Au Oneshot
Dean was once again sitting across from Death.
Currently something resembling a strange, tiny, glittering bird was hovering next to the head reaper, making small, shrill sounds into his ear periodically as he listened, head cocked attentively.
The thing had interrupted another of Dean's nerve racking encounters with the inscrutable entity. They'd been talking when the little thing had appeared and flown over to hover over the Horseman's shoulder. It wasn't anything he'd ever seen or heard of before.
Summoning up some of that infamous Winchester courage Dean swallowed dryly as the little creature darted off before opening his mouth and blurting, "what was that?" It sure as hell didn't look like a reaper or anything he would normally associate with death.
Death raised an eyebrow and turned to face Dean, "a tooth fairy."
"A tooth fairy…" Dean repeated stupidly, Death's answer not quite computing.
"A tooth fairy," Death repeated, looking for all the world as if it was an obvious fact and Dean was an idiot for asking.
God Death was a condescending bastard.
This meeting was starting to feel rather surreal, even more so than usual. Death had a way of shaking people's long preconceived notions and turning what you thought you knew on its head.
"Didn't Garth gank it?" Dean asked.
"Ah yes I'd heard about that, but no your friend did not kill the tooth fairy, merely a tooth fairy."
Suddenly Dean got a bad feeling. He seemed to get those a lot around Death.
"A tooth fairy, I thought there was only one?" he blurted out.
"Oh yes, how else did you think they could be at so many places at once, there are a lot of teeth, your friend got one of Toothiana's daughters. Even if it had been Tooth no mere human would have been able to put a scratch on her much less kill her. A human would be incapable of doing so."
"What do you mean? I thought that the tooth fairy was just some, well you know... " he trailed of awkwardly.
"Some common pagan creature or something similar?" Death finished for him. "Hardly, she's not some wretched pagan filth or like those silly little angel's you spend so much time with these days. She's older and far more important than both."
Dean gapped mouth slightly open, more important than the angels, and older...
At his incredulous look Death rolled his eyes.
"Did you really think that God and his angels were any different from those pagans, well guess what Dean they're not. God's only been around for the last couple handful of millennia; no matter how much he likes to think he's all powerful. Really bought his on press that one..."
Death's disgust was palpable. "He's young Dean, young and not nearly as all powerful or important as you think. The Tooth Fairy's been around long before God and his angels."
"Ok so God's only been around for the last couple thousand years so he's what, some kind of pagan?"
"Similar Dean, very similar."
"Ok well that's not the craziest things I've ever heard."
While he'd heard and seen a lot of crazy things in his time as a hunter God actually being a similar kind of being as the other gods he'd seen wasn't that bizarre, it actually kind of made sense now that he thought about it, why would that god be any different?
The strange thing had been the bit about the tooth fairy being older and more important. While Death might consider God young he was still old by Dean's standards. Several thousand years was a long time, and surely a god could be considered reasonably important. Just how important was the Tooth Fairy, and what did she do with all those teeth for that matter?
Giving voice to his thoughts he asked Death exactly that. Death's reply was, "Older than the mountains and younger than the wind."
Well wasn't that helpful.
"Toothiana has existed for a long time, well long for you mortals; she's hardly the oldest of beings. As for the teeth, she guards them. The most precious memories of childhood are stored in teeth; it's why you tend to forget things from childhood. The memories are still there but they're harder to reach and sometimes people need a little help. She gathers them up and stores them. Protecting them from those who would do them harm or wreak havoc with them. They're powerful things teeth."
Dean might not have known about the memory thing but he had seen what could be done with teeth and various other seemingly innocuous body bits. Witches in particular seemed to have a knack for using them to cause all sorts of trouble.
What the Tooth Fairy was doing was actually something pretty important that he'd hadn't ever really considered or thought about and taken for granted, he shuddered at the thought of all the damage that could be caused with all those teeth.
He wandered just how many teeth she must be responsible for collecting each day.
"Oh about 300,000 a night," Death replied when asked.
Dean blanched, that was a lot of teeth. Yes Dean was definitely grateful for the tooth fairy.
"Ah, so you see just how important she and those like her are. And the damage Garth was causing, thankfully though as he only killed one fairy it was minimal."
"Others like her?"
"Guardians and spirits, the Sandman, the Seasons, Tooth, Frost and the rest, those who watch over the children of this world and usher in the seasons, ensure that spring turns to summer and summer to fall and fall to winter. There are many too who govern over things less import."
"There's that many, and they're all as that important?" It was mindboggling.
"Most, though the lesser ones less so," came Death's reply. "The Guardians protect the children and the Seasons tend to the yearly cycles. Frost ushers in the cold and snow, the frost and rain, while the others make the leaves fall and the plants grow."
"Jack is perhaps the most important of all those on earth."
"Why, how come? I get that winter's a pretty important but it's only like a quarter of the year."
"Frost's territory extends into the beginning of spring and end of autumn. So in effect he is responsible for half the year in each half of the world at a time. Add this to the fact that approximately a third of the world in the form of the Arctic and Antarctic are permanently frozen and experience winter year round, he is effectively responsible for two thirds of the world at any given time."
That was actually kind of amazing now that Dean thought about it.
Catching sight of Dean's expression Death continued, "He off course has his lieutenants to help ease the burden and aid him. I also hear he is rather gifted with those ice mirrors of his, only needs to see a place once and he can make one leading to it."
"Ice mirrors?" Dean questioned.
"Most powerful beings have means of travelling great distances quickly."
That was true enough Dean supposed. Death, there one second and gone the next, was certainly not the only creature he'd met who could vanish and reappear in an instant.
"Asides from his duties as Winter he is also a Guardian and doubly important because of it" Death's voice continued, rolling drolly on.
As interesting as Dean found all this he couldn't help but wonder why Death was telling him all of this. There was usually a reason behind his words, he rarely spoke about things that, while possibly interesting, were seemingly mostly irrelevant. Well unless it was about food. Death had a morbid fascination with food which was quite frankly off putting and made Dean a little queasy.
"He also happens to be Toothiana's mate," finished Death.
Oh...
So that was it.
"The Tooth Fairy has a mate?" He really should stop being surprised at these sorts of things.
"Oh yes and he was most displeased when he found out about what happened. That particularly cold winter was the result. Those snow storms and that weather was his doing."
Dean remembered the winter Death was talking about, that year had been extremely cold and the snow had fallen in massive deluges.
Death pressed onwards, "Garth was lucky it was not Rani, he would not have been so fortunate had it been so."
"Rani?" Dean questioned.
"While the tooth fairies are created from Tooth and she loves them greatly Rani was born from both Tooth and Jack and they treasure her greatly. Garth was lucky to have his life spared, as it is only because of his remorse was he allowed to live. If Rani had been slain not even that would have spared him from their wrath."
"I imagine I'd do something similar if something were to happen to one of my reapers, to someone if they hurt one of them..." He continued, staring directly at him.
Dean gulped.
So they'd finally reached the point of this talk.
He felt like he was about to shit himself any second now.
And he just knew that Death, the bastard, was deriving entirely too much pleasure from this.
"I am of course telling you all this as you will soon be intimately a part of all of it. As one of my reapers you will no doubt need to interact with them at some point."
Finally done Death stood and prepared to depart.
"Oh and Dean," Death paused and turned to look back at him, "break Tessa's heart, you'll die before you start."
.
.
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AN:
Just some stuff: in this hunters and other adults are capable of seeing spirits, though it might be a bit iffy and not always reliable. Most people obviously don't believe so they would rarely if ever but hunters because of their exposure to the supernatural are more susceptible. However hunters/people can't see certain stuff like the Dreamsand that covers most of the planet at night.
And while mini-fairies are pretty resistant they can die or be injured. This sometimes happens with cats or other animals though it's rare that one is killed.
Tooth and others like her however can't be affected by normal people or animals and can only be hurt or killed by others like pitch.
This is kind of crossover/recursive with Alaia Skyhawk's 'Secret of Frost and Moon' and LadyPhenyx's 'Only the Music'.
They served as the inspiration for many of the things/much of the Rise of the Guardians portions of this fic. Rani in particular is from LadyPhenyx's only the music. Both are great stories and you should check them out.
And yes this is Dean x Tessa, I really love Tessa and Death is defiantly my favourite supernatural character.