elrhiarhodan

Title: The Waking Nightmare
Author:

elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar/Grimm
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Peter Burke, Neal Caffrey, Elizabeth Burke (Implied Peter/Elizabeth/Neal)
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Word Count: ~500
Summary: A fusion of White Collar and the world of Grimm. Neal starting seeing things that can’t possibly exist, and Peter and Elizabeth are not who he thought they were.

A/N: Based on a snippet I had written for

nieseryjna, who asked for WC/Grimm - Neal Wants it All to be a Bad Dream, for a Prompt Me meme I did back in June, 2012. Significantly revised and expanded for

hc_bingo, Round 4, for the prompt: hallucinations.

__________________

This can't be happening - it can't be happening. Neal kept telling that to himself as he watched the steam rise from the bodies on the snow covered ground. Maybe this was all a very bad dream. All Neal wanted to do was wake up from this twisted nightmare where his friends had become something out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and there were monsters roaming the paths of Central Park.

One moment, he and Peter and Elizabeth had been walking hand in hand in hand through the park, the next they were surrounded by a gang of - what? men? wolves? wolfmen? It was hard to be sure in the dark, but Neal thought he saw glowing eyes and dog-like snouts and teeth. ohmygodtheteeth. There was no warning before Peter pushed him to the ground with a shout to stay out of sight.

Neal tried to obey – it was second nature to obey commands from Peter, but he needed to make sure that Elizabeth was safe. Instead of hiding behind the bushes, Neal raised his head to scan the area. What he saw was defied his imagination.

There were six of those terrifying wolf-creatures, but that wasn’t what shocked Neal. It was the sight of Peter and Elizabeth – both of them – in some kind of back to back martial arts fighting stance. Holding knives, using knives, drawing blood with those knives.

And they weren’t just ordinary kitchen knives – not by any stretch of the imagination. They were long and pointed – some sort of fighting dagger - and where the hell did they get them? If Neal thought that Peter and Elizabeth were going to wait for those beast-men to attack, he was wrong. His friends – a relatively mild-mannered FBI agent and his event-planner wife – sprang forward, targeting the bellies and throats of their assailants.

It was over quickly. There were two dead men/not-men on the ground, and the others had run off.

Neal crawled out of his hiding place and tried not to vomit at the sight of blood and entrails and inhuman faces. “Peter – what were those things?”

Peter looked from him to Elizabeth and back to him again. Neal couldn’t read the expression on his face.

“Guys – what the fuck just happened.”

Peter spoke first. “Tell me what you saw – exactly what you saw.”

Neal swallowed against the rising nausea and described everything – red eyes, long teeth, snouts, fur and the sense of hunger and hatred. His own terror and the need to protect the people he loved.

Elizabeth said nothing. Peter uttered one word. “Shit.”

FIN