Disclaimer, to be used for and applied to all successive chapters: I do not own Supernatural or anything you recognize as being from the SPN world. I do own Evelyn, my take on Christmasland, and some of the liberties I am taking with the mythology. The song used in this chapter is "Blue Christmas" performed by Elvis Presley.
"I'll have a blue Christmas without you
I'll be so blue just thinking about you..."
"Can you turn that crap off? I can hear it in the background."
Dean was still teetering between wanting to beat Castiel into oblivion or pat him on the back and congratulate him for not betraying them all. At least, not totally betraying them all. But the matter of the situation was that it wasn't as cut and dry as Dean would have liked. In any normal circumstance a friend who ended up sticking with them would have been worthy of all the praise in the world. Whatever praise he had left to give, anyway.
But Castiel had wanted to betray them. That was what conflicted Dean. He had gone against them once, so who was to say he wouldn't do it again? He had been pondering that question for three whole months since the warehouse episode with Raphael and Crowley.
Somehow, someway, the tides had turned and Cas had been back on their side. The glass container of blood he held had been another fake – he had ditched the necessary jar somewhere unknown to all except the angel. He hadn't opened Purgatory like everyone thought. Dean was at least comforted that the heavenly soldier wasn't supercharged with thirty million souls. But that had left them in quite a predicament because Raphael had been, to put it lightly, pissed.
Some choice words were exchanged and Dean, Cas, and Bobby were all surprised when an angel blade came stabbing through Raphael's chest. His vessel's eyes glowed a brilliant white and a torpedo of grace shot out of the archangel's mouth. An eerie shadow of beautiful wings splayed out across the cracked and crumbling wall. It was morose, but beautiful, and Dean could vividly remember the sight of the once powerful archangel slumped against the stone wall.
Sam had stood, slightly swaying, where Raphael once stood, a look of surprise on his face as he gripped the blade tightly in his hands. Crowley had long since disappeared, but not before shooting the entire room a look that read something along the lines of 'this isn't the last of me, you worthless bastards!' probably followed by a slew of unsaid expletives.
Now, three months later, the brothers were still trying to locate Crowley, positive that he was cooking up a plan much worse than opening Purgatory – if that was even possible – and Dean and Cas were still not speaking. Sam had taken to being the middleman, growing tired of being the messenger after the first two hours, and Bobby had gone back to the salvage yard, immediately annoyed at the idjits bickering over something so stupid (even if he was a little peeved at the angel's horrible life choices as of late). The aging hunter resolved to communicating by phone, since he could hang up whenever he got tired of their sass, which was often, by the way. He kept busy by scouring his library of books for anything that might help, calling the boys whenever he thought he found something, but angrily ranting when it turned out to be a dead end.
"Dean, you're gonna have to talk to him eventually," Bobby was saying over the phone during Dean's daily call to bitch and moan about everything and anything under the sun. He would call under the pretense of checking in, but Bobby knew that Dean was calling because Sam had long since stopped listening to his grumblings of the day. "And this song is a damn holiday classic, Ebenezer. If I'm gonna drink myself silly and read these damn books all by my lonesome, let me at least be festive about it."
"Bobby," Dean was nearly whining, exasperated and thoroughly exhausted at this point, "he was gonna go behind our backs and open Purgatory for Christ's sake. How can I just up and forgive him for almost swallowing thirty million monsters to fight a war in Heaven? And since when are you festive?"
Bobby rubbed his eyes from where he sat at his kitchen table and held the phone away from his ear for a moment. He was really getting too old for this. It seemed like a poor choice to mention the irony of Dean using the phrase "for Christ's sake," so he kept that to himself.
"But he didn't, Dean. Don't that count for anythin'?"
"It used to," Dean murmured as he looked over where Sam sat pouring over volumes of lore books they'd collected in the past few months. "Look, I gotta go. Sam is about ass deep in research and we still don't know where Crowley might go next."
"I'll let you know if I find something. And I am festive!" The line went dead and Dean sighed. He ran a hand down his tired face and briefly wondered when the last time he'd had a decent night's sleep was. The answer would probably only exhaust him further.
"Welp, Sammy," he threw his cellphone onto the cheap motel bed, "looks like Bobby's got jack. Probably a whole bottle of it too, by the sound of it." He allowed his lips to tilt upwards at his own joke.
"Yeah, well, we're not much better off," the youngest Winchester replied, his eyes still glued to the book sat before him, completely missing Dean's not-so-classic pun. "I don't know what could possibly be worse than Purgatory."
"Me either," Dean rubbed his face again and this time wondered where he had stashed his razor. "But Crowley looked pretty pissed so there's gotta be an alternative plan in that demonic brain of his."
Sam closed the thick book and threw his hands up in defeat. His chair made a screeching noise as he pushed himself away from the table, the linoleum of the tiny, dingy kitchenette section of the room now creased with another skid-mark. He tipped his head back over the top of the chair and shielded his eyes with his right hand, trying to quell the headache he felt rising behind his eyelids. The halogen lamp hanging above him gave off a light just low enough that he had to strain his eyes to read from the books they'd gathered. The light from his laptop, even dimmed, hadn't helped much either.
"If there is, it's not known to any of these books."
"Should we get more books?"
A low sound of defeat left Sam as he uncovered his face. He kept his head leaned back and stared at the cracked and peeling ceiling of the motel room.
"Dean," Sam sounded as tired as Dean felt, "I've spent six hours researching. I don't think any other books will do us any more good. I need sleep. We need sleep."
Dean plopped down on the bed and flopped backwards. Even with the mattress padding set around them, the old coils bit into his back. The bed made a depressing squeaking noise as his body hit the top layer of covers. He let out a loud groan and covered his face with his hands.
Sam frowned. "Dean..." He took a big breath. "Maybe you should call-"
Dean bolted up and the bed made another squeak in protest, "No."
"But maybe he knows-"
"I said no, Sam!" Dean angrily stood up and yanked his jacket off the vacant chair near Sam. He his arms through the olive green sleeves and made for the door. To hell with everyone telling him to just kiss and make up with the angel. It wasn't that damn simple!
"Where are you going?"
The elder Winchester gripped onto the doorknob and barked, "Out!" before wrenching open the shoddy door.
Sam and Dean both watched a small figure tumble into their room, a dark green cloak pulled tightly over the person's head. Both brothers looked at each other with wide eyes, all past anger forgotten about. Immediately, they scrambled for their guns. Sam yanked his from the waistband of his pants and Dean quickly revealed his from the inside pocket of his field jacket.
"Uh," Sam let out, gun poised and ready.
"Er," Dean wasn't much more coherent. "What the hell?"
"For the love of- who just rips open a door?!" A pleasantly pitched yet angry voice came from whoever was lying face first on the nasty motel carpet. The brothers heard a sniff followed by an "what is that smell?"
"Uh, excuse me?" Sam asked, inching closer, gun still drawn. Both men stood over the cloaked figure, their brows furrowed in confusion. Who wore a cloak these days?
"What?" The voice sounded like it had had enough of everything as the person pulled herself (the voice gave away that it was most certainly not a male) to a standing position. Neither Dean nor Sam could see her features for they were too far hidden underneath the thick green fabric.
"Mind telling us who the hell you are?" Dean kept his gun aimed at her and took a step back, moving slowly over to where the squirt bottle of holy water was stored.
"Certainly not a demon or a wraith or a ghoul or a whatever. Please put those guns down."
Dean scoffed, "Yeah, not gonna do tha- wha?"
He stopped short as she lowered her cloak to reveal a small woman, normal and pleasant looking, and not oozing or demonic or grotesque. They kept their weapons out nonetheless.
The brothers both assessed her, standing in the doorway of their questionably sanitary motel room and looking like she had been traveling for days without rest. The bags under her eyes did not detract from the simple fact that she was not a bad sight to see at all, but they gave her face a horribly tired look as she swayed on her feet. Her nose was slender, her cheekbones were well pronounced and angular. Dean squinted. Was she human?
She was tiny, small and lithe, but had long piano fingers and a certain grace and poise about her. A set of striking blue eyes sat rounded and wide on her pixie-like face. Sam had seen eyes like those before – bright and full and hopeful. Though he hadn't seen them for a long time…
A mane of unruly golden curls spilled down her back. Dean took notice of her cloak. It was an evergreen color, thick and drawn close to her body. Fastened with a white snowflake pin, it hung down her body but allowed the bottoms of her bright red snow boots to peek out. The brooch sparkled even in the dim light of the crummy motel room.
"I'm an- ack!" She was interrupted by an unceremonious splash of holy water to the face. Annoyed, she wiped her face with her hands and, in the process, brought her hair back behind her ears.
Dean dropped the bottle of holy water and stared at the creature. "You're..."
"An elf?" Sam finished with a note of surprise. He had thought elves were only in fairytales! But then again, Dean had gone up against fairies themselves so maybe anything was possible…even this.
Suddenly, after moments of awkwardly ogling the mythic creature, Dean thrust out a silver knife from inside the folds of his jacket. "Prove it."
"Prove what?" The elf asked, eyeing the knife warily. "I do not like to fight."
The elder brother rolled his eyes and flipped the knife so that he was holding the blade, the thick handle sticking out towards the woman. "Prove that you're not another monster in disguise. Silver hurts a lot of them, so prove it won't hurt you." He looked over at Sam and whispered, "What hurts elves? Is this real?"
"Dude, elves?!" Was all Sam could manage to say back.
The elf's bottom lip quivered as she took the knife and rolled up the sleeve of her cloak. Her skin was smooth and white, like she had never seen a day of battle in her life. Sam wondered if she had ever hurt anyone or anything before. He watched her press the blade onto her delicate skin and found himself wincing as the soft flesh sliced open. He noted her passive look of pain but also her disgust with the sight of blood. Huh, he thought.
"Happy?" She asked them both. Dean nodded and grumbled something unintelligible before handing her a spare rag from off the counter near him. The elf mumbled a word of thanks and wrapped her new cut tightly, only briefly questioning the cleanliness of the cloth.
"So, uh," Dean pursed his lips and held out his arms before slapping them against his sides, "can we help you?"
Sam nearly smacked his forehead. "Dean," he hissed.
"What?" His brother shot him a look. "It's just a question, Sam. I'm very confused. She's an elf?!"
The creature in question sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She looked as if the weight of the world had been placed upon her shoulders and the two Winchesters could easily relate to that feeling of complete helplessness. Dean felt himself shifting uncomfortably. It felt like he was looking into a mirror. A much tinier and more feminine mirror...
"I need help," she finally said, her shoulders slumping.
Sam took a step forward and asked, "Do you want to come in?" He ignored his brother mumbling "me too" under his breath.
The small woman looked up with watery eyes at both men. Dean looked away. If she was going to burst into tears then he was just going to sit across the room and be far removed from everything while Sam handled it all. He had too many other worries on his plate right now and, though he never thought he would say anything resembling this phrase, he just didn't have the time for elves. He wanted to be helpful, he wanted to figure out why she was here. It was in his nature, solving these types of things. It's what he did. But he was just so tired, and still so damn angry at Cas to do much of anything else.
The past year had been a damn nightmare. And he wasn't sure what more he could handle.
At her nod, Sam rushed around and pulled up a chair for her. Dean shut the door behind her and leaned against it. He crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. She better not be about to drop some bomb on them - literally or figuratively. He needed to get back to being broody and pissed off at Cas. He wasn't finished being mad and breaking things just yet.
Sam calmly settled down on the edge of his bed and folded his hands out in front of him. He leaned forward on his elbows as they pressed against his knees, giving the woman – elf?! – his full attention. He tried to make his signature 'puppy dog face' (as Dean so affectionately called it) so she wouldn't be so intimidated by him and his glaring brother, but he was fairly certain all he managed to do was make himself look constipated.
He shook his head and decided to speak instead. "Okay, so. What's wrong? What can we help with?"
The elf looked up at him with pleading, terrified eyes.
"I need you to help me save Christmas."
"You'll be doin' all right, with your Christmas of white
But I'll have a blue, blue blue blue Christmas..."
A/N: As a heads up, Cas will be a main character in this story, so he's not gone forever. Dean is just...Dean. You know. He's doing his broody thing. This was originally written with the intention of being a Cas/OC story, fyi, but it's taken me so long to post it (half out of pure hesitance and half because I always missed the holiday season and I feel that it's most appropriate to start this story during the holidays) that I could really go any way right now. I'm open to having some dialogue about it.
I hope everyone is having a absolutely lovely holiday season so far. Thank you for reading, as always!
Much love and stay tuned! xx