the 'kid' that slips out.
It's breathing in short gasps. It looks at John and he isn't sure, but it seems like it's thinking about how to answer him. Or then it's just in too much pain by now to even know what it's doing.
"Going to… shoot me?" It seems to take quite a bit of effort to get that out. John supposes he can't blame it for not being in a sharing mood when someone's pointing a gun at it. He wouldn't be either, if the situation was reversed.
"It doesn't look like I need to. You're doing a good job of dying on your own."
It sounds like it's choking and it takes a moment for John to realise that it's trying to laugh. Or really, he thinks, probably trying not to laugh with the shape it's in.
"Bloody hell," it whispers once it gets the laughing under control. "That…" More blood trickles out of its mouth. "…hurt."
John bites back the smile tugging at his own lips. At least the thing has a sense of humour. In its present condition, more pain probably doesn't matter all that much anyway.
"Either help me," it tells him with effort. "Or shoot me." And John gets that, he's felt like that in the past.
He looks at the kid. He isn't sure that there's much he can do to help, and he's even less sure if he should. Actually, he's pretty sure that he probably shouldn't help, it's not like any of this can be anything good. But he wants some answers. He needs answers.
If he wants anything at all from it, it'll need to get to a hospital, because there's no way the kid's staying alive without professional help. It shouldn't be alive as it is, not looking like that.
It's a good thing his boys are staying with Jim. If the kid lives John'll have to stick around to make sure it doesn't do anything before he can get the answers he wants.
Mind made up, John crouches down in front of the kid, and if possible the kid looks even worse off up close. He reaches for the silver knife he keeps in his boot, because you never know when you'll need a piece of sharp silver.
The kid's eyes follow his movements. It isn't like he could do much else, he looks all too broken to be able to move much - or at all. Besides, John still has the gun in one hand and he isn't about to let it down anytime soon.
He looks the kid over; the clothes are ripped to pieces and there are fresh bruises all over him, but John can't see any open wounds, except for the one with the bone sticking out. But John would bet anything that there's bleeding inside, probably broken ribs, and if the fact that he's coughing up blood is any indication, his lungs aren't doing too good either. John is no medic, but he's seen his share of injuries and death and this... this looks bad, maybe too bad. If he wants the kid to have a chance to live, John needs to get help and fast.
"Just making sure," John says and presses the edge of the knife to the bare skin on the kid's left arm where it shows through the ragged clothing. He presses down and draws the knife forward, leaving a short, bleeding cut. The kid looks at him, but doesn't even wince. And maybe it's just that the pain he's already in is just too much for anything else to even register.
"So kid, you have a name?" He almost doesn't believe himself, he's actually trying to sound comforting. Somehow he doesn't think the kid's buying it, what with the gun John's still holding.
"Harry," the kid whispers anyway, as John fishes out his handy little container of salt.
"Salt," he tells the kid before pouring some on him, making sure not to get any into the wound he just made - even he's not that much of a bastard when there's no call for it. Maybe this isn't the surest way to do it, but the kid's in no condition for him to go forcing salt down his throat just to make sure, and this should be good enough for now. The kid doesn't react to the salt any more than he did to the holy water or the silver.
"You seem human enough," John mumbles and then starts carefully searching through the kid's clothes. There are other tests, but none John can do right here and now. The kid's eyes are starting to droop and it's about time, because it just isn't natural for him to seem so lucid while looking like that. "I just need to see if you have any ID on you," John explains because the look those tired green eyes are giving him isn't anywhere near trusting.
"Look kid," he says while he continues to search for any sort of identification. "I don't trust you any, but I'm not gonna leave you here to die." He pauses when he finds a pouch on the kid's belt that reminds him a bit too much of witches. It's far too heavy to be any kind of hex bag he's ever seen, though.
John opens the pouch and finds it filled with coins, and most of them look like gold. That's definitely more than weird, but not really an obvious sign of evil. "I'll call 911, but I'll stick around. As soon as they get you to a hospital, I'll be there," he warns the kid. "I'll tell them you're my kid. And you better play along."
The kid's eyes widen slightly and and it seems like a huge effort on his part to lift those eyes enough to meet John's. But that's no wonder really - the kid being conscious at all is miracle enough. His forhead crunches up slightly as he looks into John's eyes.
"Okay."
Well then, the kid at least seems to have gotten the point. Not that John would bet on it, he is pretty out of it.
John stands up.
The kid coughs wetly.
"Wait." John barely hears the whisper.
He stops and looks down at the kid. He's moving his left hand slowly, and at least that isn't broken then. John can see the whole arm is trembling and whatever it is that the kid's trying to do, it looks like it's hard going.
"Here." It isn't so much a word as the kid's lips moving. He's trying to move the sleeve on his broken right arm, but his fingers don't seem to be doing what he's trying to tell them.
The kid's lips are moving again, but John can't make out the words. He crouches down, even if he knows it might still be a trick. But really, it'd have to be down right desperate at this point, and John just can't see what the kid could do, because there's no way he's faking those injuries.
"Take it," he whispers or at least that's what it sounds like to John. It doesn't make much sense, but the kid's looking at him with eyes far too intense for someone who's on the verge of passing out.
John pushes up the sleeve on the broken arm. There's a holster of some kind, it looks a bit like what you might use to hide a knife up your sleeve, but this thing isn't holding any kind of blade. There's a piece of slender wood, about the length of the kid's forearm. And isn't the kid lucky that his arm broke higher, because John doesn't think that that twig wouldn't have snapped right along with the arm, and it seems like that thing is important to him.
"What the hell are you, kid?" John asks, but it's not loud enough for him to hear. He unclasps the whole holster, but the kid seems to finally have lost his fight against unconsciousness.
To John the stick would look a hell of a lot like a magic wand, if that just didn't sound so stupid. But the idea must have come from somewhere, so why couldn't it be true? John's seen weirder things for sure. The kid could be a witch. There's no saying if a witch would have reacted to any of John's little tests. Witches are still human enough, they just get their powers from something that ain't. All it costs them is their souls.
John takes the wand with him when he leaves. He still can't be sure that the kid isn't just a victim of circumstance, because it sure as hell didn't look like the kid meant to be there. And hell, he isn't going to change his mind about getting the kid help now.
He can always kill him later if he has to.
***
It's ridiculously easy to convince the hospital staff that the kid is his. Actually, there's no convincing involved - it isn't like anybody was doubting him. He calls the hospital with a description and a name, and asks about his missing kid. He's just like any other worried parent, desperate enough to start calling hospitals. And John's got enough fake ID's with kids attached, so that isn't a problem.
Of course the cops get involved - an anonymous phone call, a dead body with a gunshot wound and a kid beaten to an inch of his life? There's no way the cops won't get involved. Of course it would've been easier if they didn't, but it isn't anything he can't handle. He tells them he and his kid are just passing through. Well, they were supposed to be passing through, and they hadn't even meant to stay the night. They'd just stopped for a few hours and the kid wanted some time to himself - who can blame him really; a teenager stuck in a car with his old man four hours on end… But then Harry didn't show up where they were supposed to meet and that wasn't at all like him.
It's not much of a cover story, but it'll do, as long as the kid doesn't go contradicting it. All the kid needs to say is that he got grabbed and beaten and doesn't know anything else. The way he's looking, no one's going to be accusing him of lying about being unconcious through most of it.
Nothing's gone wrong yet, and that might just be pure dumb luck, but it's probably got more to do with the fact that no one's been able to talk to Harry yet, seeing as how he's still in surgery. Has been for a while now, and they don't seem none too sure if he'll make it or not.
John's pretty sure that the staff thinks he looks the picture of a worried dad, and sure, he's anxious enough that it's not much trouble to pull that off. But it's not like he's worried for the reason they think. It's not his kid in there, might not even be a kid at all in any way that matters. No, John's not upset because he thinks the kid ain't gonna make it, because while he sure as hell wants to know what the fuck happened out there, he's more worried about the kid staying alive. With the state he was in earlier, it just doesn't seem right - he shoudln't be alive. And if the kid buys it... well it's out of John's hands then. Not his choice, not his responsibility.
And there's not going to be any use in wondering why exactly that'd be such a relief. If the kid turns out to be a witch, there's no reason for John to feel any guilt about putting him down.
John shifts in his seat, tries to find a more comfortable position in the damn chair but it isn't happening; it seems like they're all designed to be as uncomfortable as possible. He's been sitting in this one long enough to know, and it just keeps getting worse. Like any hunter, John doesn't like spending time in hospitals, they always mean that something's gone wrong. Wrong enough that you can't patch it up yourself. And John isn't used to sitting in a hospital waiting for someone else either, he usually makes sure there's no reason to. At least it's not one of his boys in there.
There isn't much else he can do but wait at this point. He already called Jim, let him know that he'd gotten caught up in something and wouldn't be back for a while yet. He doesn't need to ask if it's okay for Jim to keep the boys for a bit longer - Jim doesn't mind the boys being around, and the boys like being there - but of course he asks anyway, and, of course, Jim agrees to look out for them.
***
Harry's not sure how much time passes by, he only catches the world around him in small glimpses. He wakes up too often, he gets that much from a comment from someone - he's not sure who said it, he's not too sure of far too many things at the moment - and Harry more than agrees. He wouldn't mind being awake a lot less; he feels like absolute shite. But they say the medication should keep him asleep, and there's something about it that just sounds wrong, but everything fades away before he can quite realise what it is.
He never stays awake for very long and it takes awhile - he has no idea how long - to form some sort of picture of what's going on. He knows he's at a hospital, a muggle one, even if it doesn't make much sense, whatever happened - shouldn't someone have found him by now, moved him to a proper hospital?
He remembers... surgery? There are only small pieces of memories, bits that don't seem to make much sense on their own, but he thinks that's what it has to be. None of those memories are pleasant. Muggle medicine just doesn't work quite like it should when it comes to wizards, maybe because, for whatever reason, wizards seem to be a bit harder to break than your average muggle. The reason doesn't really matter to him, but the effects are nothing he wants to experience when he's stuck in the middle of a muggle surgery and people start panicking.
He has a feeling that it was a bit more than just close at some point in there, but he's not sure, and he really doesn't care to remember any more of it.
Things are slowly getting more clear though, not that that's saying much. He's not so sure he wants them to.
Someone's telling him about all the things that are broken in him, and to Harry it sounds like that's pretty close to everything. It feels like it too.
Right now, he'd give up quite a bit for a good dose of pain-relieving potion and some skele-grow. At least with skele-grow you know the pain will be over soon.
Every time he wakes up there's someone asking questions, or at least that's the way it seems to him. There was the police at some point. And the doctors want to know about his allergies, that must be because of how his body reacts to the medicines. He can't really tell any of them much, so he says he isn't sure, it seems like the best way to go. It's not hard to seem confused, and when he tells them he doesn't remember no one doubts him.
He wishes it was more of an act, but then he thinks, maybe he doesn't want to remember.
And almost every time he wakes up, the man that found him is there. At some point he decides that it's a good sign; at least there's a chance he'll get his wand back. In his more lucid moments he wonders if giving up his wand might not have been one of the stupidest things he's ever done, and he has admittedly had time for a lot of stupid things in his life. But there hadn't seemed much choice at the time, act of desperation and all that. It had sounded like he was sending Harry to a muggle hospital and who knows what would have happened to his wand then, at least he knows who has it now.
A doctor is telling him that whatever pain relief they've been giving him - he really knows next to nothing about this muggle side of things - isn't working anymore. His body's grown used to it too fast or something, he’s not entirely sure if that makes sense.
Thank you doctor, I noticed. But no, of course that's not what he says.
"It's all right doctor, I'm alive. I think I can live with a bit of pain." And maybe the words don't come out as clearly as he means them to, but he thinks they'll probably not hold that against him.
It really isn't just a bit of pain, and there's no way they don't all know that. It's a whole lot of constant agony. Harry's suffered through the Cruciatus curse more times than he cares to remember, and he thinks that might have been worse. But the curse always ends, sooner or later, even if it might not feel like that at the time, but this pain… it just goes on with no end in sight. There's no way to fight back, no way to make it stop.
It's not bad enough to drive him insane, not like the Cruciatus when it goes on and on. At least he doesn't think it is. And it's a different kind of pain, not just in his mind like the curse always is with nothing to anchor it into reality. It does make a difference.
Harry can live with this, he thinks. There's not much choice.
And the doctor's off telling him about other things they can give him to make him feel better. He doesn't listen to half of it and understands even less. He knows it will make no difference.
"Really, I'll be fine," he says and tries to sound like he actually means it.
The pain relief would be nice, it'd be very, very nice, but he's quite sure it wouldn't work for very long anyway. Besides, he's realised that muggle medicine makes him disoriented, and he has a feeling that he'll need his wits about him sooner rather than later. Well, that is, if he can manage to get some sort of handle on the thrice damned mind numbing pain his body is subjecting him to.
The doctor isn't happy and Harry has had enough experience with Healers that he didn't much expect anything else. He doesn't really care. The doctor isn't the only one feeling less than thrilled. Harry isn't feeling all that happy about the situation either. There's not a lot either one of them can do about it though.
The man who found him, who is almost always there, is sitting in a chair watching them. Harry looks toward him, and he thinks that the man told him that he's supposed to pass for Harry's father to these people. It's one of the things that aren't too clear in his mind, but he's here and he keeps being here and that must mean something.
Harry's tired and he hurts and he really wants to be unconscious again.
He looks at the man. "You tell them," he says and the words slur together to the point where he doesn't know if anyone understands him, but it's the best he can do.
The next time he wakes up, he thinks vaguely, he'll just have to try and manage to live through the pain some other way. He's had practice.
And things slide into black.
***
The kid's in a hospital bed and won't be going anywhere soon. Both his legs are in casts and so's his right arm. The fingers of his right hand are wrapped up and his chest is sporting bandages, and there are all kinds of bruises and stitches inside him that John can't see. He's heard enough of it to know that when they tell him that it's a miracle the kid's alive at all, they really mean it.
John tried to look happy about the news when they told him. The being alive part, not the injuries. Truth be told, he isn't all that surprised that the kid lived. He figured if the kid was still alive long enough for John to call for help… well, he'd have already died by then if he was going to.
John's seen miracles before and they ain't ever been anything good.
The kid… Harry, has been in and out of consciousness for days. They had him on a morphine drip at first, but he built up a tolerance for it way too fast. And that does nothing at all to make John feel any better about this whole thing.
They can't up the dosage any more, and so they had to take him off the morphine completely. They would have put him on something else, probably not as effective, but better than nothing anyway, but the kid disagreed.
Yeah, he disagreed alright, and then conveniently passed out and left John to deal with the fallout. And since there's a chance the kid had good reason to say no, John makes up an almost believable story about how Harry just don't react to medication like he should. It's not much effort on John's part - it's not like they hadn't noticed already.
Well at least since he's pretty much tied up in the bed, he'll stay put while John asks him some questions. He wonders if it would have been easier to get answers out of him while he was doped up on morphine, but maybe the answers will make more sense like this. Unless the pain's too much for the kid. John thinks it probably should be.
John's been waiting for the doctor to be by and the nurses to leave, and he's kind of surprised that Harry's stayed awake through all of it. He's not sure how long that's going to last, but at least they're alone for once.
"So, kid, are you gonna stay awake for now?"
By the look on his face that's the stupidest question he's heard so far.
"Well I don't feel like I'm going to fall asleep right this minute," he says at last.
It's probably the best John's going to get. He just needs a few moments anyway, because it's high time John got some information out of him. He's got other things to do than baby-sit possible monsters.
"In that case you're gonna tell me exactly what the hell you are, and how the hell you ended up in that house," he growls. No need to beat around the bush. "And what was that thing you gave me?"
The kid looks at him and the sides of his mouth turn up a bit, like he's fighting off a smile.
"I don't know how I ended up there, I don't even know where I am right now." The words aren't even slurred, and it's the first time John really notices the clear English accent. Earlier when he'd been coughing up blood with every word or slurring through sleep and pain it hadn't been possible to make out much of any kind of accent at all. "Since everyone here sounds American, I'm reasonably sure this is America. But that's about all I know." To John's ears he sounds more annoyed than worried, even though there's enough of the worry too. If John was in Harry's place he supposes he'd be plenty of both.
"You're at Chambers Memorial Hospital, Danville, Arkansas," John tells him shortly.
"Thank you." The kid seems to give it some thought. "Even if that tells me very little."
John almost smiles at that. It shouldn't be this hard to dislike the kid. Not that he's any less suspicious, but sometimes he still has to remind himself that he isn't in the habit of letting his guard down around anything that might still very well be some kind of monster.
"How about answering the rest of the questions?"
The kid keeps looking at him with those damned brilliantly green eyes. Like he can see more than John wants him to.
He's starting to get to John. And if John's honest with himself, the kid's been doing that from the start. There's no way for John to be sure if he's doing it on purpose, somehow, or if it's just the fact that he doesn't look much older than John's own boys.
He shouldn't be having this kind of problem.
John's been sitting here waiting, with nurses coming in and out and there's no way he could stop himself from thinking what he'd be doing if that was Dean or Sam on that bed, and not some kid he doesn't know and whose dad he's just pretending to be.
"It would be polite to introduce yourself before starting the interrogation." The kid sounds like he's chiding John for making an awkward social blunder. Because interrogations in general are such polite things. "I already told you my name," Harry adds with a polite sort of smile.
"John," he grates out and it feels like a concession.
Harry looks at him and somehow manages to combine a question with mild rebuke into the lines of his face and that piercing gaze. Like John's the kid in this scenario, and a rude one at that.
"Winchester," John adds grudgingly, because he has the feeling the kid just won't say anything until he does. At least that's what he tells himself, because that's definitely information he didn't plan on sharing, and it came out all too easy. He should have lied. "But we're both going by Perry at the moment."
The kid blinks and then lets out a groan, his expression shifting into one of disbelief. "The hospital staff think my name is Harry Perry?"
John has to admit that that sounds… stupid, but it's normal enough and he doesn't have that many fake ID's with him. Especially one's that carry health insurance.
"Yeah, you got something to say about it, kid?" John asks and somehow it comes out sounding more like friendly banter than anything else.
The kid's shoulders twitch in a way that makes John think that if he was able to move a bit more it would have been a shrug. "I've been called worse." The smile seems to brighten the green eyes even more and it's damned hard not to smile back. "I'll just have to tell everyone my father is terrible at names."
There's something about it that makes John feel like they're sharing something, and he scowls as he fights down the urge to confirm that with a smile of his own.
"Now kid, how did you end up at that house?" John insists, trying to get his supposed interrogation back on track. John suspects that he's lost any chance he had of appearing intimidating. Especially since Harry's probably well aware that John can't exactly do all that much here, the kid's under pretty close observation.
"Like I said, I really don't know. There was an attack, I think." There's that same pain and desperation in the kid's eyes again that John had seen earlier. "I tried to get Lily out of the way and then…" The kid trails off and John's talked to too many grieving people not to recognise that tone - whatever happened, Harry doesn't want to think about it. "The next thing I know for certain is falling to that floor and hurting like hell." Harry closes his eyes for a moment. "This is probably going to sound completely barmy, but everything… this place... is wrong."
"What do you mean wrong?"
The kid sighs and focuses those all too bright eyes on John again. "Well for one, I was in Scotland," he says pointedly, like John should somehow have known that. "And I haven't been around," he bites down on the next word and hesitates for a bit, "hospitals very much. But I'm almost sure that they should be more… advanced."
At first that just makes no damn sense at all, and then when he realises what it sounds like the kid is saying... No. No way in hell is he saying what John thinks he is. Because sure, John's seen some weird shit out there - some really fucking weird shit - but this takes the cake. If he actually believed it.
"John." It's strange to hear his name from the kid, too personal, when he's trying to remember that he might still have to put this thing down. He sounds nervous, pleading almost. "How old do I look?"
John frowns. "Sixteen or seventeen, maybe." Lying there bruised and battered, more bandage and plaster cast than human, the kid looks even younger really, so damned helpless and vulnerable.
John really wants to know where he's going with that question.
"Of course." The voice sounds too hollow, and John has no idea what the emotion deep in those green eyes is. John doesn't want to look at it for too long. "That's what I was afraid of," Harry says quietly.
Those eyes, they seem like they go on forever, and John has the sudden strange thought that if he keeps looking at them he'll get lost in the empty darkness behind them.
John blinks and looks away.
"Lily is my daughter," Harry tells him calmly and pauses. John feels the sudden weight gathering in the air, the significance of what the kid is going to say is almost tangible.
And when he finally says something, John has no idea what he's supposed to think. Because it really makes no sense.
"My fifty three year old daughter."
***
Harry stares up at the ceiling. There isn't much else he can do.
John has left to wherever it is he goes. Harry wouldn't be surprised if he just needed some time to think about what Harry told him. After all, time travel? Supposed de-aging? John's no wizard, and even Harry isn't quite sure what to think about his own growing suspicions about what's happened to him.
He's kind of grateful to be alone for once; he wouldn't mind the distraction from... everything, but the man's presence is a bit unsettling. It's been a long time, but some things about John Winchester remind him uncomfortably of Mad-Eye Moody.
The telly's on, but the noise is muted, and as distractions go it's not worth much. And Harry can't exactly use the remote control, since he can't bloody well move, and neither of his hands is much use for grabbing things at the moment anyway.
He doesn't want to think about things. Doesn't want to think about what it all might mean. He knows he has to, needs to figure out what to do now. But he can feel the dark edges of desperation creeping up the moment he starts to think about everything.
Harry stares at the ceiling and breathes in slowly. Breathes out. Empties his mind. He can feel the pain of all his injuries fraying at his concentration. He knows how to ignore it though, or at least how to not notice it enough so that it doesn't disturb him. It took him years to learn this hard won discipline over his own mind. He pushes the pain to the edges of his consciousness. It's nothing but background noise, insignificant.
He remembers the events in horrifying detail. The crisp winter air, the snow crunching under their boots as they walk down the quiet path up to Lily's house. If he wanted to, he could recite every word of their conversation.
There's a pop. Someone's apparated. Impossible, but still there and despite the instincts that the years have ingrained in him there's no time to draw his wand as he shoves Lily away.
Then there's only darkness.
He thinks there was darkness for a very long time. It's hard to tell. The tumble out into light and pain was something... unexpected and after that nothing has made sense anymore.
It's all wrong, even more so than what he told John. It's not just the wrong time and the wrong country. Everything, the whole world, feels wrong. He saw it in John Winchester's mind, the memories of things that aren't like they should be. Images of things that Harry almost recognises, but so vastly different.
And the clearest images when he looks into John's eyes are of witches that have sold their souls for power, blood magic and dark rituals, and Harry knows what John suspects. But still, it's almost worse when he looks into John's eyes and sees two young boys.
Sees a green eyed, freckled young boy flung into a wall by some invisible force.
Sees a crying baby and the green eyed boy even youngee.
Sees a dark figure crouched over a boy in a bed.
Sees John carefully sewing a gash on a boys arm.
Sees the quiet sobs and the trembling.
Sees the boy bite through his own lip to stay quiet.
Memory after memory of two boys, hurt, in danger and Harry doesn't want to see anymore. Doesn't want to think of his own children.
He knows he should be grateful. Grateful that in an unguarded moment those are the things that John remembers. That he sees John's children, in danger, hurt, in pain, frightened. As long as John looks at Harry and remembers those things, Harry's chances of staying in John's good graces are far better.
Now and then he's made a little nudge. Not much, not enough to be able to say that he really changes John's mind about anything. He wouldn't do something like that, not if it isn't absolutely necessary. Because Harry knows what it feels like to take control of others, to quietly whisper Imperio and have them at his mercy. He remembers that heady feeling of control, and it's such a slippery slope. You can't cast a spell if you don't want to, you can't control someone unless you want to. So now Harry just nudges, just enough that there are more images of John's boys than there are of horrific rituals and dark sacrifices.
It's the only thing Harry can do. Everything here is wrong and Harry can only lie in a bed and hurt, and wait.
***
Time blurs into a large shapeless thing that doesn't make much sense to Harry anymore. He can't tell how long he's been lying in this hospital bed, can't tell how long it's been since he regained consciousness. He doesn't even know when he had that conversation with John. There's pain and boredom, interspersed with occasional bits of conversation, and after a while he can't tell those apart either.
He practices his Occlumency every day, but only just enough. He can manage the pain that way if he needs to, and he did at first, but now he does it not so much because of the pain, but because he needs to be sure that he can keep his shields up when he has to. He isn't sure who he can trust in this strange place. If he can trust anyone at all. He doesn't think he should.
When the police stopped coming to ask their questions and John stopped being there every time he wakes up, and even the nurses started coming by less often… Harry let the pain blur everything into something he doesn't need to worry about.
He can't keep it up for too long, he knows that. Of course he does. The pain his body is feeling will lessen with time and the world and all the decisions he's avoiding will still be waiting for him. You can't hide forever, the truth always catches up with you sooner or later.
Reality comes crashing back, like a herd of stampeding hippogriffs, even sooner than he thought it would. When it does slam into him again, he still can't really move, he's still hurting like hell, and he's still as good as bound to the hospital bed.
What isn't at all surprising is that reality comes by the way of John Winchester and a sudden escape from the hospital. Well, Harry calls it escape, since they vanish in the middle of the night without letting anyone know. That might not be a good sign, but Harry can't help but feel grateful about being out of there.
***
Getting Harry out of the hospital isn't going to be too much fun for anyone involved. But the doctors are saying he's healing better than expected, and that's reason enough for John to get him out of there sooner rather than later. They're already wondering about Harry's reactions to the medicines, and it's not just that; the longer he stays at the hospital the bigger the risk that their IDs won't hold up. Now that he knows he's not going to accidentally kill Harry by sneaking him out, it's high time they both got out of town.
John has a plan about how to get Harry out of the hospital. It's not a very detailed plan, since a lot of stuff depends on the situation. It won't be easy, but it won't be impossible. The security in the place isn't that tight.
It turns out that there are some practical issues John might have wanted to give some thought, like the catheter. That's definitely more intimacy than John was ever planning on.
He hesitates for a moment, hand half way to pulling away that ridiculous hospital gown they always make you wear. The situation - what he's about to do - feels faintly wrong.
"I'm sure you've seen one before," Harry says, his voice quiet, but calm and almost soothing. For a moment John thinks maybe Harry's trying to calm him down. He glances at Harry's face and gets a weirdly encouraging smile.
John snorts and grabs the hospital gown. "I don't usually put my hands on anyone else's," he mutters as he moves the gown out of the way. He really tries not to look too much, even if that's pretty much impossible and he can't help but notice that Harry isn't circumcised. And he's stuck for a moment on how strange that looks.
He's been on the other end of this once and he remembers it well enough, he thinks. Somehow it's not the kind of thing a man forgets easily. Especially the part where the doctor tells you they need to drain the balloon keeping the whole thing in place, or it'll hurt like hell pulling the tube outta your dick, that part kind of sticks in the mind. Except John's got no handy syringe around to do that with - besides he's not sure he'd do it right anyway - and he's pretty sure just yanking the thing out won't be a good idea.
"John?" Harry asks and John looks up to meet his eyes. "Is there a problem?"
John can't really believe how damn calm Harry still sounds, like he isn't lying helpless and as good as naked on a bed. And with someone he has no good reason to trust at all about to go putting his hands in rather sensitive places. There's no good way to tell him that John isn't quite sure how to do this, and that it might actually hurt like hell.
Harry sighs. "Try cutting the smaller tube," he suggests.
That's... not the worst idea ever, even if the he thinks the result is probably going to be kinda disgusting. But John's raising two boys, has fought in a war, and hunts monsters on regular basis, a bit of piss isn't going to scare him away.
It's not quite that simple - they end up having to get Harry up in a weird sitting position at the edge of the bed - but in the end the little plastic tube slides out almost on its own and John's pretty sure they're both grateful for that.
Actually getting Harry out of the hospital turns out to be the easy part of the evening. Getting him into the wheelchair John had gotten was damn well harder than wheeling him out of there. Maybe it's pure dumb luck, and at the moment John isn't about to question it too much, especially since nothing else is going their way.
The Impala is really not made for anyone with two broken legs, not to mention the broken arm, smashed fingers and all the bruises you can't even see from the outside. A lot of it has gotten better, but the casts are still all there, as well as the bandages on Harry's hand. He's not about to keel over dead all of a sudden on account of his injuries. The thing is though, there's no way you can just shove Harry inside the car - or anywhere else - without causing a hell of a lot of pain, and maybe injuring him more.
There isn't much Harry could do to make the process easier, even if he wanted to - stuck with that many casts, he hasn't got much manoeuvrability. No, the only thing he can do to help is keep quiet and suffer through. But it's down right disturbing the way Harry doesn't protest at all when John pulls and shoves and finally manages to get him into the backseat.
At least he's small enough that it shouldn't get too uncomfortable, as much as anything can be comfortable when you're as beat up as Harry is.
John's not sure, but he thinks Harry might have passed out some time after that, because the first hour of the drive he might as well be alone for all the noise the kid makes. The first thing he does hear from the backseat is a faintly apologetic; "I need to use the loo."
The meaning of the words doesn't really register right away, but the tone is more than familiar - he's heard it enough times travelling with two young boys - and John bites back a curse. Why was it that this situation hadn't entered his mind earlier, when he was going through all the trouble of getting rid of the catheter? It should have been obvious that it would come up sooner or later. Then again, it wasn't like John would have known how the hell you were supposed to take care of a damned catheter.
"We'll stop at the next gas station," John says, because it isn't like he can tell Harry to keep it in. They're only an hour into what even under the best of circumstances would be at least a twelve hour car drive - twelve hours that is, without any stops. "That okay?" John adds. He's been hooked up to a catheter and who knows what that does to a man's ability to keep it in. John's learned from experience that he doesn't like cleaning piss from his car - sometimes when a kid says he has to go, he really has to go right then and there.
"I believe I'll manage," Harry answers, and John thinks he hears a smile in the tone of voice. He glances at him through the rear view mirror, but laid out like he is he can't really see Harry's face.
Thankfully it's not that long before they hit a rest stop. It's blessedly quiet, maybe because of the late hour, and John doesn't care about the reason as long as it makes his life a bit easier. Less people means less of a chance of anyone wondering why he's hauling around a kid in hospital scrubs and an obscene amount of casts.
Once they're in the car again, the ordeal over for now - sooner or later they'll have to do it again - Harry pants quietly. From pain probably, and exhaustion. His breaths shudder as he draws them in.
John's hand is on the key in the ignition. "You alright?" he asks, looking into the rear view mirror. He still can't really see Harry's face.
"Not really," Harry answers, his voice quiet and shaky. He sounds resigned, like he knows that there's nothing at all that can be done about it.
John nods. "Yeah," he says and turns the key in the ignition.
If Harry says something it's drowned by the rumble of the engine, but John doesn't think he does.
It's forty miles later when Harry speaks again. "I should thank you, I think, for saving my life."
It doesn't sound like gratitude. He sounds like he isn't really sure if he should thank John or not - maybe he'd have an easier time deciding if John told him that he's still prepared to kill Harry, in case it turns out he needs killing.
"Did I?" he asks.
A pair of headlights fly past them in the dark, and John has time to wonder if Harry's goint to say anything else at all.
"I don't know." The answer comes at last, hollow and bitter, and John can't help but think that he's telling the truth.
His Colt is within hands reach - with a stranger he doesn't quite trust in the car, of course it is - and John almost moves to take it. It's as close to an admission as Harry's come, because anything human would have died, but Harry's still helpless in the backseat and it just doesn't seem enough of a reason to shoot someone - not when all John has is still just suspicions, and the kid in the backseat hasn't done anything at all that he knows of.
He wants to ask, straight out, what Harry is. If he's a witch or something else. But there isn't much of a chance he'd answer that question. There's something unnatural about him though, but if what he's told John is the truth then there'd almost have to be. And the way Harry's never seemed to wonder about all of it - if it really is true - is just plain suspicious.
"That's not good." The words slip out before John's really given them much thought. They almost sound like a warning, one made out of concern.
The sigh sounds like resignation. "That I do know," Harry answers him. John would really like to know if he's supposed to read something into that.
"Yeah?"
There's no immediate answer, and that wasn't much of a question either. John was just hoping that Harry might feel like elaborating on that.
"I'm well aware that you're suspecting me of something, John." His name sounds too familiar again, it reminds him uncomfortably of the fact that, considering the circumstances, he's letting Harry get way too close to him. "While I'm not used to the way things work here, I'm not stupid enough not to realise that lying to the hospital and the police, and then sneaking me out in the middle of the night isn't how people normally handle things."
"Why'd you go along with it then?" It's not that John thought Harry wouldn't realise the fishiness of all that's been going on, but when stated like that it suddenly seems very strange that Harry did go along with the lie. He could have just told the cops he had no idea who John was, and John couldn't have done much of anything about it.
"Because I suspect you're the best chance I have of figuring out what happened."
There's not much to say to that, because all things considered Harry's probably right about that. And when did he actually start thinking Harry might be telling the truth with his crazy little story?
After a while John pops a tape into the deck. He turns the volume high enough that conversation isn't the first thing on anyone's mind. The silence was getting to be uncomfortable.
By the time they finally arrive, Harry's passed out on the backseat, and the day long drive has stretched out into the next morning. They haven't said anything that would have meant anything since that first conversation - if it could even be called that. But there's been enough stops, and at some point the forced intimacy had stopped feeling uncomfortable. And the quiet had lost its awkwardness.
Part Two