Chapter Text
Previously: Sam and Dean get some intel from the kids - i.e. what happened in the movie.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Sam and Dean watched the kids go, waiting for them to be out of sight before talking. After they left, Sam turned to Dean. "Well this just got a bit more complicated," he said with a frown on his face.
"You're telling me," Dean replied as he ran a hand through his hair. "We're dealing with Santa, the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, as well as the Boogeyman here. Oh and we can't forget about Jack, or Jackson or whatever. We've seen some crazy shit but seriously?"
Sam shrugged, waving the EMF machine around and finding nothing. "All the kids seem so set on Jack Frost being innocent, and the lore itself doesn't explain why Jackson would have ice powers as a ghost."
"So what? We're dealing with like, a super ghost?" Dean asked.
Sam gestured to the now frozen over lake. "I can't see my breath, but something's definitely here." Sam looked up to the moon, and noticed how there weren't any clouds in the sky. Odd. "I say we head back for the night, and come back tomorrow to figure it out."
Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we need to do some more research on Santa." Nevertheless, he turned to head back.
Sam sighed as he followed his brother. "Come on, Dean, you know that kids are usually attentive to this stuff. I'm pretty sure Jamie, and his friends, wouldn't lie to us." Sam continued, "Hopefully this isn't the type of thing that only kids can see. If that is the case, we might have a little bit of trouble."
The words that Jamie said to Dean came back to him.
You just need to believe.
Dean frowned. "I don't think it is, but we might have a bit of trouble anyway."
Dean was asking John, who just came back from a hunt, for a quarter or any loose change to put under four year old Sammy's pillow for his first tooth.
John, who just wanted to watch tv and get his mind off things, didn't even look at Dean when he said, "We've been over this. Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, they don't exist."
"But Dad, Sammy -"
"After your mom died, did Santa come and visit us?"
"...No."
"And you know why?"
"Because I asked Santa for Mom to come back." And for us to be a family again was left unsaid.
"And what does Santa give kids?"
"Toys and stuff you buy at a store."
"And the lesson here is?"
Just find a quarter in a vending machine instead of asking your dad for money. "Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy don't exist."
"That's right. Now pass me a beer."
Sam put his hand on Dean's shoulder. "Dean, you okay?"
Dean looked up to him, snapped out of his reverie. "Sammy, did you ever believe in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny?" he asked as he looked up to the cloudless sky.
Sam frowned when he replied, "Honestly? Not since you told me that Santa wasn't real that Christmas when you stole some family's presents. Did you?"
Dean shook his head. "Not since Mom died."
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
After grabbing some doughnuts dubbed as breakfast along with some crappy coffee from the motel, Sam and Dean headed to the library for more research.
"Sam, really? The kids section?" Dean grumbled as he headed up the stairs after his brother and down a few rows of shelves.
"Well, we need to find something where Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, the Boogeyman, and Jack Frost all correlate to each other. And according to what I can find online, that would be with these." Sam picked out a few books and showed them to his brother.
Dean grabbed the largest, thinnest book and flipped through it. Looked like a picture book. He then took a smaller book, but much thicker than his first choice and flipped through it as well. Looked like a short story. "What is this, a series?"
"It is actually," Sam replied as the he walked over to an empty table with child sized chairs and took a seat. Knowing that there weren't any other empty seats in the library, Dean followed after his brother. Sam continued, "The Guardians of Childhood by William Joyce. It's the only thing where all the characters are connected."
Dean looked over the books he grabbed earlier. "The Man in the Moon? Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King? Are you sure about this, Sam? Do you think this is really important?"
He nodded. "I think Nicholas St. North is Santa, and these two I have here are for the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy." Sam held up another thin book. "The only character that they didn't mention was the Sandman, or Sanderson Mansnoozie I should say. Something must have happened to him before the battle or something."
Dean just continued to skim through the book, not really reading but looking for any signs about the possible super ghost. "Does it say anything about Jack Frost or Jackson Overland?"
"Nothing that we haven't already learned from Mary Overland's journal." Sam put the books down and switched with Dean, skimming as well. "Let's go over what we know."
Dean nodded. "Well we know that Jackson drowned in the lack in the back trying to save his sister from the thin ice." He paused. "...That really seems to be the only relevant thing that we have."
"I wouldn't say that," Sam said as he held up the book Dean was looking over. "The Man in the Moon, he sounds like a god-like character."
Dean shrugged. "So what, pagan god?"
Sam shook his head. "Not enough lore set for that."
Dean shut his book. "Sam, I really don't think that these children books have the lore we're looking for."
Sam sighed before following suit. "You're probably right. If anything, I'm sure it'll be online if we need it." They put them back, stepped out of the library and into the Impala. They pulled out of the library parking lot and headed back to the motel to digest what they learned.
"A little late, but do you think we need Mary Overland's journal?" Dean asked before Sam pulled out some papers from his pocket.
"I scanned all the entries that mention her brother," he said as he flipped through them. "Oddly enough, she only mentions him in the beginning. After that, she talks about how hard life was for just her and her mother."
Dean shrugged. "She probably didn't want to write about it. I know the death of a family member is something I never want to relive, and writing about it brings back memories that are sometimes better left buried."
"Although," Sam pulled out some more papers. "She does speak about seeing a figure a few times at the lake that was exactly like her brother, just with a different color scheme. Instead of the warm brown eyes and hair he had icy white hair and blue eyes. He actually saved her when she tried to drown herself in the same lake that took her brother."
Dean closed his eyes, rubbing between his eyes. "So, Jack Frost is a ghost."
Sam shrugged. "I wouldn't say that, but we really can't say."
As he was pulling into the motel's parking lot, Dean's phone rang. With ease, he removed the phone from his pocket and answered it as the hunters made their way back to their room. "Agent Barrow."
"D-Dean?"
"Jamie?" Dean immediately softened his tone. "What's wrong?"
"I… I had a dream last night. Jack… I think Jack's in trouble."
"What do you mean?"
"I..." Jamie took a deep breath. "I saw the Guardians - you know, Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and the Sandman - looking at a giant orb. And in the bubble was Jack in a cage covered in shadows. Everything froze when I tried to ask them what was going on. The Sandman was the only one able to move besides me and he told me that Guardians only appear to children."
Dean frowned. "The Sandman..."
"He also said that the Boogeyman is going after someone tonight. I think the message was for you, and Sam. I -" There was yelling on the other line. "I gotta go, my mom's not allowing me or my sister out of her sight until this is all over. Please help Jack, Dean. Prove his innocence and help save Jack from the Boogeyman."
"Jamie, wait!" But the line was dead.
"What happened?" Sam asked as Dean hung up the phone and took a seat on the bed.
"Jamie. He had a dream and basically, Jack's in a cage of darkness, the Guardians can only be seen by children, and a child is going to die tonight."
As Sam tried to process what he had just been given, Dean scrambled for any other ideas but couldn't think of any. "I don't get it - we need to be kids or something for this? Is that even possible?"
"Is that something you would like, Dean?"
Dean immediately opened his eyes at the new voice, reaching for his pistol by his waist, only to pause when he saw who it was.
Dean put down his gun. "Damn it, Cas, what did we say about popping up unannounced?"
"My apologies." He bowed his head to Dean, before raising his head and turned to Sam. "Sam."
"Cas," Sam greeted stiffly. "What did you mean about us being kids?"
Castiel blinked. "What I said. If Dean would desire it, I can de-age your bodies to a child's." He turned to Dean. "That is what you desire, is it not?"
Sam also turned to his brother. "Dean?"
Dean wasn't even looking at his brother, eyes only for the angel. "De-age me, Cas. But leave Sam, we may need an adult and he's the smarter, yet less handsome of the two of us."
"Hey!" Sam exclaimed but Castiel nodded and made his way towards Dean.
"Wait, Dean are you sure about this?" Sam asked. "You want to do this alone?"
Dean didn't even hesitate when he replied, "We have to - we can't have both of us at seven at the same time and besides, we need to save that kid before it's too late."
Castiel smiled. "As expected of the Righteous Man, always putting others before himself." Before another word could be said, he placed his fingers to Dean's forehead.
There was a flash of white light, and when it cleared, where a thirty year old man stood was now a seven year old boy.
With Sam in shock of seeing his older brother now be his younger brother, Dean checked himself out. Castiel seemed to have shrunken his clothes so he wasn't standing in cloth.
Dean crossed his arms with a pout on his face. "Angel mojo, man."