Fic Post: Trost Und Freude (4/?)

[gwendolyngrace]

Title: Trost und Freude (Comfort and Joy) (Chapter 4/at least 15)
Author: gwendolyngrace
Recipient: celtic_cookie
Request terms: Sam and Dean of course, and I love John: Lots of John! A Pre-series Christmas Story! Familial bonding, maybe a holiday-themed hunt?
Summary: Saginaw, Michigan, 1990: Going holiday shopping may hold more hazards than just the insane crowds and parents hell-bent on the buying the latest toy. John goes undercover to look into a series of accidents at the local mall. Meanwhile, Dean and Sam respond to Christmas-season festivities at school with unexpected results.
Rating: PG
Genre: Gen
Wordcount (this chapter): about 3,080
Spoilers: All three seasons through 3x08, may or may not be Origins-compliant
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended, not mine, just my fantasy.
Author’s Notes: Written for the spn_thur_nights exchange. OMG, this was the chapter I thought I’d never get posted! Sorry about the delay—my betas and I all had attacks of LIFE over the past week or so. But here ’tis. Five and possibly six should be up later this week.


Then




John drove through snow flurries back to the apartment, exhausted, and let himself in quietly. The lights were off, but the TV was on. By its flickering light, he could see Sammy fast asleep on the sofa, one arm hanging off the cushion and almost touching the floor. John tiptoed to his room and changed out of his Santa suit, then came back out to the living room. “Hey, Sammy,” he said softly. “What are you doing out here so late? Where’s Dean?” He picked Sam up—Sam reflexively wrapped his arms and legs around John’s neck and torso—and carried him down the short hallway.

Sammy muttered and moaned sleepily. It started with “Dean” and John just barely caught something that sounded like “your room” as he opened the door to the boys’ room.

In the hall light, John took one look at Dean’s sweat-sheened skin, the way he had tossed the covers aside, and the way his breathing seemed shallow and labored, and he thought he had a good idea of why Sam had been left on his own that evening. Sammy muttered into John’s neck again, and this time he heard, “Dean’s sick,” distinctly among a bunch of other mumbled incoherences. John backed out of the doorway and put Sam to bed in his own room. He carefully hid the suit in its black bag and hung the bag on the back of the door before going to check on Dean.

Dean was asleep, but feverish. John pulled the covers back over him. His skin was clammy and his cheeks were flushed bright red. A garbage pail was placed near his head, but it didn’t look (or smell) like he’d had to use it. John sat down on the other side of the mattress, between Dean and the window.

“Use Dad’s bed, Sammy,” Dean groaned, flipping over in bed and throwing the covers aside.

The pieces of Sam’s sleep-filled utterances clicked into place. John was glad he didn’t emulate Joshua’s preferred organizational technique of papering his room with his research when the boys were around. It was convenient to pin up articles and use the walls as a giant tack-board, but it was too risky. Even if Sam had orders to stay out of John’s things, he could hardly keep him out of his room altogether, and especially not on occasions like this, when Dean had given him permission to go in. And neither Sam nor Dean needed to see the images John acquainted himself with on a regular basis.

“Hey, buddy, it’s me,” John said.

“Dad?”

“Yeah. How’re you feeling, champ?”

Dean burrowed into his pillow, but his feet kicked their way out of the sheet. “M’okay.”

“Got a fever, kiddo.”

“M’okay.”

“Did you throw up?” John settled himself against the wall, crossing his ankles. He twitched the covers over his son.

“Sammy tell you about that?” Dean asked weakly.

“No, but looks like you were worried about it happening again.”

“Sammy,” Dean said in attribution. “M’fine. Just tired.” He wheezed and a cough racked through his body. He struggled to sit up until the hacking fit passed, then collapsed back down.

“Yeah, you’re fine, all right. Did you take some of Sam’s cough medicine? Do we even have any still?”

Dean made a noise that John couldn’t interpret, but his head moved up and down on the pillow.

“What time?”

“Uh,” Dean half-squeaked, half-moaned. “About…five? Five-thirty?”

“Okay, time for another dose, then.” John rose and went into the bathroom. He found the bottle right out on the sink, but the dosing cup was cracked. He had a tablespoon in the kitchen, so he went and got it and crouched by Dean.

“Sit up for a second, bud.” He measured out one tablespoon while Dean struggled to lift his head. John cradled Dean’s head in one hand and fed him the spoonful of medicine with the other. The motion gave him flashbacks, not only to feeding both Dean and Sam when they were infants, but all the way back to when his mother used to make him take medicine when he was sick.

Dean gagged a little on the cough syrup, but swallowed it dutifully.

“Water?” John offered.

“Yeah.”

John filled a cup in the kitchen and brought it back. Dean had pushed himself to sit against the wall.

“Sorry, sir,” he said miserably when John gave him the drink.

“Nothing to be sorry about, bud. Everybody gets sick sometimes.”

“Yeah, but….” Dean blinked hard.

“But what?”

“I had a snowball fight at school and Jason stuffed snow down my back and that’s why I’m sick!” Dean’s confession tumbled out in a rapid sequence that rose in pitch and increased in speed as he forced the words into one breath. He looked down at his lap. The light through the door caught in a tear as it fell to the covers. John realized with a shock that Dean was crying.

“Hey,” John said gently. “Dude, it’s okay. You didn’t get sick on purpose, Dean.” John put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. Dean swiped angrily at his eyes with his PJ sleeve. John leaned over for the box of tissues on the floor by the bed, next to the alarm clock. “Anyway, you can’t get sick that quickly. So whatever this is, you were probably getting it yesterday, or even the day before. Having a snowball fight had nothing to do with it.”

“Really?”

“Swear to God, dude.”

Dean sniffed noisily. John jiggled the tissue box and Dean took one. He honked his nose, coughed a bit, pulled himself together. “Sorry.”

“I said it’s okay.”

“Sorry for being a baby.”

“Well, you’re sick. I’ll let you get away with it this time.” John smiled. He eased Dean’s shoulders away from the wall, rubbing his back. “Does your chest feel tight?”

“A little.”

“Sore throat?”

“Yeah.”

“Head hurt?”

“Yeah.”

“Tummy?”

“Not since I puked.”

“Okay. Shivers?”

“Before. Now’m really hot.”

“Yeah. You’ve got the flu, kiddo. Maybe strep. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. Lie down; get some sleep.”

“M’hot,” Dean protested when John tried to settle him back under the covers.

“I know. Gotta sweat to get the fever to break.” He pulled himself onto his knees to tuck Dean in. Dean grabbed his arm.

“Daddy? Don’go.”

John froze. Sam still occasionally added the syllable when he was cranky or wheedling for something, but it had probably been five years since Dean had called him that. He must have felt worse than he was letting on—which, come to think of it, wasn’t all that unusual.

For either of them.

“M’not going anywhere, sport. Stayin’ right here.” He adjusted Sam’s pillow behind his back, crossed his ankles and got comfortable while Dean burrowed his head toward John’s thigh. John’s hand found a natural resting place on Dean’s shoulder.

~*~

The boys’ alarm clock went off at the usual time. John woke quickly and shut it off before it disturbed Dean’s sleep, then went next door to shake Sammy.

“S’Dean okay?”

John drew a deep breath. “Well, he’s not feeling too good.” He put the back of his hand against Sam’s forehead. “How about you, kiddo?”

“Does Dean get to stay home from school?” Sam asked, ignoring his father’s attempt to check his temperature.

“Yup.” John predicted the next question and answered it before Sam had a chance to form it. “And no, you don’t get to stay home just because Dean’s sick. C’mon, up, Sammy.”

John managed to get Sam up, dressed, breakfasted, and ready to go in only a little longer than the usual amount of time—longer because Sam kept insisting that Dean needed this or that little comfort, and because John kept insisting that Sam move quietly in the room where Dean was sleeping and not bother him. Once Sam had his books together, John brought him downstairs and they walked around the block to the car. Approximately four inches of snow accumulated overnight. After cleaning off his door, John started the Impala, swiped off the rear door, opened it, and let Sam sit inside its cocoon while he scraped off the rest of the windows. Even with the heater cranked, it was still cold in the car by the time he could see to drive.

The one thing about Michigan was that no one really thought much about closing school due to snowstorms. It was barely worth driving the five blocks, but John didn’t want Sam to walk alone. He dropped Sam off and swung over to the drug store for more supplies for Dean: juice, more chicken soup, Children’s Tylenol, cold medicine, and Vick’s. He picked up a travel-size thermometer, too, since the one he’d bought when Sam had been ill the previous year had broken in the med kit.

When he came back to the apartment, he checked on Dean, who was still out like a light. He put on a fresh pot of coffee. The numbers for both boys’ schools were tacked to the fridge. John pulled the information for South, took it into the living room where the phone sat, and called the school to report Dean’s absence. It was still too early to call the store, or anywhere else, for that matter, but he could organize his findings from yesterday and call around later. Dean being sick was inconvenient, but couldn’t be helped.

A noise in the room alerted him and he came in quickly. “You okay?” he asked, turning on the light. Dean was kicking his covers away.

“Gotta pee,” Dean muttered. His voice was small and squeaky. He rolled off the mattress onto the floor, on hands and knees. It seemed to be taking him a long time to stand up.

“Planning on crawling?” John asked. He wanted to pick Dean up, but knew better than to offer.

“Working…on it,” Dean told him. He used the wall and made it to his feet, then lurched past his father and across the hall to the bathroom. He came out a few minutes later. John brought him two Children’s Tylenol capsules and a glass of juice.

“Drink this slowly, but drink it all, okay?”

“Yessir.” In the light, John saw that Dean’s color was a little better, but his eyes were still fever-bright and his cheeks were flushed. Sitting up against the wall, Dean swallowed the pills and drank the juice as ordered. Then John made him lie back down. Within minutes, Dean was sleeping fitfully again.

John pulled a chair in from the living room and sat by Dean’s side, paging through his journal, working through his notes.

After about an hour, John figured he could move to the living room and make his calls. He started with the store. Next he called Jane Kimmel, the woman who had been injured the day before.

“Hello?”

“Jane Kimmel?” he asked. “This is John McIntyre—I was at the mall when you fell. I said I’d call to find out how you’re doing.”

“Oh. Yes, I remember. The doctor says it’s a clean break, but I’ll be laid up for a while. Thank you for calling.”

“I wondered if you could tell me exactly what happened?” John asked quickly before she could politely hang up. “Whatever you remember.”

“Is that necessary?”

“Actually, yes. You see, I’m looking into some problems with crowd control over at Santa’s Workshop, so anything you could tell me would help me figure out how to keep it from happening again.”

Jane was silent for a moment. “I’m not sure it was anything the Workshop people did. I was standing in line waiting for my son and I stepped away. I must have got my coat caught in the rope or something, because I felt a tug down by my knee. When I twisted my leg to get free, I lost my balance. I don’t know what happened next, but I felt something snap. The doctor says I sprained my knee going down. Then that heavy pole landed on my leg and I screamed. It really hurt.” She paused.

“I’m sure it did,” John offered, because she expected him to say something.

“The next thing I knew, all these people were standing over me. Including you. And you were asking for coats and ordering people to call the ambulance. Thank you again, by the way.”

John nodded, remembered she couldn’t see him on the phone, and muttered a noncommittal acknowledgment. “Do you recall seeing anything strange just before you tripped?”

“Like what?”

“Well…for example, anyone who didn’t look like they belonged? Or someone where they probably shouldn’t have been?”

“Everyone either had a costume or they were standing in line for Santa,” Jane told him. “But…as for people being where they shouldn’t, there was that one elf….”

“Yes?” John prompted. “What about him? Her?”

“Her. She was…she was walking along the lines, and then she crossed right into the display. I figured she was taking a short cut or something. Are they allowed to do that?”

John grunted. “Not usually. Where did she go?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I didn’t see her come out the other side. I must have just lost track of her in the tree branches.”

“She walked into the Christmas tree?”

“Well, not into it, I’m sure. But in that direction. It was kind of odd.”

“And she disappeared.”

“I didn’t say that. I just didn’t see her again.”

“What did she look like?”

“Oh, blonde, long straight hair. Maybe in her mid-twenties?”

John asked a few more careful questions to help identify his new prime suspect. “One last thing, Mrs. Kimmel: You said you were standing in line. Is that all you were doing?”

“That’s all.”

“Then why did you move away from the line?”

“Oh—I was just getting out my last cigarette. I was going to throw away the pack.”

“I see,” John said, though it confused him more than ever. This spirit, or whatever it was, seemed obsessed with trash. At least one of the victims so far had been something of a litterbug and trashcans had been one of its chosen weapons. But if Jane had been about to throw out her trash, why would the spirit be angry at her? It made no sense. “Well. I’ve taken up enough of your time. I hope your leg doesn’t ruin your Christmas.”

“You and me both, Mr. McIntyre. Happy holidays.”

He made a couple more calls, leaving messages but not reaching anyone. A little while later, he let himself into the boys’ room quietly. Dean was sleeping, but he had nestled into the blanket and was shaking with chills. John checked his watch; it was about time for another dose of cold medicine, anyway. He brought in the other blanket from his bed and draped it over his son. Then he poured a little water in a cup and fetched a couple capsules from the pill bottle.

“Hey, bud,” he said softly as he lowered himself to the floor by Dean’s mattress. “Got some more medicine for you.”

Dean snuffled and moaned as he sat up. John felt his forehead and frowned. “Let me take your temperature before you take these.” He got the thermometer. With an expert wrist flick, he shook the thermometer down below room temp and held it out to Dean’s mouth. Dean shot him a mutinous glare.

“M’fine—mmph!” John stuck the thermometer in when Dean spoke.

“Under your tongue, dude,” John instructed. “If your fever stays up high much longer, we’re gonna find a free clinic for something stronger than the Tylenol.”

Dean didn’t have to speak to communicate what he thought about that.

A few minutes later, John put an end to Dean’s enforced silence. He held the thermometer against his index finger and twisted it to find the readings. “Hundred and two, kiddo,” came his verdict, and with it the sentence: more Tylenol. “How’s your throat?”

“Kinda tight,” Dean admitted.

“How ’bout your tummy? I can put water on—think you can manage some tea and a little toast?”

Dean turned a little green around the edges of his face, but he sighed. “Maybe some toast would be good.”

“Tea?” John pressed.

Dean made a face.

“It’ll help your throat,” John reasoned. “I think there’s honey from the Chicken McNuggets last week.”

Dean shrugged and nodded solemnly. “Okay.”

John got back with the makeshift meal and sat with Dean while he worked on his toast and choked down the tea.

“Grownups drink this stuff?” he asked after managing about half the mug.

John laughed. “Lots of ’em.”

“Huh.”

“How’s that toast?”

“Dry.”

“Yup. Think it’s gonna stay down?”

Dean shrugged. “M’tired.”

“Okay.” John took away the remains of Dean’s food—most of the crusts and the half-mug of tea—and let Dean cocoon himself back in his blankets. By the time he came back from the kitchen, Dean had thrown aside the cover from John’s bed.

“Too hot,” he complained.

“That’s good, though,” John told him. “Means the medicine and the tea are working.” He folded the blanket so that it was within Dean’s reach. “In case you need it. I’m just in the living room, if you need me. Okay?”

He heard gagging ten minutes later, and came in time to rush Dean into the bathroom. Suppressing his own gag reflex at the smell of sick kid, he held Dean’s head, then gave him water to sip.

“No more tea,” Dean said weakly. He’d lost the Tylenol, too. John gave him half a dose, in case it didn’t stay put.

Once he settled Dean again and the poor kid was really asleep, John went back out to his phone calls. Using the company information Lyle Olohan had given him, John found someone who could supply him with a list of the employees at Santa’s Workshop. He’d have to drive out to get it; their offices were in a complex not far from the mall. But he could check the records that evening, and find out who Miss Elf might be—if she was even on the books, and not a phantom as he suspected.

If he left within the hour, he could pick up Sammy on the way home. He was worried about leaving Dean alone, though.

He checked on his son again. Dean was snoring louder than a bear in hibernation. John promised himself Dean would be fine, and he’d make his errand a quick one.


Continue to Chapter 5