Fic Post: Trost Und Freude (9/17)

[gwendolyngrace]

Title: Trost und Freude (Comfort and Joy) (Chapter 9/17)
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 3,440
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: Trucking along now, I know! Two posts in one week. Possibly a third if I get my act together this weekend. Thanks to everyone who keeps reviewing - it lets me know you're there! And as always, thanks to etakyma, without whom, etc.

From the Top

Then




Now:

Dad drove them to school Friday morning, like he told Sammy he would. He dropped Sam off first, then drove the half-mile extra to Dean’s school. Dean kept insisting he could have walked, but privately he was happy to ride in the comfort and relative warmth of the Impala.

“No gym today, and no going outside for recess. Got your note?” John asked as they pulled up.

“Yup.” Dean slid to the side and opened his door.

“Hey, Dean!” someone yelled across the lot. Dean looked over toward the source and saw Mike hurtling toward him. Mike pulled up short of tackling him. He turned around. “Mom! C’mere! I want you to meet Dean.”

Behind Mike was a woman who looked a lot younger than Dad. She had blonde hair cut short under a little fleece headband. She wore a baby pink ski jacket and bleached jeans tucked into puffy white boots. “Okay, Mike, I’m coming.” She walked over to the car, where Dad had seen her and was getting out.

“Hi, I’m Monica Stakowski.” She offered a hand encased in a lambswool glove, the kind that was suede on the outside with stripes of the wool showing at the seams.

“John Winchester.” Dad shook her hand gently and put his hand back in his pocket.

Mike jostled Dean with his elbow. “Sorry you’ve been sick.”

“Yeah.”

Mike bounced over to interrupt their parents. “Hey, Mom, I bet Dean hasn’t got anything yet, either. D’you think maybe he could come with us? Huh?”

His mother looked at him with an expression Dean thought meant, Manners. She smiled weakly at Dad. “Sorry. Mike’s a little excitable.”

“So I see.”

“And he hasn’t learned about saying, ‘Excuse me,’ either,” she continued, hands on Mike’s shoulders.

Mike blushed. “Sorry.”

Dad did not offer forgiveness. “I take it you’d like Dean to go on some sort of expedition?”

“Secret Santas,” Mike said by way of explanation.

Dad’s eyes slid to Dean’s face, requesting clarification. “Dean?”

“We drew names Tuesday, sir. The same day I got sick.”

“I see.” He held Dean’s gaze as if he expected more.

“We’re s’posed to exchange presents on the last day of school.”

“An’ there’s a ten dollar limit, an’ I thought maybe you’d let Dean come with me so we can get our gifts,” Mike finished, stepping further into Dad’s personal space.

Dean held his breath. Dad wasn’t used to other kids getting so close, or acting so…exuberant. Mike’s behavior was more like Sammy’s, and Dean knew from experience that Dad didn’t always respond well to a full blast of Sam’s enthusiasm—especially before a second cup of coffee.

But Dad must have been taking lessons or something, because he smiled. “Well, that’s a nice offer, Mike, but I’m not sure Dean’s feeling up to going….”

“I was planning to take Mike to the mall tomorrow,” Mrs. Stakowski said. “I’d be happy to bring Dean along. We shouldn’t be more than a couple hours.”

John shook his head. “Tomorrow…I’m sorry, Dean. I have to work.”

“Well, that’s perfect then,” Mike said while his mother continued to converse with Dad. “Isn’t it?”

Dean shook his head in an echo of his father’s motion. “No, Dad means I gotta stay home and watch Sammy.”

“Oh.” Mike tugged on his mother’s sleeve.

“Mike, honestly—” she began, but he pulled her down and whispered in her ear. “Oh.” She cocked her head at Dad. “I’d be happy to bring Dean’s brother along, too, if that’s okay.”

Dean could sense Dad’s reluctance in the way he put his hands on his hips and looked away. Dad watched a couple of cars pull in. Students jumped out and waved to their parents as the cars turned and drove away.

Mrs. Stakowski must have seen the danger, too, because she jumped in again. “Tell you what. I’ll be back to pick up Mike this afternoon—you can think about it and let me know tonight. If Dean’s not feeling well tomorrow, call us and we’ll reschedule.”

Dean noticed the subtle manipulation, the word “reschedule” like it was a done deal, just maybe put off by a little while. Mike beamed at Dean as if to congratulate them both on his mother’s brilliant ploy.

It wasn’t lost on Dad, either. He shook his head indulgently and then jerked it toward Dean to beckon him over. Dean left Mike’s side and stepped into the reach of Dad’s hand, which landed on his shoulder. Dad turned him a little and walked him away by a step to shield their conversation.

“Son, you want to go?” It was part verification, part surprise.

Dean shrugged. “Mike’s okay. And it’s not likely me and Sam will get much of a chance to go mallratting otherwise. I mean—” Dean looked up quickly, eyes wide—“Sorry, Dad, I didn’t mean—”

“Okay.” Dean cut himself off when his father inhaled, barely saw his lips move, barely heard the soft rumble. It was more like he felt his father speak through the palm of his hand, vibrating directly into his shoulder.

“Okay…you’re not offended, or okay, I can go?”

Dad tried not to smile. “Both.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Dad nodded, in one of those moments that Dean recognized meant he was convincing himself as much as reassuring Dean. “Yeah. It’ll be okay.” He turned back to Mrs. Stakowski. “It’s okay. We can work out the details this afternoon and confirm in the morning.”

“Great!” she said.

Mike was more demonstrative. He pumped his fist into the air. “All right!” he shouted, jumping over to Dean. He punched lightly at Dean’s arm. Dean brought his arm up to block, caught Mike’s wrist, and turned him around. Halfway through the motion he turned it into an awkward sort of hug combined with a pat on the back. He grinned at Mike. “Too slow,” he taunted, to make it seem like he’d planned the whole maneuver.

Mrs. Stakowski had said goodbye to Dad and now came over to Mike, so Dean looked up at his father and ducked his head respectfully. Dad nodded back. “Be good,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll see you later.” Dad touched his shoulder again and, with a nod to the Stakowskis, got back in the car. A moment later the engine snarled and Dad was pulling away.

“Have a good day, sweetie,” Mrs. Stakowski was saying to Mike. She tried to hug him.

“Mom!” Mike dodged her attempt. “Jeez, ’m too old for that stuff.” He looked at Dean pointedly.

“Oh, sorry, honey. Mustn’t embarrass you in front of Mr. Military, got it.” Mrs. Stakowski winked broadly. “S’matter, darling? Afraid Dean won’t want to come if he finds out—”

“Mom!”

“—You still sleep with a—”

“Mom!”

“—Teddy bear!” She giggled and smooshed his hat into his head. “Relax, honey, I’m your mother. It’s my job to give you psychological scars.”

“Ha-ha,” Mike said. He rolled his eyes at Dean. “We gotta go, Mom, or we’ll be late.”

“Okay. Bye, sweetie. Love you!”

Mike mumbled and waved, pushing Dean inside with him. “Sorry about that,” he said as they started shedding layers. “Mothers, y’know?”

“Uh…yeah,” Dean said uncomfortably.

“How old is your brother?”

“Seven and a half.”

“Half of what?” Mike grinned.

“Half girl, and all pain in my ass.”

They were still laughing when they got to Mrs. Fontana’s homeroom.

~*~

John took Ellen’s advice to heart and spent his day searching the county records to learn about the victims, starting with the most recent. Back in the apartment, he went through the news articles again, what few there were, for the names and found them in the phone book, called, tried to get answers about what had happened. Many were at work, but he left messages on answering machines with a dozen different aliases, claiming to be a reporter, a lawyer, an investigator—whatever came to his mind first.

About two p.m., between calls, his phone rang.

“Mr. McIntyre?” a man said after he answered.

“Yes,” John said.

“This is Del Masters. You called me a little while ago.”

“Yes,” John said more excitedly. He lunged for his notes. “Mr. Masters…I wanted to talk to you if you’d be willing, about the injuries you sustained on…on the night of December 9th?”

“You a cop?”

“I’m investigating the series of accidents, Mr. Masters. My…client thinks there may be a link between all the problems the mall has had this year.”

“Client? Like…lawsuit kind of client?”

John rolled his eyes. “Let’s not jump to conclusions just yet, Mr. Masters.”

“Just sayin’, if there’s a suit, I’ll have to talk to my lawyer. I’m already looking into a personal injury case.”

John gritted his teeth. The last thing he needed was this guy clamming up because he thought he could make a better buck somehow. He tried to play into the guy’s assumptions without confirming them, either. “As I said, we’re not sure there is any…action that can be taken along those lines,” John said. Once he got started, he found a rhythm. “Any information you provide would of course be subject to…to consideration along with my client’s potential claim. As you probably already know, conflict-of-interest only applies to criminal cases.” When he threw in the jargon, he was inordinately glad that Masters couldn’t see his face on the phone. Anyone looking at him at that moment would have recognized the universal expression of a man talking completely out of his ass.

“That a fact?” Masters sounded interested.

“Absolutely,” John assured him.

“Well,” Masters said, much friendlier. “What is it you wanted to know?”

John carried the phone to the kitchen bar, where he could write more easily. “Could you describe what happened—and please, pay particular attention to what you saw and experienced just before the incident—what were you doing?”

“Well, it was late. We’d just packed off the last of the brats for the night—you have any idea how many parents will keep their kids out past bedtime to see Santa? And how many of them give ’em sugar to keep ’em awake?”

“Yeah, I have a pretty good picture,” John said matter-of-factly. “But please, go on.”

“Right. Uh…well, anyway, I’d changed, but I left my lunch tote in the kitchen. So I went next door to the security office. Wade—he’s one of the night guards—told me to go on over and he’d radio Jerry to meet me there in a few minutes to let me in. I came out, sat on the throne to wait for Jerry to get there and open up. Tree was all lit up pretty. Without them ankle-biters underfoot, place ain’t that bad. I figured I’d smoke a quick one while I was waiting, y’know?”

“Cigarette?” John confirmed.

“…Yeah,” Masters said, in a way that suggested he’d have loved something stronger. “So. I got one out of my pack and pulled out my lighter. I must have been tired, because I dropped the lighter. Kinda flew out of my hands over near the tree. I went to get it…and—” He cut himself off with a sigh.

“What?”

“You swear you’re not a cop?”

“Yes.”

“But…what I tell you, I might wind up having to testify in court?”

“Only if it helps the case,” John told him. This lie was familiar and easy to tell. The hesitation pointed to the kind of thing he needed to hear. “But let us decide what’s pertinent, okay? Just tell me what happened next, and don’t worry about whether it leads to anything further or not.”

“If you say so…but I warn you, it’ll sound crazy.”

“That’s all right. What happened next?”

“I saw…well, I thought I saw…this…woman.”

“Yes?” John leaned forward over the bar and his notes.

“She was…she appeared on the other side of the tree—I saw her through the branches, y’know?”

“Can you describe her?”

“Yeah…she was blonde, had this long, straight blonde hair. Young, I thought, thin and real beautiful.”

“Did you recognize her? She wasn’t a coworker?”

“No…I’d never seen her before. I think. Wait—there was another time I thought I saw her.”

“When was that?”

“Couple days earlier, there was this mother. So concerned for her precious baby to see Santa, right, she couldn’t be bothered to stay and watch the experience. Went to get a coffee or something while her little cherub was getting her picture taken. When she was done, we couldn’t find the mom. Stacy stood with the kid, about ready to call Mall Security and have ‘Rebecca’s mother’ paged. Then she showed up by the photography stands waving like a maniac. All of a sudden, I thought I saw a blonde standing next to Stacy, near the tree again.”

“Same girl?”

“It was only for a second, but…yeah, same one.”

“Did…uh, did Stacy see this person?”

“Dunno. You’d have to ask her. Have you met her?”

“Stacy? No.” He’d looked at her file, though, after Kate had mentioned her yesterday. She was 20 years old, a Junior in Chemistry at UM. She was one of several girls he’d been able to eliminate off the bat, since she’d helpfully checked off “African-American” on her employment forms.

“She’s great. Never seen her lose her cool with a single one of those hellions.”

“Mr. Masters, did anything strange happen that day? The first day you saw the blonde?”

“Hell, yeah, something else happened. Trash can fell over and rolled into the rope line, sent kids and moms scattering.”

“Hang on just one second, will you, please? Let me get that down.” John made a hasty scribble on his pages. “Okay, go on?”

“Well, that day, that was about it. A little havoc, people arguing about what order they’d been in. Took probably half an hour to straighten out—and from what I gathered, there were still squabbles about an hour later.”

“Any injuries on that day?”

“Not’s I know of. Just phantom trash cans rolling down the lane.”

“Okay. Thanks. Now, did you see this woman throughout any of that time—that half hour while people were getting reorganized? Was she still there?”

“Oh, I dunno. No, I don’t think so. I just noticed her standing by Stacy. Next time I looked up, she was gone.”

“Got it. So…back to the night of your injury. You said you were retrieving your lighter, and she appeared on the other side of the tree.”

“She was right there. Weirdest damn thing. I mean, there shouldn’t have been anyone there, except Jerry and Wade. It was late, you know?”

“Right. Was there anything…unusual about this girl, apart from her being where she shouldn’t have been?”

“Hell yeah—that’s my point. That’s why I know the cops wouldn’t believe me if I’d told them.”

“What’s that?”

“She was dressed funny, for one thing. She had on this skirt…I dunno, looked kinda like the St. Pauli girl. Only without the beer, more’s the pity. Or the rack.”

“Anything else?” John pressed.

“Yeah. She…she looked at me and she kinda chopped her hand…into the tree branch. And…I swear, McIntyre, I’m not a drinking man—and I’d been working all day. Maybe I was tired, my eyes playing tricks or something, but….”

“What did you see?”

“She touched the branch and…her hand went right into it. Through it. And then the tree sort of…shook. And half the ornaments went flying right at me. Mr. McIntyre, I was in ’Nam. I ducked down at the sight of all that shrapnel, but I was close to it. It still came at me fast enough to scrape my face up pretty good. I thought some of it got my eye for sure.”

“What happened next? Did the guard, Jerry—did he find you?”

“Yeah, about five minutes later. No sign of the girl. Half the tree was bare, glass everywhere.”

“Had the other guy…Wade, seen it on the monitors?”

“Naw. Jerry just said Wade had radioed him when he was on the other side of the mall. Bastard took his time letting me in to the kitchen. Had no idea I’d been attacked until he arrived. As for Wade…I dunno—probably went to the bathroom or something.”

“Mr. Masters, did anyone view the camera footage?”

“Lyle said he looked at it. I didn’t tell him about the girl—I was sure I’d been seeing things. I figured if she was on the tape, he’d have said something to someone.”

“Right. But you’d seen her at the other incident?”

“I’m sure I did. It was only for a second, though. She was there…then gone.”

“I see.”

“Is that important? Is she some kind of…eco-terrorist?”

“No, nothing like that,” John said with authority. “Mr. Masters…did she ever appear to…uh, to flicker? As if she’d been filmed and projected, and the film skipped?”

“You crazy? No. I tell you, if I really did see her, she was just there. Then not. And she made that glass fly at me.”

“Okay. Well, that’s all the questions I had for you. Thank you for your time.”

“I knew it. You think I’m nuts.”

“No, I don’t, Mr. Masters. It’s just that we’ll have to do a little more digging to find this…person.”

“So, if there’s really a case? Any chance I could see some compensation?”

“We’ll be in touch. Thanks.” He wrapped it up before Masters could push for more details about his potential financial gain.

He glanced at his watch. He still had time before picking up the boys. It seemed more and more likely he was dealing with a trickster of some kind and not a ghost after all. The obsession or connection to the huge plastic tree still didn’t make a whole lot of sense but the pranks and not understanding the line between harmless and deadly was classic trickster MO. As for choice of victims, Masters had mentioned eco-terrorism, and that triggered a thought.

Moving to a more comfortable seat on the couch, he went back through his notes about the other attacks and accidents. Sure enough, each one did have something in common. Each victim had been smoking, or about to smoke, when the creature struck. It seemed like it had to be significant—it was the only link he could find so far.

So maybe something local had a bee in its bonnet about pollution, or tobacco. He supposed it could be the spirit of someone who’d died from lung cancer, but the lack of flicker, the lack of EMF, and the fact that the apparition seemed to look alive argued strongly against spirit.

Perhaps Ellen hadn’t been completely off-base about something pagan. He wasn’t sure about all the pre-Christian lore, but he was off Sunday and could check out midwinter traditions. He’d look at Native American traditions from the region, too.

He looked at the time again and swore. He’d gotten absorbed in his notes, distracted by his minor breakthrough, and was now late.

He grabbed his coat and keys, rushing out the door. When he clattered down the central flight of steps, down the three floors to the glass front door, he saw Dean and Sam heading toward him. He opened up for them.

“What the…?”

“Mrs. Stakowski gave us a ride,” Dean said. He turned and pointed behind him. Monica Stakowski was climbing out of a green ’85 Chrysler LeBaron. John went out to meet her.

“Dean was still waiting when I came for Mike, and I was running a little late. So we picked up Sam on the way,” she explained as she walked to the curb.

“Thanks…I lost track of the time,” John said. “So…tomorrow.”

“Yeah. About 11:00?”

“I’ll be at work, but if you buzz the intercom, the boys can come down to you.” He pulled out his “reporter” notebook and jotted down the number for her, then took hers.

“If a woman answers with a heavy accent, that’s my mother,” Monica told him, swiping a lock of hair out of her eyes.

“Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions?”

She smiled. “Sure. How about a cup of coffee?”

John hesitated. He hadn’t really cleaned up any of his investigation—in fact, he’d have to sweep the living room before Sam could had a chance to look at the articles too closely. Plus, Monica had a look in her eye that made John nervous to accept anything that she might construe as interest, though the apartment’s “subsistence living” décor would probably have put the kibosh on that easily enough. “This won’t take long; it’s cold. I just want to know: do you smoke?”

Continue to Chapter Ten