Lakeside
Written for August Fic Challenge 2023, Prompt: Omniscient. Uses some dialogue from the TV show and some details from the book and ignores things from both. Comments and kudos would be awesome. Enjoy!
Chapter 1: Welcome to Lakeside
Lakeside is not like other towns.
Lakeside is alive.
Lakeside sees all, knows all, controls all that happens within the confines of its borders. It manipulates the town as it sees fit, until everything is just right, just the way it should be. A million threads all woven together into the perfect tapestry. Everyone is friendly, thriving, content with their lives in a way that is not so easy to come by outside of the cozy little world it's created. And it does what it can to see that it stays that way. It makes sure the quaint small businesses stay in the black where other towns have fallen to big box stores, it staves off the worst of the bad weather (though it is unrepentant about its love for the cold), it keeps crime low enough that Lakeside's sole law enforcement officer is frequently very, very bored. It gives the schoolchildren one last snow day before the weather finally turns warm. It gives the desperate couple on Main Street the child they've been hoping for. It gives the stray cat that wanders into a town a home.
Rarely do people come and go in Lakeside, although Lakeside is not heartless and will not keep people against their will. It sends antsy teenagers off to college (some of whom even happily return a few years later), it lures in a new family to ensure a lonely little boy gets to make a friend, it lets a couple move to Florida to care for an ailing relative, and it allows a strange man to move in to the empty apartment on Gorman Street they leave behind.
Mike Ainsel, he calls himself.
But Lakeside knows better.
He is Shadow Moon. The son of an old god who wants nothing but to be free of the trouble his ancestry has brought into his life – and Grimnir has certainly brought a lot of trouble into the man's life. Shadow Moon wants no part of the chaos of his father's war.
So Lakeside makes it so.
Slowly, Shadow Moon will start to fade away. Slowly, Mike Ainsel will become more and more real. Erase a little history here, add a little evidence there – see? It's happening already.
The man who was once Shadow Moon arrives in Lakeside on a snowy December evening, just a couple of days after Christmas. He steps off the bus in a quiet little town he knows absolutely nothing about. The streets are nearly empty so late at night and he is not at all prepared for the brutal chill that has already settled in the Lakeside air, especially after the long hours he's spent listening to the steady hum of the buses powerful heater.
"Hey, mister," someone calls out, and he turns to find two teenage girls. They'd been sitting behind him on the bus, a few rows back, and he'd inadvertently eavesdropped on their conversations about school, about boys, about the animal shelter where one of them just started to volunteer, about some movie coming out next month, about the other asking some guy to the Ice Festival. "My friend thinks you're really cute!" one announces, much to said friend's apparent horror, before they rush off to meet their ride, giggling all the way.
He laughs and shakes his head at the general teenage shenanigans and ducks in to the store across the street, the only one still open, to get out of the cold for a minute while he figures out how to get to the apartment he's been given the keys to. The door opens with the soft jingle of a bell and it only just closes behind him when the woman behind the counter greets him with a friendly smile.
[Ann-Marie Hinzelmann is a good place to start, Lakeside considers. The quirky old lady is nice enough these days, now that Lakeside has done away with all of her strange and ancient traditions (Lakeside didn't really go in for that sort of thing. So unnecessary – why bother with the mess and drama of ritual sacrifices when Lakeside can just will things into proper order?) Still, she'll see to it that Mike Ainsel gets properly settled in (and also properly chastised for dressing so recklessly), that he gets a warm Lakeside welcome.]
"Hello, there," she says and then, looking vaguely horrified, she adds, "Oh my gosh, what are you doing out in this kind of weather without a proper coat on? I think it's two below zero out there!"
[It is four below zero, actually, Lakeside determines.]
"I just got into town," Mike Ainsel stutters, trying desperately to regain the feeling in his fingers. "I didn't know it was gonna be this cold."
"Up here in the Great North Woods, we call this late summer. January is what we call cold," she jokes. "I'm gonna get you a cup of coffee. Would that be alright? You think that'll warm you up a little bit?"
"Yeah, that'd be real nice. Thank you," he eagerly agrees. "You wouldn't happen to know if Gorman Street's within walking distance of here, would you?"
She passes him a mug filled with steaming hot coffee. "Oh, it is," she says, "but I'm afraid that you'd be frozen to death by the time you got halfway there."
He revels in the warmth as he wraps his hands around the mug, takes a careful sip of what turns out to be an absolutely perfect cup of coffee. "Is there, I dunno, a cab company I can call?"
"Yes. Yes, there is," Ann-Marie tells him, already reaching for the phone. She hesitates for the briefest of seconds.
And then she calls Chad Mulligan.
[Lakeside likes this idea. Lakeside wishes that it had been its idea. Lakeside can work with this.]
"Chad, honey, I don't think Abner's out and about tonight and I've got a gentleman here who needs a ride up to Gorman Street." A beat, and then, "Thanks, you're a doll." And, "See you in a minute," and, "Bye-bye."
[Their lone cab driver is posted up outside The Buck Stops Here like he is every weeknight, Lakeside is well aware she knows this. Lakeside approves of this particular brand of scheming, though.]
"I have a friend who's gonna give you a lift." She holds out her hand, "Ann-Marie Hinzelmann."
He takes it, gives it a confident shake. "Mike Ainsel," he answers. [Somewhere in the man's head, Lakeside knows, something has officially slotted into place – a name, an identity, a new life claimed.]
They chat companionably for a few minutes before the little bell over the door rings again, and they both turn to face the new arrival.
The parts of Mike Ainsel that are still Shadow Moon balk at the sight of the police uniform [Lakeside cannot blame him for that – it knows of the casino robbery, of the prison sentence he only just finished before his world imploded. It knows of the murders on the train, of the dead woman who committed them, and of the men who blame him for it. Though, soon enough, none of that will matter.] The parts of Shadow Moon that are already Mike Ainsel can't help but be drawn in to what Lakeside has chosen for him.
It helps that Chad Mulligan is all the right kinds of charming – he's full of friendly, disarming smiles and his brilliant blue eyes seem to sparkle more than usual before this stranger. There's a beat where they both just stare before Chad finally manages to snap out of it, "You the fellow that needs a ride?"
Ann-Marie makes the introductions. "Chad Mulligan, please say hello to Mike Ainsel," she says. "Chad's the law in these parts."
"I can see that," Mike says, eyes darting over the other man's frame, the uniform, still wary.
"And back-up taxi driver," he adds. "You wanna get out of here? I'm parked out front."
Mike finds himself nodding despite his inhibitions. He passes his coffee mug back to the kind old woman and bids her goodbye, trails after the cop as he heads for the door.
"Take care," she calls out, "And get yourself a proper coat, for Heaven's sake!"
"In the light of day, it's one of the prettiest views around, if I do say so myself," Chad Mulligan tells the man in his passenger's seat as they come within sight of the lake. It's full dark, but the moon breaks through the snow clouds and casts an ethereal glow upon the snow-covered surface and the forests beyond, and it's still just as gorgeous like this, he thinks. [Lakeside's pleased he noticed, it rather likes the moonlit version, too.] Despite the view, though, he finds his gaze continuously drawn to this Mike Ainsel, has to force his eyes back to the road time and time again. He's been regaling (and hopefully not boring) his companion with a basic rundown of the town. Historical facts about Lakeside, a few cursory directions and points of reference, and of course the requisite recommendation for Mabel's Diner and her fantastic pasties.
"So, how long are you planning on being in town?"
Mike Ainsel shrugs, more or less thawed out now by the heat Chad has blasting in the car. "I don't know, a few days maybe?"
Chad doesn't quite know why that doesn't sit right with him, that he wants this stranger to stick around a while. It's odd enough that he's here at all. "Well, we don't get too many visitors this time of year. Too damn cold."
"I hadn't noticed," Mike jokes, and this time when Chad looks, Mike's warm eyes are on him, too.
They trade easy banter as the ride continues on, until they're pulling up outside an old brick apartment building.
"Here we are," he says, and he can't help but think that Mike seems a little hesitant to get out of the car. Probably just not so eager to get back out into the cold, he figures. "If you need anything," he finds himself saying, digging in his pocket for one of his business cards, "Call me."
[Lakeside is pleased things are going so well.]
Mike Ainsel takes it with a friendly smile and starts toward the building, glances back over his shoulder as he goes. Chad doesn't pull away until he's sure the man is safely inside and he sees the lights flick on in the apartment.
[Lakeside is even more pleased to see that Mike Ainsel settles on the sofa of his new home, wrapped under the warmth of a blanket to combat the chill, with thoughts of Chad Mulligan (no trace of buffalo headed gods or thunderbirds or Grimnir's torment) running through his head as he falls asleep.]