Chapter Text
Part one:
Apparently the men of letters had a sense of humour. Dean huffed, out of breath, as he pulled the last box of faded box of Christmas decorations from the shelf in the store room. Yeah, the devils trap ball-balls and pagan sigil tinsel must have been a great idea at the time but those kinda symbols mixed up could create some serious dark mojo. Dean was pretty sure he didn’t want to know how long they’d all been stewing together in those boxes for.
He almost didn’t hear Cas enter the tiny room behind him, for someone without wings the angel was surprisingly light on his feet.
“Dean, Sam has asked me to tell you that he is leaving to follow a lead on the case he is working on.” Cas announced before noticing the piles clutter around them. “Do I want to know why you have an angel sigil tree topper?”
Dean snorted when he noticed the porcelain disk protruding from the closest box, “Yeah, these guys had a messed up idea of Christmas. You wanna give me hand with this stuff?”
“I still don’t understand why you insist upon this, Dean.” Cas said, eyeing a particularly offensive wall-hanging written in enhochian. The angel had, for some reason, been completely against putting up decorations and a tree but Dean was working on changing that.
Handing a few boxes to Castiel, he picked up a couple more and led the way through the bunker and out into main area. They put them down and Dean motioned for Cas to start unpacking what he could without summoning something from another dimension.
It was laborious work. After spending so long in close proximity half of the decorations were practically cursed objects and by the time they’d finished a box each, Sam was already calling to check in and make sure things were going ok on their end. If Dean didn’t know better he would have thought is brother was making excuses to stay away. There was no way a simple salt and burn was going to take three days.
After nearly seven hours of dodging rogue hexes they were just about ready to throw in the towel. Well… that was until Dean noticed one of the boxes was missing.
“Dude, try not to touch anything,” he muttered, exhausted, “the last thing we need is you getting turned in a frickin frog or something.”
Cas nodded as though it was something that could actually happen. “I will be careful Dean.”
The bunker was one of the safest places Dean knew but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be pretty damn spooky when you were the only one walking around. If it wasn’t for the occasional creaking of cooling metal and the intermittent clicking of the bulb Dean had been meaning to replace the place would have been completely silent.
That’s why Dean almost had a cardiac when a crash echoed down the hallway from the store room. After a few moments to make sure he wasn’t in fact having a heart attack, he drew his gun and advanced slowly, debating whether or not he should call Cas for backup. Something could have just fallen off the shelf but he wasn’t taking any chances after the time they’d just had trying to untangle boxes of near apocalyptic decorations.
Who knew what they could have awoken?
As he neared the door his pulse shot up. Something was moving around in there and it sounded big- human big. Checking his gun once more Dean held his breath and burst round the doorframe, aiming at the stocky figure leaning over the box he’d come to collect.
“Hands where I can see’ em!” if it even had hands…
“That’s not gonna work on me, Kiddo.” the figure grunted, straightening and stepping somewhat into the light.
Dean’s eyes widened, “Jesus…”
“No, but people do keep asking if I was born in a barn.” Gabriel said with a flash of his practiced douchebag grin. “Long time no trick. I see things have been going terrible as usual.”
Ok, Dean was all up for coming back from the dead, hell he’d done it himself more times than he could count, but he was strangely against the second coming of an archangel/trickster/pagan god. He knew only too well the kind of tricks Gabriel liked to play on them, and Cas was in no shape to fight should something go down. Nothing good ever came out of archangels. Period.
“You’re smart Dean I’ll give you that. We’re not exactly the trustworthy type but today I’m just here to spread a little holiday cheer.” Gabriel admitted, clearly trying his very best to look as innocent as possible.
“Awesome… can you leave now?” Dean asked hurriedly, hearing Cas call his name from down the hall, “Oh, and don’t bother adding us to your Christmas list.”
The archangel stalked lazily over to a shelf and picked up a small container covered in scribbled enhochian. He smiled at it sentimentally, as if it held some kind of deep meaning. “You remember what I told you the first time we met?” he ran his finger over the rim of the jar, “I liked you Dean, still do. You’ve got a, how should I put it… a spark?”
Dean swallowed thickly. He didn’t like the sound of that.
Gabriel’s hand wandered to the lid of the jar but before he could remove it Castiel appeared in the doorway, trench coat ruffled, light’s flickering behind him. “Brother no!” he shouted rushing forward but it was too late.
The lid came away in one smooth movement and a flash lit the storage room. It was gone almost as quickly as it came yet Dean still had to screw his eyes closed against the intensity of the sudden light. When he opened them again the jar was gone, and so was the archangel.
“Cas, do I wanna know what that was?”
The angel glanced at him doubtfully, “We should try to contact Sam… he may be needed.”
“That’s not reassuring, man.” Dean said pinching the bridge of his nose. “Just tell me whatever the fuck it is we’re dealing with.”
“It’s an elemental, Dean.”
“Awesome.”
After deciding to bring the last box of decorations with them, they cautiously made their way back to the main area, painfully aware that something was off but not quite sure what it was.
Dean didn’t know much about elementals, but what he did know worried him. They were basically tree spirits with stronger than average plant powers - never good when the only weapon you have on you is a gun that shoots lead.
Dumping the box on the floor he turned and surveyed the control room, nothing seemed to have changed but there was still something… above the door. In fact it was above every doorway, a small sprig of a green plant with white berries.
“Hey, Cas… are you seeing this?”
The angel nodded, “It’s Mistletoe.”
“Yeah well, no shit Sherlock.”
“No Dean. I mean it’s Mistletoe. All elementals are linked to a specific flora and I believe this one is Mistletoe.” Castiel said flatly, twirling a piece that just happened to have materialised on the table next to him. “You know the legend, yes?”
Dean shrugged, “Uh, it’s a pagan ritual right… that kind of thing? I think dad told us the story when we were kids. You might have to refresh my memory a bit.”
“Baldor was the most beloved of the Norse gods,” Cas began matter-of-factly, “so it is said that his mother, Frigga, went round and asked all the plants and animals for their vow that they would never kill him, all but Mistletoe. The plant was small and always overlooked so she was unaware of her mistake. Loki on the other hand, knew all too well that he could use it to his advantage.” Dean couldn’t help but smirk as Cas rolled his eyes dramatically, “So, when Frigga invited all the gods to test her son’s invincibility, Loki fashioned a dart from Mistletoe and killed Baldor dead. To make sure the mistake would never happen again she decreed that the plant would be hung above doorways and she would place a kiss on whoever stood there...”
“Please, you sound like a pagan history textbook! Maybe somebody should pay you to do audio tapes? I’m sure you’d send those kids right to sleep in minutes.” That voice did not come from Dean.
They both turned to face the unlikely creature that’d materialised before them.
Of course it was Dean who burst into a fit of laughter… he didn’t know whether to kill the thing or give it a sandwich.
To anyone else the lanky teenager standing just across the room, dressed in tight fitting jeans and a dark green baggy hoodie that half covered his face, would have seemed harmless. But they knew better.
Castiel failed to see what Dean found so funny about the situation. “So,” the angel said, cautiously addressing the pagan before them, “You’re Mistletoe?”
“My friends call me Mist but, in essence, yes. And it’s all true by the way- I did kill Baldor, and thanks to that I’m more powerful than I’ve ever been! I’m not just an elemental anymore, I’m a god.” He held out his hands dramatically and the sprigs hanging in the doorways exploded into life, growing quickly, blocking off the exits and leaving them trapped in the main room. “I really should thank Loki; he hasn’t done me wrong so far.”
Dean blinked, confused, “I swear I was only kidnapped by Baldor and his little posy of pagans a few years ago though…?”
Castiel was about to answer but Mistletoe cut him off again, this time with a wave of his hand. “Pagans are like lamps, yes you can smash a bulb, even pull out the cable or turn off the power, but replace that and turn it back on and it still works. Killing one of our kind is always like that. It’s the true essence of immortality Dean, you can kill us but we won’t die. It might take centuries, or even millennium, but we always come back as long as we have followers.”
It was safe to say that no one knew what to say after that.
Silence overcame them for a good few moments until it became almost painfully awkward. Just standing there, looking at each other. And it was safe to say that Dean was pretty confused right about now. So far all this all-powerful elemental had done was give them the basics on pagans and boast about how great he was.
“So, that’s all very good, and kinda creepy when you think about it, but what do you want with us? If you wanna be free you’re gonna have to release us so we can break the warding around this place.” Dean asked eventually, not really wanted to be stood like that when Sam got back- which would be god knows when.
Mistletoe crossed his arms in a very human teenager like gesture and huffed, annoyed, “I’m here because Loki asked me to stick around and do him a favour. He’s done so much for me after all.” With another wave of the pagan’s hand, one of the doors closest to them cleared slowly. “Yes I may be an elemental, but I’m also the god of ignored and over looked things. I’m trying to teach you a lesson, Dean. Now… run!”