Sleeping With The Ally
Disclaimer: See ch.1
Chapter 12: A Very Supernatural Christmas
Maria and Dean stood on the doorstep of a cookie cutter house while Sam looked around inside. "Thanks for letting me have a look around Mrs. Walsh. We uh, got just about everything we need. We're all set." Sam said and Dean assured her that they would be in touch before they all started walking away.
"Agents." The blond said getting their attention. "The police said my husband might've been kidnapped."
"He very well could have been." Maria spoke up.
"Then why haven't the kidnappers called?" the woman asked "Or demanded a ransom? It's three days until Christmas. What am I supposed to tell our daughter?" Maria hadn't even realized that Christmas was that close.
Maria's hand went to her chest to play with the locket her mother hand given her. "We're all so very sorry ma'am." She said before they left the woman behind.
"So, did you find anything?" Dean asked his brother.
"Stockings, mistletoe, this." Sam dropped something into Dean's hand.
"A tooth?" Maria asked.
"Where was this?" Dean asked.
"In the chimney." Sam replied answering Dean's question.
"A chimney, no way a man fits up a chimney…it's too narrow." Dean said still holding the tooth in his hand.
"Going up in several pieces would make more sense." Maria added.
"Okay, so if the dad went up the chimney-" Dean started.
"Then we need to find what dragged him up there." Sam finished and Maria just shook her head.
"So, my guess is serial killing chimney sweep." Dean said as they got into the impala.
"No way." Maria countered. "It's totally evil Santa." Dean looked at her like she was stupid. "What? The old man manages to fit a bag full of toys and not to mention his bowl full of jelly down a chimney, why not a body?" she asked and the boys just shook their heads at her.
Later that day Sam and Maria sat in the motel room doing research while Dean went out for groceries. She jumped when the door to their room swung open and Dean walked in with a large brown paper bag in his hands. "So was I right? Is it the serial killing chimney sweep?" he asked as he sat the bag down on the small square dining table.
"Yep, it's actually Dick Van Dyke." Sam said looking up from his computer.
"Who?" Dean asked looking confused.
"Mary Poppins."
"Who's that?" Dean asked.
"Oh, come on." Sam said unbelievably before he sighed. "Never mind.
"So it turns out that Walsh was the second guy grabbed out of his house this morning." Dean said as he walked further into the room.
"Oh yeah?" Maria asked looking up from her cell phone. "Did he get dragged up the chimney too?"
"Don't know. Witnesses said they heard a thump on the roof." Dean answered and as she looked back and forth between the two brothers she realized they were making the same face with the corners of their mouth pulled down to make an upside down u. "So what the hell do you think we're dealing with?"
"Evil Santa." Maria said and Dean started laughing. "I'm serious." Dean just looked at her like she was crazy. "Sam, fill him in." Maria made a motion for Sam to start talking.
"There's some version of the Anti-Claus in every culture." Sam picked up some papers and Dean walked over to see. "You've got Belsnickel, Krampus, Black Peter. Whatever you want to call it, there's all sorts of lore."
"Saying what?" Dean asked with a look at Maria.
"Saying, back in the day, Santa's brother went rogue." Sam explained and Dean moved his eyes from Maria, to the pictures then to Sam. "And now he shows up around Christmas time, but instead of bring presents, he punishes the wicked."
"By hauling their ass up chimneys?" Dean asked.
"For starters, yeah." Sam replied.
"So this is y'all's theory, huh? Santa's shady brother?" Dean asked with a look at Maria. "Did you put him up to this?" he asked Maria who smiled, but shook her head no.
"That's really what the lore says." Sam defended.
"Santa doesn't have a brother. There is no Santa." Dean said.
Maria shushed him. "Dean, there's a child in the room." She said motioning to Sam who rolled his eyes.
"No, trust me I know there's no Santa. Dean's the one who told me he never existed." Sam explained. "Remember?" he asked his brother. Dean just stayed quiet. "You know what I'm probably wrong." Sam slammed his laptop and sat back on the couch. "I gotta be wrong."
"Maybe, maybe not." Dean said looking like he had an idea.
"What?" both Sam and Maria asked as Maria grabbed the grocery bag off of the table and started pulling out things to make dinner.
"I did a little digging. Turns out both victims visited the same place before they got snatched." Dean said and Maria glanced at him over her shoulder before she grabbed a skillet out from under the cabinet and placed it on the stove. Sam asked where they had went. "Santa's village."
"Are you serious?" Sam asked and Dean just nodded his head.
"Huh." Maria turned from the kitchenette to look at both of them. "Well, we can go there in the morning, but tonight? You boys are going to get a home cooked meal." they just smiled at her as she turned back to the hamburger meat that was sizzling in the skillet.
Forty minutes later the meal was cooked and three bowls of it sat on the table. "What is this?" Dean asked as he sat down and looked into the bowl with a disgusted looking face.
"Goulash and cornbread." She answered as if it should have been obvious.
"It…looks like it's still alive." Sam said as he poked at it with his fork.
"Yeah, I thought someone with as good a taste in food as you would know how to cook." Dean said not looking at the food, but at her with raised brows. "What's in it?" he asked.
"You know what's in it. You bought the ingredients." She said shocked that neither of them would even tasted it.
"Humor me." Sam asked, the disgusted look still on his face.
"Shells and cheese, rotel tomatoes, hamburger meat and ranch style beans." She said, ticking each of the ingredients off on her fingers. "Would you just shut up and try it?" she asked getting aggravated with them.
Dean being the brave one picked up his fork, scooped up a little bit and put it in his mouth. His face changed to an approving one and Maria smiled. "It's safe, Sam." He said looking at his brother who just raised his brows at him. "Actually, it's pretty damn good." He said looking back at Maria. "Where did you learn to cook this?" he asked.
Her face fell for a second before she looked back up at him with a small smirk. "My mom, it was her best dish and because it was so cheep to make, my brother and I got to eat it all the time." She explained as she watched Sam take a bite then anther and another.
They ended up eating the whole pot and all but one piece of the cornbread. "You're welcome to make that again anytime you want." Sam said as he plopped down on his bed and place a hand on his stomach. She just looked at him and shook her head.
"Get up." Dean said to his brother as he walked over to lay on the other bed.
"What? Why?" Sam asked as he sat up to give Dean a confused look.
"Mia made us supper." He said as if that was the obvious answer. "She slept on the cot last time and I slept on it the time before that. So the cot's yours." Dean explained before glancing up at Mia.
Sam made a face that reminded her of a kicked puppy. "Dean, it's not a big deal. Sam can have the bed if he wants it." She said moving to make up the cot.
But Sam got up and took the sheets out of her hands. "Dean's right. You can have the bed." He said as he jerked his head at the bed he had just gotten out of.
"Thanks guys." She sighed as she flopped back onto the bed from the foot of it.
Santa's village was old and run down, but busy none the less. Loud cheery Christmas music played all around the place as children skipped from shop to shop alongside their parents. Sam looked off put, but Maria smiled as she looked around at the children and elves that ran around the village. "It does kind of lend credence to the theory don't it?" Dean asked as they walked through the gates.
"Yeah, but Anti-Claus? It couldn't be." Sam scoffed.
"It's a Christmas Miracle." Dean said with his hands in his pockets like his brother, but Maria booped a metal reindeer on the nose as they walked past. "Speaking of, we should have one this year." Dean said with a glance at his brother.
"Have one what?" Sam asked unenthused, while Maria smiled at Dean. She had been hoping that the brothers were into Christmas. Her family had been. It was the reason that a Christmas tree was kept in her trunk at all times.
"A Christmas." Dean clarified.
"Ha." Sam laughed. "No thanks." Maria was disappointed at his answer.
"No, we'll get a tree…" Dean started.
"I already have a tree." She peeked around Dean at Sam.
"You do?" Sam asked with a unbelieving face.
"I do. It was my mothers." She explained and Dean smiled at her before looking back at his brother.
"See, the tree's already covered. Now all we need is a little Boston Market and it'll be just like when we were little."
Sam, still uninterested, just looked at his brother. "Dean, those weren't exactly hallmark memories for me. You know."
"What are you talkin about. We had some great Christmases." Dean argued. Here we go. More arguing. Maria thought to herself, but kept her mouth shut.
"Who's childhood are you talkin about?" Sam asked.
"Aw come on Sam." Dean started, but Sam interrupted him.
"No, just…no." Sam gave his final opinion on the subject.
"Alright Grinch." Dean scoffed before he walked away.
Maria just gave Sam a sad look before walking away to catch up with Dean. "Hey." She caught up to him and he returned her greeting. "So what were you're Christmas's like growing up?" she asked and he just glanced at her.
"Sam was right back there. Our Christmas's weren't hallmark card moments." He sighed and thumped a giant, illuminated, plastic Santa's hat. "Dad was rarely there for any of them. We never had presents and our dinner was always mac and cheese, if we even had that." He scratched the back of his head and turned to her with another sigh and a stressed look. "What were your's like?" She looked down at the ground and kicked the dust. How could she tell him that the Christmas's she had with her family were some of her happiest memories. "That bad huh?"
She simply shrugged and left it at that as they made their way around the village taking in every least elf and stocking. They eventually found their way back to Sam. "You'd think for the ten bucks it costs to get in this place, Santa could scrounge up a little snow." Dean complained and Maria just shook her head.
"What?" Sam asked looking like he had just come out of a daze of some sort.
"Nothing. What are we lookin' for again?" Dean asked Sam, but Maria answered.
"If I remember correctly lore had it that evil Santa walks with a limp, and smells like candy or other sweet stuff." She said as they all started walking.
"Great, we're looking for pimp Santa." Dean said. "Why the sweets?"
"Think about it. If you smell like candy, the kids will come closer, you know?"
"Yeah…That's not creepy at all." She drawled sarcastically.
"Yeah." Dean agreed. "How's this thing know who's been naughty and who's been nice?" Dean asked.
Sam and Maria both said that they didn't know. They all watched as the man dressed as Santa who was sitting on a big red thrown pulled a little boy into his lap. "Yeah, if I ever have a kid, there's no way he's going to go to an outlet mall Santa. Especially not one who looks like that." Maria pointed out.
"Dean looked at her across his shoulder. "I didn't know you were a kids person." He looked genuinely surprised.
"Maybe some day, you know, if I ever get out of the hunting life and settle down." She said with a shrug as she turned her eyes back to the fake Santa.
"Welcome to Santa's court." A woman dressed as an elf walked over to them with a smile. "May I escort your child to Santa?"
"No, no, but actually, my brother here, it's been a lifelong dream of his." Maria laughed as Dean patted Sam on the back.
"Sorry. No kids over 12." The woman said with a disgusted face making Dean smirk even more.
"No, he's just kidding. We only came here to watch." Sam said making things even more creepy than they already were. The woman looked at both of the men looking grossed out before she walked away. "I didn't mean that we came here to w- y-" Sam stopped talking and turned to his brother. "Thanks a lot Dean. Thanks for that."
Dean and Maria both laughed. "Hey, check it out." Dean said as he nodded to Santa who had stood up and left his thrown. He was groaning and walking with a limp. "Are you seeing this?" Dean asked unbelievingly.
"A lot of people walk with limps right?" Sam asked.
"Tell me you didn't smell that. That was candy." Dean argued.
"That was ripple. I think. Had to be." Sam said before all three of them turned to watch Santa walk away.
"Maybe. But are we willing to take that chance?" Dean asked with a look at his brother before he turned to Maria, who shook her head no.
&&later that night&&
"What time is it?" Dean asked with a yawn.
"Same as last time you asked." Sam replied and Maria handed him the thermos of coffee. "Here, caffeinate." He handed Dean the container.
He unscrewed the lid and tried to poor some only to find that it was empty. "Wonderful." He sighed as he sat the container aside. "Hey Sam." Dean said getting his brothers attention. "Why are you the boy that hates Christmas?"
"Dean." Sam whined and Maria shifted uncomfortably in the back seat.
"I mean, I admit it. We had a few bumpy holidays when we were kids."
"Bumpy?" Sam asked but Dean kept on talking.
"But that was then. We'll do it right this year." He encouraged.
"Look, Dean, if you and Maria want to have Christmas knock yourselves out. Just don't involve me."
"Oh yeah. That would be great. Me and Mia making cranberry molds." Dean said and Maria scoffed in the backseat. "No offense Mia, but Christmas isn't Christmas without my brother." Dean said having heard her response.
"Trust me, I understand." She assured him and he looked over the seat at her with an apologetic look on his face. "Hey, look." She pointed out the first bit of movement from inside evil Santa's house. The old man looked around outside before he closed the curtains.
"What's up with Saint Nicotine?" Dean asked right before they heard the sound of a woman's scream.
All three of them grabbed their guns and jumped out of the car to run up to the door of the run down trailer house. "Huh." Sam whispered as if remembering something, as they stopped at the door.
"What?" Dean and Maria asked at the same time.
"It's just that uh… Well you know, Mr. and Mrs. gung-ho Christmas might have to blow away Santa." Sam said making both Maria and Dean roll their eyes.
Dean opened the door letting himself and his partners inside startling Santa. The man stood up with a bong in his hands and the three hunters hid their weapons behind their back. "What the hell are you doin' here huh?" Santa asked.
"I uh..we…" the boys stumbled around for words or explanation. "Silent night." Dean started to sing uncomfortably and out of tune as he nudged Maria.
"Holy night." Her sweet, feminine voice covered up the boys bad singing as Sam joined in. "All is calm…all is bright." Maria noticed that Sam and Dean were stumbling around with the lyrics a bit, but she turned her attention to the man who sat down in his nasty looking chair with a dopey looking smile on his face. "Round yon virgin mother and child." Sam grabbed Dean's arm and started pulling him out of the house. So Dean grabbed Maria and pulled her out as they all kept singing. "Holy infant so tender and mild. Sleep in heavenly piece, sleep in heavenly piece." Maria stopped singing when the door was shut completely.
None of them took a breath until they were back inside the car and on their way to the motel. "How do you two not know the words to silent night?" She asked not understanding how it was possible to not know the lyrics to such an old song. She didn't get an answer from either of them.
The next morning Sam woke up and checked the paper to find that another man had gone missing. "You're not coming with us?" Sam asked when he saw Maria walk out of the bathroom in a pair if ripped jeans and a gray long sleeved knit sweater.
"No, you guys can handle it." She said nonchalantly making them both wonder what was going on. "Can I talk to you alone?" she asked Sam, but didn't wait for him to answer before she grabbed him by the sleeve of his suit and pulled him outside.
"What's going on with you?" Sam asked as he stumbled to a stop on the sidewalk outside.
"Okay, you obviously hate Christmas, I get that, but Dean really wants to have one. And it's his last one, Sam. So if you don't want to have Christmas with us, that's fine, but I fully intend to surprise him with decorations and gifts and even a turkey if I can get my hands on one this late in the season." Maria said breathing hard from her rant.
Sam looked at her like she was crazy. "So I assume you're going shopping instead of doing your job?" he asked with raised brows and a look that suggested that she was being stupid.
"My mother was a firm believer in setting the job aside to spend a little bit of quality time alone with your family." Sam rolled his eyes and started nodding. "You and Dean are the closest thing I have to family now. So I'm going to throw a Christmas rather you like it or not. Dean deserves it. Hell you deserve it too. To have one last, good holiday with your bother."
"No I don't." Maria took a step back at Sam's angry tone. "I don't want to have to fake a happy Christmas when he isn't going to be here for the next one. I can't sit around pretending everything's going to be okay while sipping eggnog and singing Christmas carols." Maria could look at him and tell that he was trying hard to be strong and not cry.
So she did the only thing she could think of and wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her face on his chest. He lightly hugged her back before she pulled away and look him in the face. "Okay, I won't do Christmas, but…" Sam rolled his eyes with a sigh and motioned for her to keep talking. "Can I at least get you guys a present? You don't have to get me anything in return. You can just consider it a thank you for putting up with my annoying ass." She pleaded and Sam nodded. She smiled and gave him a quick hug. "Thank you." She said with a smile at him as she got in her car and drove off.
When she was done shopping she pulled Sam and Dean's gifts out of her back seat along with a roll of wrapping paper, scotch tape and gift boxes. Once the gifts were boxed and wrapped she placed them neatly in her trunk, except for Deans, then stashed away the decorations she had bought just incase Sam changed his mind.
"Hey guys I…" she trailed off when she stepped into the room and saw that both Sam and Dean were fast asleep. So she sighed and placed the precooked turkey she had found in the grocery store bakery and Deans present that was hidden in a paper bag in the icebox then left the canned goods on the kitchen counter. As she laid down that night she looked over at Dean where he was quietly snoring with his mouth slightly agape, she hoped she could give him everything he wanted for his last Christmas, including Sam joining them for it. She fell asleep with Dean and Sam on her mind.
The next morning the guys filled her in on the meadowsweet wreaths that had been at each of the crime scenes and the woman that was said to have made them. Cheery music played as they walked up to the two story white house with Christmas decorations littering the front lawn. "So this is where Mrs. Wreath lives, huh?" Dean asked as the three of them walked up to the door. The sign above the door read, "The Carrigan's". "Boy, can't you just feel the evil, pagan vibe?" he asked sarcastically. Sam just rolled his eyes and knocked on the door.
"Yes?" an older woman wearing a white Christmas sweater opened the door.
"Please tell me you're the Madge Carrigan who makes the meadowsweet wreathes." Dean said.
"Why, yes I am." Maria already didn't like this woman and her cheery overrated Christmas sweaters and over the top all around cheeriness. Being happy was one thing, but there was such a thing as too happy.
"Yeah?" Sam asked. "We were just admiring your wreaths at Mr. Silar's place the other day."
"You were?" the woman asked looking pleasantly shocked. "Isn't that meadowsweet just the finest smelling thing you ever smelled?" she asked making Maria inwardly cringe at the woman's vocabulary.
"By golly it is." Maria piped up making fun of the woman with and overly cheery tone to her voice and Dean turned to look at her as if she was crazy.
"You see the problem is that all your wreaths have sold out before we got the change to buy one." Sam cut Maria off.
"Oh, fudge." Madge said as if she were shocked.
"You wouldn't happen to have another one that we could by from you would you?" Dean asked.
"Oh, no. I'm afraid those were to only ones I have for this season." She apologized.
"Tell me something, why did you decide to make them out of meadowsweet?" Dean asked.
"Why, the smell of coarse." Madge's way of talking was making Maria feel like punching her. "I don't think I've ever smelled anything finer."
"What's going on honey?" a man joined Madge at the door.
"Well, just some nice kids asking about my wreaths, Dear."
"Oh, the wreaths are fine. Fine wreaths." These people were like a couple from a sixties movie. "Oh. Care for some peanut brittle?" the man asked as he held out a tin.
Dean reached for a piece, but Sam swatted his hand away. "We're okay." Sam said before they said their goodbyes and walked away.
"Something is wrong with those two. No one is really that happy and…pod like." Maria said with a wrinkled faced look at the house.
"But I thought you were Mrs. Pro Christmas." Sam said with a smirk at her from the back seat.
"I am. I believe in Christmas spirit, but that's a bit much. Did you see the inside of their house. They must have a whole storage building to hold all of that junk." Dean agreed with her while Sam just laughed.
"Ha. You were right." Sam said from where he sat at his computer in the motel room. "Something was way off with those two."
"Really, what did you find?" Maria asked as she dropped the piece of evergreen that she had been sharpening into a stake.
"They lived in Seattle last year where two abductions took place right around Christmas. They moved here in January. All that Christmas crap in their house. That wasn't boughs of holly, it was vervain and mint."
"Pagan stuff?" Dean asked with a crinkled brow.
"Serious pagan stuff." Sam confirmed.
"So what? Ozzie and Harriett are keeping a pagan god hidden underneath their plastic covered couch?" Dean asked.
"I don't know. All I know is, we gotta check them out." Sam said with a look up at Maria where she stood looking over his shoulder at the computer screen.
"And Bobby is sure that these evergreen stakes are going to kill this stupid god?" Maria asked as she moved back to pick up the stake she had been working on.
"Yep, he's sure." Dean said as he stared at the sharp end on his stake before he tossed it with the others.
The Carrigans lawn was lit up with bright, twinkling Christmas lights and music still played as they made their way to the front door and let themselves inside. Sam handed them each a stake once the door was shut behind them. "See, plastic." Dean said as they made their way into the couples living room. They each roamed around the house taking in the humdrum of Christmas decorations.
"Hey guys." Sam said from the kitchen, getting their attention. When they met up with him, they saw that he had found the door to the basement. When they got downstairs the first thing their eyes landed on was a stainless steel bowl of bones and flesh. Maria shined her flashlight around taking in the blood that covered the hand rail of the stairs and the floor where bones were scattered about. She walked with Dean to the back of the room where they found a bag on the floor that was soaked in blood.
It felt like she and Dean jumped ten feet into the air when they heard muffled screams coming from the other side of the room where Sam was at. They both turned to see that Madge was holding Sam in the air by his neck. "Sam!" they both yelled as they tried to get to him, but the male god grabbed Dean and slammed him into a wall, knocking him out.
Maria raised her stake to stab the man, but with one swing of his arm she was sent flying into the wall. She fell to the ground hard, knocking the breath out of her and the man picked her up by her neck. He stared at her as she gasped for breath and clawed at his hand with both of hers. With a calm look on his face, he slammed her head into the wall until she too, was out. Sam was the last to go when Madge knocked him out.
Maria awoke to the smell of baked goods and holiday scented candles. "Dean, you okay?" She heard Sam ask and she looked around noticing that they were all tied to chairs. Sam and Dean were back to back and her chair was situated between them so that her back was to their shoulders.
"Yeah, I think so. Mia, you okay?" Dean asked and she hummed a positive answer.
"So I guess we're dealing with Mr. and Mrs. God." Sam observed with a voice that lacked enthusiasm. "Nice to know."
A/N: Just a reminder that reviews are highly welcomed. Constructive criticism is welcomed.
