Confessions of a Male Escort
Masterpost | Previous Chapter
Previously: "Why is this happening to me?" Anna asked them sadly and Harry just shrugged.
"I don't know," Sam told her sadly, placing a soothing hand on her shoulder, only for Anna to freeze and glance at the door fearfully.
"They're coming," she whispered, making everyone burst into action as Harry and Sam both jumped up from their seats and Ruby and Dean walked over to them.
Chapter Twelve
"Back room," Dean told them sharply, getting a nod from Sam and Harry. Sam calmly took Anna and led her to the room in the back that would hopefully be safe from whatever the hell it was that was coming for them.
"Where’s the knife?" Ruby asked them when Sam and Anna were out of the room. Dean glanced at Harry, and the two shuffled, trading silent orders, before turning back to Ruby.
"About that…" Dean said, looking sheepish and rubbing the back of his neck. Harry bit down on his lip to stop laughing when Ruby just looked disgusted.
"You're kidding!"
"Hey! Don't look at me!" Dean exclaimed, grinning when she turned her glare on to Harry.
"Cheers!"
"Great. Just peachy. Impeccable timing, guys, really," Ruby muttered, still glaring and making Harry want to throttle her with his bare hands.
"Really, why are you still here anyway? Shouldn't you be out biting heads of bats and roasting babies?" Harry asked, glaring at the demon when she just huffed. She didn't have time to answer however, before the door was flung open and Castiel walked in, followed by Ardifiel and Yebemiah.
"Please tell me you're here to help. We've been having demon issues all day," Dean told them, shoulders relaxing a little at the sight of the three angels. Harry however moved nearer to Dean and narrowed his eyes at Ardifiel when the angel refused to meet his stare.
"Ardy? Cas?"
"We're here for Anna," Cas told them instead of responding to what they'd actually said.
"Here for her like… Here for her,"
"You need to stop talking. Give her to us, Dean." Harry looked over to Yebemiah when the angel stepped forward. Harry couldn't help his rising suspicion over what was happening.
"Are you going to help her?" Harry asked, looking at Ardifiel for the answer and mentally demanding that he look at Harry when/if he answered.
"No. She has to die." Dean and Harry both gaped at Castiel when he spoke and Ruby snorted derisively, making the angels turn their attention to her. Hopefully they'd do Harry a favour and smite her.
"Oh yeah, these are the good guys," she muttered, not seemingly threatened at all, given all three of them had the power to obliterate her completely. Really, Harry was hoping she pissed them off enough to push them into that.
"You want Anna? Why?" Harry mentally groaned when he heard Sam's question, and spun around to face the moronic hunter who hadn't stayed in the back room where it was safe.
"She needs to be out of the way," Yebemiah told them tonelessly and Harry flinched at that.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, I know she's wiretapping your angel chats or whatever, but it's no reason to gank her!" Dean exclaimed, glancing to the side at Harry and sending him an incredulous look before looking back at the trio in front of them.
"You don't have to worry. She will feel no pain." When Ardifiel finally spoke, Harry could fully admit that it didn't exactly fill him with confidence at all.
"You're some heartless sons of bitches, you know that?" Dean spat, making Harry grab his wrist and pull him nearer to his side. He squeezed his hands tightly in an attempt to silently tell the hunter to shut up.
"As a matter of fact, we are. And?" Castiel asked, looking like he couldn’t quite understand what the problem was. Had the situation been any different, then Harry would have had to have laughed. Instead, he kind of just want to cry a little.
"And? Anna's an innocent girl!" Sam exclaimed, moving even closer to them and making Harry want to hit him for his stupidity.
"She is far from innocent," Castiel explained and Harry eyed him in confusion, glancing over to see that both Yebemiah and Ardifiel were standing behind him stiffly, looking as emotionless as statues. Harry could also sense the power coming from the two of them and it made his skin itch.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry spoke up before Sam could inevitably ask the same thing. At least Harry had less chance of being struck down than Sam did. Especially as Ardifiel still hadn't quite forgiven the man for what he's doing with Ruby.
"It means she's worse than this abomination he's been screwing. Now give us the girl!" Ardifiel demanded with a sneer at Sam that made Harry want to flinch, never mind how it made Sam feel.
"Sorry. Get yourself another one. Try JDate," Dean told them and Harry didn't even bother to hold back his groan at that.
"Who's going to stop us? You two? Or this demon whore?" Yebemiah asked them blandly, making Ruby bristle in anger but she didn't say anything. Harry wasn't sure if he should feel offended for whores all over the world or agree with Yebemiah's words. He didn't actually have time to decide though, as moments later, Yebemiah had sent Ruby crashing into a wall and Dean had tackled him to the ground.
"Fuck! Dean! Stop!" Harry cried out, moving to try and drag Dean away from Yebemiah and silently hoping that Heaven thought Dean too valuable to smite.
"Cas, stop… please!" Sam pleaded and Harry looked over to see that Sam was standing in the angel's way of the back room. Cursing, Harry left Dean to his own devices and rushed over to Sam just as Castiel placed two fingers on Sam's forehead and made him collapse.
"Castiel! No!" Harry cried out, grabbing the back of the angel's trenchcoat to get him away from Sam. Just as Harry had managed to get between Sam and Castiel, a bright light flashed through the room, making Harry hiss in pain and cover his eyes. When he opened them again, the three angels were gone.
"What the…" Dean asked, glancing over to where Ruby was slowly getting up from the floor and then back to Harry and Sam. "Sam?"
"I think he's fine. Cas just… I dunno, sent him to sleep…" Harry said, looking up at Dean and then glancing behind him to the room Anna was in. Anna stepped out, blood covering her arms and making Dean stare at her before running over to her.
"Shit! Anna! You okay?"
"Are they-are they gone?" Anna asked, looking at them then behind her. From his place next to Sam, Harry could see that there was a sigil on a mirror looking like they'd been painted in blood. Which explained Anna's arms.
"Did you kill them?" Dean asked her incredulously, looking away from the mirror to examine her arms.
"No. I sent them away… far away," Anna told him in that dream-like voice she had that really reminded Harry on Luna Lovegood.
"You want to tell me how?" Dean asked her, suspicion now clear in his voice. Anna shrugged and wiped her hands slowly on a rag that Dean handed her.
"That just popped in my head. I don't know how I did it. I just did it."
Later that night, Harry sat with Sam and Dean in the cabin, Anna having fallen asleep in the back room and Ruby off doing who knows what. Harry wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know and part of him really hoped she got herself killed whilst she was at it.
"So, what do you think?" Dean finally broke the silence that had descended over them, making Harry and Sam look over at him. Harry just shrugged in answer to his question, not really certain what to think.
"I think Anna's getting more interesting by the second," Sam said with a glance towards the door of the room Anna was sleeping in. Harry silently agreed with that.
"Yeah, I agree. And what did they mean by 'she's not innocent'?" Dean asked them. Harry shrugged once more, then decided that he should probably participate in the conversation a little more than with wordless body twitches.
"With angels, who bloody knows? I mean, if you read the Bible, it could be something as petty as her not having been Christened or Baptised. Though given who her parents were, that doesn't seem all that likely. Might be because of the whole being able to hear the angel's conversations."
"I think Harry might be right with that one. I mean, that blood spell - some serious crap," Sam said with a small shake of his head.
"Something's going on with her. Maybe you should see what you can find out. Harry, she seems to be most in awe with you, what with you being friends with the angel brigade. Maybe she'll tell you something more than she has already let on, and Sam, you could go do some computer mojo and see if you can find anything that way," Dean said, which just made Harry wrinkle his nose. He really didn't want anyone fawning over him. He'd had enough of that at Hogwarts to last him a lifetime.
"Fine… what are you going to do in the mean time?" Harry asked, really not sure he agreed that Anna would share all her worldly secrets with him. Especially given that he was apparently close with the angels in her mind.
Said angels that want to currently kill her.
"Anna may have sent the angels to the outfield, but, sooner or later, they're gonna be back. We got to get ourselves safe now."
20th November, 2008. Singer Scrapyard, SD
When Harry had wondered where Dean meant to go that would be safe from angels, because he didn't have any idea where they could have gone that either muggles could see or even enter and that he'd willing go to and not fear being killed. So of course, Bobby Singer's house was not the first place on his mental list.
Harry wasn't quite happy to even mentally admit that sometimes Dean was a genius with his ideas. Not all the time. But sometimes he had little moments of sheer genius that actually shocked Harry a little.
"Iron walls drenched in salt. Demons can't even touch the joint," Dean said as he walked around the small panic room, glancing at Anna as he did so. Harry just grinned a little and stayed where he was seated next to Anna when he caught sight of Ruby standing just at the entrance.
"Which I find racist, by the way," Ruby said, clearly not understanding that neither he nor Dean actually liked her, thus couldn't care less.
"Demon isn't a race. It's a plague. Or a disease. Or, in fact, an abomination. Whichever, I don't think many people are going to get up in arms if we discriminate against you. You could ask God for justice… but it'll probably just get you smote. Ooh! Go ask God!" Harry said excitedly, grinning widely when Dean gave a startled bark of laughter and even Anna gave a small giggle that she tried to cover with a cough. Ruby just glared at him then turned her attention back to dean.
"Here." Dean caught whatever it was she threw at him, something that made Harry's skin crawl and want to get as far away from it as possible.
"Hex bags?"
"Extra-crunchy. They'll hide us from angels, demons, all comers," Ruby explained, and Harry still just wanted to burn them in order to get rid of them. Plus, he liked some of the angels. Sure there were one or two that were complete dicks, but most of the ones Harry had met he liked. So he wasn't too sure he wanted to hide from them completely.
Plus, though he wasn't going to admit it out loud, Harry was a little worried about the angels. He had no idea what the blood magic Anna had pulled had done to them and he really didn't want them to be hurt. Sure he didn't agree with what they were trying to do to Anna, but he didn't want to hurt them for it.
"Thanks, Ruby," Dean said, looking as shocked as Ruby did at his thanks. He then just shook his head and turned to face Anna, handing one of the hex bags to her. "Don’t' lose this. So, Anna, what's playing angel radio? Anything?"
"It's quiet. Dead silence," Anna told them, which really didn't make Harry feel any better about what had happened to the angels. He wondered if Dean was just as concerned about Castiel, though he admitted that Dean wasn't really as close to the angels as Harry had been.
"Good. That's not troubling at all," Dean muttered with a frown on his face, Harry glanced at him and caught Dean's eye, the look he received telling him that Dean was a little worried about the angels as well.
"We're in trouble, huh? You guys are scared?" Anna asked, looking from Dean to Harry. Harry just sighed and decided he should be the one to reassure her at least, considering he was currently the one that had spent the most time talking to her and letting her mourn her parents as much as she could in the current situation.
"Nah, we'll be fine. We've been in worse mixes than this and came out golden. We just need to shufty about to find some things out and work out what we can do," Harry said with a grin, which faded a little when Anna just looked at him blankly.
"I… I don’t know what you just said."
"Yeah, most of the time we're pretty sure he's speaking English, but we can never be quite sure. He seems to make words up."
"Oi! We made the bloody language, you ignorant little gobshite! Not my fault you're so uneducated that you can't speak the Queen's English!" Harry snapped, huffing a little and crossing his arms over his chest.
"Er…" Dean looked like he was about to possibly try to defend himself, but was interrupted before he could by Sam shouting from upstairs. Which really, given Ruby was there, Harry figured was likely to happen soon enough.
"Guys! Come on!" Sam yelled, a little closer this time, clearly not having any patience in the least and was fed up with waiting for Harry and Dean. Clearly he didn't accept physical impossibility of getting from one place to the other in a matter of seconds - Harry was never telling him of apparating. In face, Harry blamed that little bit of impatience on the angels. Clearly Sam had been spoilt.
It was the only explanation for Sam being impatient with Dean and Harry only seconds after he'd actually shouted for them.
"Just stay in here, yeah? You're safe in here," Harry lied to Anna. Well, technically she was safe from demons in there, but who knew if the panic room kept angels out. Harry doubted it.
Getting a nod and a smile from Anna, Harry smiled back at her and then followed Dean out of the panic room - Dean having spoken to Ruby whilst Harry was telling Anna to stay there apparently - and they headed for where Sam was.
"How's the car?" Dean asked as soon as they entered the dining room where Sam was looking through books and papers. Sam just looked up at them and grinned.
"I got her. She's fine. Where's Bobby?" Sam asked them, which was actually something Harry wouldn't have minded knowing. He had been too busy letting Anna cry over her parents on his shoulder when Dean had contacted Bobby to actually overhear where he was.
"Uh, the Dominican. He said we break anything, we buy it," Dean told them, grinning at Harry when he snorted in amusement.
"He's working a job?"
"God, I hope so. Otherwise he's at Hedonism in a banana hammock and a trucker cap," Dean said with an exaggerated shudder which was mirrored by Sam.
"Now that's seared in my brain."
"Hey! Come on now. Bobby ain't that bad looking. I've slept with way worse. And do you really think he'd still be wearing his cap when only wearing a pair of budgie smugglers? I figured he'd have better fashion taste than that," Harry said with a frown and a shrug. He liked Bobby, well as much as he knew of the man, which admittedly wasn't all that much. Given the horrified looks on the Winchesters faces, they didn't quite agree with him on his opinions of Bobby.
"Dude! He's like our father! Don't be making those images even worse! Gah! Now I'm thinking of him hiring hookers! Come on!!" Dean whined, rubbing his fists in his eyes as though t physically erase the images. A glance at Sam let Harry know that the younger brother had clearly been broken.
"What? I'm just saying, give the man a bit more credit. And! If he is on a job, then how come we never get jobs in nice, sunny places with scantily clad people walking around?" Harry asked, feeling it was quite a valid point.
"Dean doesn't like flying. Can we get back on track, please?" Sam asked, well whined. Harry definitely heard a tone of whining in there.
"All right. What did you find on Anna?" Dean asked, visibly thankful for a change in subject.
"Uh, not much. Her parents were, uh, Rich and Amy Milton - a church deacon and a housewife. I don't know what Harry might have found out from Anna herself, anything?"
"Not much, not really. She was understandably more upset over her parents. Sorry, I don't think she knows what's going on anymore than we do," Harry told them with a shrug.
"Ah, well, there was something I found in the report. See, it turns out that this latest psych episode wasn't her first," Sam told them, and Harry wondered if there was a reason that Anna hadn't mentioned it to him.
"No?"
"When she was two and a half, she'd get hysterical any time her dad got close. She was convinced that he wasn't her real dad," Sam told them grimly, and Harry got the answer to his unasked question. Anna was probably too young to even remember the incident.
"Who was? The plumber, hmm? A little snake in the pipes?" Dean asked with a grin, making a wiggling motion with his hand that completely confused Harry.
"Dude, you're confusing reality with porn again. Look, Anna didn't say. She just kept repeating that this real father of hers was mad. Very mad - like wanted-to-kill-her mad."
"Hang on, one, what the hell kind of porn do you watch? And two, a two year old thinks her dad is going to kill her? What did her parents do about that?" Harry asked, frowning and hoping that Anna hadn't been neglected by her parents, though given she was actually genuinely upset about their deaths, Harry didn't think she had been.
"Well, she saw a kid's shrink, got better, and grew up normal."
"Normal? What the hell is normal? And do we really think talking to shrink made everything magically better again? This all seems a little weird to me."
"Maybe she just blocked it. She was pretty young. Well, until now, at least. So what's she hiding?"
"She might not even know she is hiding something," Harry pointed out and then yelped and knocked over a pile of books on the table by banging into them when Anna spoke up behind them.
Harry scrambled to stop the rest of the books from joining the first couple on the floor, looking up at Anna as she snapped at them.
"Why don’t you just ask me to my face?"
"Jeeze! Give me a bit of warning! Hello! I have a weak heart! You sure you're not related to those damned angels? They're pretty damned good at sneaking up on us too! What, are you just trying to kill me off naturally? You're a total dick! Gah!" Harry yelled, looking up at the ceiling and thus not seeing the amused looks of the Winchesters and the startled looks from Anna and even Ruby look a little lost.
"Er… who is he talking to?" Ruby asked, dragging Harry's attention back from his one-sided conversation.
"God. He's a twat. Anna! What happened to staying safe in the panic rom?" Harry asked Anna, who just stared at him like he'd grown another head. Clearly she hadn't seen anyone telling God off before.
"Yeah, and nice job watching her, Ruby," Dean snapped, which just earned him a glare from Ruby.
"I'm watching her."
"No, you're right, Anna. Is there anything you want to tell us?" Sam asked, clearly deciding to head off the argument before it could start. Which, given they were on a bit of a time limit, was wise.
"About what?"
"The angels said you were guilty of something. Why would they say that?" Sam asked her and even Harry would like to know the answer to that one.
Sadly, Anna would have liked to know as well. "You tell me. Tell me why my life has been levelled… why my parents are dead. I don't know. I swear. I would give anything to know!"
"Okay, then let's find out," Sam told her with a firm nod, making Harry wonder just what was going on in his freakishly overly coiffed head.
"How?" Anna asked the question Harry was thinking, though there was a dodgy feeling in his stomach telling him that he really didn't want to find out.
He was right. An hour or so later, Dean had come back with the person who could help them get some answers from Anna. Someone Harry had honestly hoped to never meet up with ever again. Someone that actually made Harry feel guilty over something he had no control over for the first time since he'd turned his back on the wizarding world.
"We're here!" Dean called out as he led the psychic, Pamela, down the stairs and into the basement. They had decided that it might be safer to go through with it in the panic room. A decision that pissed Ruby off, yet amused Harry to no end.
"Pamela, hey!" Sam said, walking over to greet Pamela and sounding just as awkward as ever. Harry decided to just stay quiet where he was standing next to Anna.
"Sam?"
"It's me. It's Sam," Sam told her, rather redundantly if you asked Harry. She was blind, not dense. Harry was pretty sure she knew exactly who was in the room with her.
"Sam?" Pamela said a little louder, walking slowly towards where Sam was standing. Harry watched them with a bemused smile on his face, not quite sure what Pamela was up to, though he would place a bet on it being amusing.
"Yeah."
"Sam, is that you?"
"I'm right here."
"Oh, I know. Know how I can tell?" Pamela asked just as she reached round and grabbed Sam's ass, making Sam jump and Harry chuckle quietly. "That perky little ass of yours. You could bounce a nickel off that thing. Of course I know it's you, grumpy. Same way I know that's a demon, and that poor girl's Anna and that you've been eyeing my rack."
"Uh… Wait." Sam stammered, then frowned and Harry could practically see his mentally counting who Pamela had mentioned. "How many people are in the room, Pamela?"
"What kind of question is that? There's five, including me. I still got more sense than most, Kiddo."
"Yeah… only there's six in the room, not five," Dean said, clearly catching on to what Sam already had and what Harry had fervently hoped wouldn't be brought up. Honestly, he'd forgotten that there may be an issue here with what Ardifiel had done to him.
"Six? Who else is here?" Pamela asked, actually sounding a little unsure of herself for once, now that she realised she couldn't sense everything.
"Ah, hey, Pamela," Harry spoke up, stepping away from Anna and redundantly giving a little wave of his hand. Redundant because Pamela couldn’t exactly see it now, could she?
"Harry? Huh. Didn't sense you when I first met you either. How come?" Pamela asked, warily looking towards where Harry was standing.
"Ah. See, I'd completely forgotten about that. Sorry. Ardifiel, my uh… angel handler person, he kind of made it so that no one could sense or find me through scrying and such. Demon, psychic, what have you. Though, seeing as Ardifiel and the angels haven't really had an issue in finding me, I'm guessing it doesn't work for them. I really had forgotten about it though. Sorry," Harry added a little feebly, not too sure what else he could say and hoping that this didn't work against him and make Sam and Dean stop trusting him.
"Nah, don't worry about it. Hey, Anna. How are you? I'm Pamela, in case you hadn't guessed," Pamela added with a grin as she looked towards where she clearly sensed Anna was standing.
"Hi."
"Dean told me what's been going on. I'm excited to help!" Pamela told her, actually sounding excited about it as well and making harry seriously wonder about her mental health.
"Oh. That's nice of you," Anna said, though not actually sounding too sure about that.
"Oh, well, not really. Any chance I can dick over an angel, I'm taking it," Pamela told her. Harry just wondered if he was the only one who thought 'dicking over an angel' sounded like something he'd normally charge for.
"Why?"
"They stole something from me," Pamela told her, taking off her glasses and revealing white eyes that made Harry flinch away, guilt over being partially to blame for that just growing. "Demon-y, I know. But they're just plastic. Good for business. Makes me look extra-psychic, don't you think? Now… how about you tell me what you deal is? Hmm? Don't you worry."
They'd moved into the panic room once all the introductions had been finished with, leaving Ruby trapped outside, which made Harry feel a little more comfortable. Once inside, they had shut the door and Anna had laid down on the bed in the room, with Pamela sitting on a chair next to her.
Harry wasn't too sure he was in total agreement with doing this. He had lived his life by the rule of letting some things go undiscovered. Though if looking into Anna's past could help them survive this, then Harry wasn't going to stop them.
"Nice and relaxed. Now, I'm going to count down from five to zero. When we're at zero, you'll be in a deep state of hypnosis. As I count down, just go deeper and deeper, okay? Five, four, three, two, one. Deep sleep. Deep sleep. Every muscle calm and relaxed." Harry hoped every muscle wasn't too calm and relaxed. It'd be just their luck if Anna's heart just gave up on her.
"I can hear you," Anna told her in a calm, dreamy voice. One that made the hairs on the back of Harry's neck rise for some reason, and made Harry shuffled nearer to where Sam and Dean were standing.
"Now, Anna, tell me… How can you hear the angels? How did you work that spell?"
"I don't know. I just did," Anna said in her dreamy, spaced voice. Harry really hoped this didn't go on for too long because it was really creeping him out.
"Your father… What's his name?"
"Rich Milton," Anna told her and Harry rolled his eyes. They really were going to be there all night if Pamela didn't word her questions a little less ambiguously.
"All right. But I want you to look further back… when you were very young… Just a couple of years old."
"I don't want to," Anna said stubbornly, sounding like the young child they were hoping her to remember being. Though Harry hadn't banked on her actually regressing to sound like that.
"It'll be okay. Anna, just one look - that's all we need," Pamela told her calmly, voice soothing and gentle even to Harry.
"No."
"What's your dad's name? Your real dad. Why is he angry at you?" Pamela asked, sounding a little more firm as though to let Anna know they needed to know the answer.
"No. No! No!" Harry jumped as Anna began to scream and thrash about on the bed. "No!"
"Calm down!" Harry took a step closer to Anna but was stopped by Sam, who just silently shook his head and went back to watching Anna continue to fight with whatever memories she didn't want dredging up.
"He's gonna kill me!" Harry felt a tingle of fear go down his spine at Anna screamed plea and glanced over at Sam and Dean to see what they should do. In his opinion, he felt they needed to stop it.
"Anna, you're safe."
"Maybe we should stop this."
"No!" Anna screamed and suddenly the lights exploded and glass shattered around the room. Harry ducked to try and avoid getting hit by any shards of glass and shook off Sam's hand to move over to Harry.
"Calm down."
"Stop this!"
"He's gonna kill me!"
"It's all right, Anna."
"Pamela, wake her up!" Harry pleaded, noticing Dean walking towards Anna as well, concern clear on his face.
"It's all right, Anna."
"Anna?" Dean asked as he reached out, just before he touched her, he was sent flying across the room.
"Wake her up now!" Harry shouted at Pamela, whilst Sam ran over to Dean to make sure he was okay. Pamela glanced towards him and then nodded.
"Okay. Wake in one, two three, four, five. Anna… Anna? You all right?"
"Thank you, Pamela. That helps a lot. I remember now," Anna told them in a serene voice considering she'd just been screaming blue bloody murder seconds before.
"Remember what?"
"Who I am." Harry felt an almost overwhelming feeling of foreboding on what the answer to who Anna was would be. He just knew the answer was going to bite them in the ass.
"I'll bite. Who are you?" Dean asked, looking just as confused and wary as Harry felt.
"I'm an angel." Yeah, Harry knew that one day he was going to listen to the warning feelings his subconscious was giving to him and just run the fuck away. Hopefully before his wilful ignorance got him killed.
It was decided, after Anna had dropped the bomb, so to speak, that they all went upstairs to Bobby's library, where there were more seats for one and they could try to think up a plan in comfort. Which Harry was down with, though he also wished there hadn't been a need for a plan in the first place.
"Don't be afraid, I'm not like the others," Anna told them once they had all moved into the library, which far from made them feel any better. For Harry, it was mostly because he liked most of the other angels he'd met.
"I don't find that very reassuring," Ruby muttered and Harry bit his tongue to stop himself from either agreeing with her out loud or asking why the hell she was still lingering around like a bad smell.
"Neither do I," Pamela stated, saving Harry to trouble of having to verbally agree with the demon that was making his life more and more stressful the longer she existed.
"So… Castiel - he was the one that came for me?" Anna asked, making Harry gape at her for seemingly ignoring the two angels Harry felt no one should ignore. Not if they wanted to continue to survive.
"Yeah, and Ardifiel and Yebemiah. Do you know them?" Dean asked, and it was clear to Harry at least, that Dean also wondered why Anna hadn't mentioned them.
"Ardifiel and Yebemiah as well? Castiel and I were… well, we were in the same foxhole. Ardifiel and Yebemiah had nothing to do with me however," Anna admitted with a shrug.
"So, what, Cas was like your boss or something?" Sam asked curiously, that incessant need to ask questions rearing it's ugly head again and making Harry want to smack the urge out of him. Or fuck it out of him. Depending on his mood.
Given Ruby was in the room, his mood was currently swaying towards smacking him.
"Try the other way round." Anna told Sam, and Harry narrowed his eyes at her and stepped closer to her.
"But not Ardifiel and Yebemiah. Sure, you're higher up than Castiel, but you're not higher in rank than Yebemiah or Ardifiel," Harry pointed out, which Anna just nodded her head in agreement in that.
"And now they want to kill you?" Pamela asked, sounding confused by the entire conversation, Harry didn't blame her. He was pretty confused as well, and barring Anna, Harry probably knew the most about the goings on in heaven than anyone else in the room.
"Orders are orders. I'm sure I have a death sentence on my head."
"Why?" Pamela asked, and even Harry wanted to know the answer to that question.
"I disobeyed… which for us, is about the worst thing you can do. I fell."
"Meaning?"
"She fell to earth, became human," Pamela said, sounding both like she already knew the answer and yet was also guessing.
"Wait a minute. I don't understand. So, angels can just become human?" Sam asked, sounding like someone had just shattered all his beliefs in one go. Considering what he did, that would be quite the feat.
"It kind of hurts. Try cutting you kidney out with a butter knife. That kind of hurt. I ripped out my grace." Harry winced when Anna described what she had had to do in order to become human, recalling Ardifiel telling him once about his grace.
"Come again?" Clearly Dean and Castiel hadn't had a similar conversation.
"She ripped out her grace. Ardifiel once told me that a grace is what makes an angel what they are. It gives them purpose, connects them to heaven, God and the other angels. It's part of them and I can't even imagine how much it must have hurt you to rip it out," Harry said with a wince, glancing at Anna with a small amount of sympathy. Though he also sort of wanted to know what it was she had done in order to get thrown out of heaven in the first place.
"So… you ripped it out and just forgot that you were God's little Power ranger?" Dean asked, sounding like he wasn't entirely sure he believed her.
"The older I got, the longer I was human, yeah."
"I don't think you all appreciate how completely screwed we are," Ruby spoke up, giving an unpleasant reminder that she was still in the room.
"Oh gods, are you still here? Why don't you just run off and hide, like a good little demon?" Harry asked her, fervently hoping she took him up on the offer. Or she pushed him so far that he had no other choice but to kill her. Well, in Sam's eyes. Harry felt her mere presence was reason enough to kill her.
"No. Ruby's right. Heaven wants me dead."
"And Hell just wants her. A flesh-and-blood angel that you can question, torture, that bleeds. Sister, you're the Stanley Cup. And sooner or later, Heaven or Hell, they're gonna find you."
"I know. That's why I'm gonna get it back," Anna said, making everyone in the room turn to face her, wondering just what the hell she was talking about.
"What?"
"My grace."
"You can do that?" Dean asked her, looking like he didn't believe her in the least.
"If I can find it."
"So, what, you're just gonna take some divine bong hit, and shazam, you're Roma Downey?" Harry stared at Dean, wondering how the man had the spectacular ability to sum up the most complex of things into the most banal sentence. He also really wanted to know who Roma Downey was.
"Something like that," Anna said, clearly knowing who Roma Downey was, unless she was deliberately being vague in her answer because she, like Harry, had no idea what Dean was talking about.
"All right. I like this plan. So, where's this grace of yours?"
"I lost track. I was falling about ten thousand miles per hour at the time," Anna told them, all she needed was a shrug and she'd have completed the blasé attitude she was treating them to.
"Wait. You mean falling, like, literally?" Maybe Harry could punch the incessant need to ask pointless bloody questions all the time out of Sam.
"Yes."
"Like the way a human eye can see? Like a comet, maybe, or a meteor?" Sam asked her, sounding more and more excited as he went on, which made Harry look at him like he'd lost his mind.
"Why do you ask?"
"I think I might be able to find out where it is," Sam told her and then quickly hurried out of the room before anyone else could question him.
"Dean, you're brother is a freak," Harry pointed out, still staring at where Sam had been.
"I hear ya." Harry grinned at Dean, and then scowled when he noticed Ruby slipping out of the room to follow behind Sam.
"God, I hate her."
"Hear ya on that as well. You have any clue on what to do to kill her?" Dean asked him, moving to stand next to him and lowering his voice. Harry looked over to where Anna and Pamela were talking about something quietly, then turned back to Dean and shrugged.
"No idea. Frankly, it's terrifying me. It's like there's a giant clock ticking away my doom above my head and I've got no way of stopping it. I really hate having a death sentence," Harry muttered, getting a dry chuckle from Dean and in a surprising moment, Dean placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly.
"You'll be fine. Ardifiel and Castiel won't let you go to Hell, you know that."
"Are you worried about them? Because, I'll admit, I'm a little worried about them. We have no idea what happened to them when Anna did her little blood spell," Harry whispered, glancing over at Anna quickly before looking back at Dean.
"A little. I mean, I'm not as close to them as you are, but Cas and Ardy… they grow on you, man."
"I know what you mean. So, when all this is with Anna is over, you think you're ready to start being my pimp? Because let me tell you, I really need to let off some steam."
"Er... yeah. Are you really sure about that though? I mean, we'd be fine carrying on with credit card scams and hustling people. You don't have to go back to what you did in order to get money. You have a choice this time, you know that, yeah?" Dean told him, not moving his hand from Harry's shoulder and looking at him in concern.
Harry just smiled at him and nodded his head, "I know. It's fine, Dean. I get that no one really believes me when I say it, but I really did enjoy my job. Sure, I moaned about it, but I'm English! We like a good moan. If there's nothing to moan about, then we moan about shit that is actually fine. Or the weather," Harry added as an after thought, not letting on to Dean that Harry didn't actually have a choice in the matter this time either. He wasn't lying about enjoying his job though. All jobs had shitty sides to them, and his was no exception, but the good far outweighed the bad. Well in his eyes at least.
"Well, if you're sure, then yeah. I'm ready to be your pimp. And at least this way me and Sam know where you are and that you're relatively safe," Dean admitted with a wry grin, which just made Harry chuckle and shake his head.
"Of course, all of this is completely moot, if the angels are either dead, which I really hope not, or vying for our deaths, given they're the ones that'll play taxi for me. God, I hope they're okay and they don't hate us," Harry muttered, only getting a slight squeeze to his shoulder as a response from Dean.
"Hey, Dean, think you could take me home now? You don't really need me anymore, and I'll be honest, I'd be much more comfortable no longer involved in this," Pamela admitted with a sheepish grin.
"Sure thing, Pamela."
"Pamela?" Harry called out tentatively, not really sure he wanted to say what he was going to, but knowing that he needed to.
"Harry? What's up?" Pamela asked, turning to face where Harry was.
"I just… I wanted to say I was sorry. About, well, about the first time we met, you know? I should have tried harder to stop it," Harry admitted with a grimace, not really liking admitting it, but knowing it was true.
"How? You were in a tricky position, Harry. I've never blamed you for what happened. You wouldn't have been able to stop it without putting yourself in danger, so really, you have nothing to be sorry for."
"Maybe, but I still could have tried harder."
"Maybe. But I could have listened to you when you first said don't do it. I could have listened to Castiel when he warned me to stop prying. Could have, would have, should have. No one's at fault, Harry, least of all you," Pamela told him with a small smile. Harry just sighed and nodded, before he realised she couldn't actually see that.
"Yeah, okay. I'm still sorry, but I accept what you're saying. Stay safe, yeah? It was nice meeting you again, shame it couldn't be under better circumstances," Harry told her with a weak chuckle.
"Hey, next time we meet up, you can tell me how to make Sam less grumpy. Maybe give me a couple of tips. We can share stories!" Pamela told him with a wicker grin, cackling when Dean made a noise of protest.
"Dude! No way! Do not share any stories about my brother when I'm around! Come on, let's get you home before you decide you can't wait to hear them and stick around," Dean told her, gently ushering Pamela towards the front door.
"Aw, don't you turn into Grumpy."
"Maybe you could try and get the grumpy out of Dean on the way home," Harry suggested, laughing when Dean just stuck his finger up at him and then hustled Pamela out of the door before she could reply.
Harry chuckled quietly and shook his head as he heard Dean bitching at Pamela as they walked to the car, then he glanced at Anna sitting on the sofa and decided to join her and see if she had anything interesting to say.
"Can I ask you something?" Harry asked tentatively as he took a seat next to her on the sofa. Anna just smiled at him and nodded.
"Sure, ask away. Though I make no promise to answer, if I can, I will, but there are some questions I just don't know the answer too," Anna admitted with a small shrug.
"Ah, well, I'm not going to be asking the meaning of life or anything like that. I don't actually think I'd want to know. I just wanted to know… Why would you fall? Why would you want to be one of us?"
"You don't mean that."
"I don't? A bunch of - of miserable wankers. Eating, crapping, confused, lecherous, unfaithful, guilt-ridden, scared bastards," Harry said, listing off the worst of what he had seen in his job.
"I don't know. There's loyalty… forgiveness… love," Anna added with a smile, making Harry grimace. He'd never believed in love. Not in the way movies tried to sell it as. Love was pain, just wrapped in a nicer wrapping paper.
"Pain."
"Chocolate cake."
"Guilt."
"Sex." Harry opened his mouth to counter her and then paused and closed his mouth once more with a sigh. He gave her a grin and shook his head.
"Okay, you got me there. Sex is good. Though I have it on good authority that angels can have sex," Harry told her with a grin, getting a questioning look from Anna for that.
"I mean it. Every emotion, Harry, even the bad ones… it's why I fell. It's why… why I'd give anything not to have to go back. Anything."
"Feelings are overrated, if you ask me."
"Beats being an angel."
"How's that possible? You guys are powerful and perfect. You don't doubt yourselves or God or anything! Humans are made of doubt. Ask any human and I think most would willingly admit they wished they were something or someone else."
"Perfect… like a marble statue. Cold… no choice… only obedience. Harry, do you know how many angels have actually seen God? Seen his face?"
"Seen his face? Five. Maybe four. Ardifiel told me that he only took orders from God, but that he hadn't actually seen God. And that the lower down in rank you are, the more diluted the order gets. Or something like that. But Ardy told me that you know it's God telling you what you need to do. That your faith is just so intense and strong, that you just know what it is you're needed to do sometimes," Harry said, with a slight hint of awe in his voice as he thought back on conversations he'd had with Ardifiel about God and Heaven.
"Huh, Ardifiel really likes you. He's told you a lot about Heaven. But still, he's one down from an archangel. If that. He's more to the side seeing as even the archangels can't actually tell him what to do. It's easy to have faith when you're that close to God. I was… I was far lower down than him. And eventually, after millennia stationed on earth, just watching and wanting to go back home. Waiting for orders from an unknowable father… it got hard to keep my faith. And up there? We're killed if we don't have faith."
"So you just lost faith? That's why you fell? That sucks. I can kind of see your problem then. I mean, if I lose faith, chances are I'm gonna be struck down into Hell. I mean, my faith got me into this mess to begin with. Faith kinda sucks sometimes, don't it?"
"You see what I mean then?" Anna asked him, looking like she was actually relieved that Harry could see where she was coming from.
"Yeah, I see what you mean. Anna? If you had the choice, are you saying you wouldn't want to be an angel?"
"Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But I don't have a choice."
"Well, you could die," Harry pointed out, then winced when Anna gaped at him. "Wait, that didn't come out right. I just meant, that you have a choice. It's just a shitty choice. I mean, it's basically, live and be an angel once more or die a human."
"Put that way, I guess I can accept being an angel. Harry, why do you still have your faith?"
"I don't know… I was raised in a barely religious house, but the belief that God had his ways and everything was for a reason was still there. And when I turned to Him for help, He actually did give it to me. I understand that there are billions of humans in this world, and it would just be petty and selfish to expect God to single me out. When He does, it stuns me and humbles me a little. Yeah, He's a complete bastard at times, but I don't think He's ever claimed to be otherwise. Humanity's mess is humanity's mess. We can't expect God to step in and clean it up for us. I guess my faith has actually grown since being thrown into all this," harry admitted with a shrug.
"How? I mean, I don't know you, but what I've heard about you, your life hasn't been pleasant. And then you're dragged into a situation that either ends with your death, your damnation or you going back to London alone. How can you have faith in a being that caused that?"
"I think it'd be foolish and pompous of me to think that God singled me out for all of this pain and loneliness. I'm human, humans were gifted with free will. Everything that I've done in my life was down to free will. God had nothing to do with it until the very end. And even then, I have faith that He believes I can succeed. Because if I don't have that faith, then what do I have?" Harry asked, feeling a little hollow when it was all narrowed down to that pivotal question. What did he have? Not a lot.
"You have faith because it's what keeps you going?"
"Pretty much. Faith is what keeps many people going. Sometimes it's all we have, and sometimes it's all we need."
"Huh. You know, you've actually made it easier for me to accept going back to being an angel. Thank you, Harry," Anna said with a smile.
"No problem! Think we can change the subject now because it's getting a little too heavy and depressing for me," Harry said with a grin, which widened when Anna just nodded.
"Think Dean will be back from dropping Pamela off soon?"
"No idea. He should be unless Pamela decided to take me up on my suggestion and try to make him a little less grumpy. Then who knows when he'll be back," Harry said with a wicked grin, chuckling when they heard the engine of the Impala second later.
"I guess she didn't follow your suggestion, huh?"
"Well, at least that means Dean isn't scarred for life, I suppose." Anna laughed at that, which made Harry grin and Dean look at them in confusion as he'd just walked in the door.
"What? What's so amusing?" Dean asked, looking down at himself. For what, Harry had no idea. Sadly it just made Anna laugh even more and Harry to duck to hide his own chuckles. "No, really, what?"
"Dean?" Thankfully, Anna and Harry were saved from answering by Sam walking in the room, shooting Harry and Anna a confused look before turning back to Dean.
"Hey, you find something?" Dean asked him, moving to lean on the back of the sofa that Harry and Anna were sitting on.
"I think so."
"So?' Harry asked when it actually looked like Sam wasn’t going to answer. He took a second to throw a glare at Ruby standing behind Sam before turning his attention back to Sam.
"Oh, yeah, Union, Kentucky. Found some accounts of a local miracle."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. In eighty-five, there was an empty field outside of town. Six months later, there was a full-grown oak. They say it looks a century old at least."
"Anna, what do you think?" Harry asked, not too sure what he was asking nor what the answer would be. Judging by the small smile Anna gave him, she knew exactly what he was thinking.
"The grace. Where it hit, it could have done something like that, easy," Anna admitted.
"So grace ground zero - it's not destruction. It's…" Dean trailed off, clearly not sure what it could be seen as. Thankfully Anna helped him with the answer to that, as clichéd as her answer was.
"Pure creation."
Continue
Previously: "Why is this happening to me?" Anna asked them sadly and Harry just shrugged.
"I don't know," Sam told her sadly, placing a soothing hand on her shoulder, only for Anna to freeze and glance at the door fearfully.
"They're coming," she whispered, making everyone burst into action as Harry and Sam both jumped up from their seats and Ruby and Dean walked over to them.
Chapter Twelve
"Back room," Dean told them sharply, getting a nod from Sam and Harry. Sam calmly took Anna and led her to the room in the back that would hopefully be safe from whatever the hell it was that was coming for them.
"Where’s the knife?" Ruby asked them when Sam and Anna were out of the room. Dean glanced at Harry, and the two shuffled, trading silent orders, before turning back to Ruby.
"About that…" Dean said, looking sheepish and rubbing the back of his neck. Harry bit down on his lip to stop laughing when Ruby just looked disgusted.
"You're kidding!"
"Hey! Don't look at me!" Dean exclaimed, grinning when she turned her glare on to Harry.
"Cheers!"
"Great. Just peachy. Impeccable timing, guys, really," Ruby muttered, still glaring and making Harry want to throttle her with his bare hands.
"Really, why are you still here anyway? Shouldn't you be out biting heads of bats and roasting babies?" Harry asked, glaring at the demon when she just huffed. She didn't have time to answer however, before the door was flung open and Castiel walked in, followed by Ardifiel and Yebemiah.
"Please tell me you're here to help. We've been having demon issues all day," Dean told them, shoulders relaxing a little at the sight of the three angels. Harry however moved nearer to Dean and narrowed his eyes at Ardifiel when the angel refused to meet his stare.
"Ardy? Cas?"
"We're here for Anna," Cas told them instead of responding to what they'd actually said.
"Here for her like… Here for her,"
"You need to stop talking. Give her to us, Dean." Harry looked over to Yebemiah when the angel stepped forward. Harry couldn't help his rising suspicion over what was happening.
"Are you going to help her?" Harry asked, looking at Ardifiel for the answer and mentally demanding that he look at Harry when/if he answered.
"No. She has to die." Dean and Harry both gaped at Castiel when he spoke and Ruby snorted derisively, making the angels turn their attention to her. Hopefully they'd do Harry a favour and smite her.
"Oh yeah, these are the good guys," she muttered, not seemingly threatened at all, given all three of them had the power to obliterate her completely. Really, Harry was hoping she pissed them off enough to push them into that.
"You want Anna? Why?" Harry mentally groaned when he heard Sam's question, and spun around to face the moronic hunter who hadn't stayed in the back room where it was safe.
"She needs to be out of the way," Yebemiah told them tonelessly and Harry flinched at that.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, I know she's wiretapping your angel chats or whatever, but it's no reason to gank her!" Dean exclaimed, glancing to the side at Harry and sending him an incredulous look before looking back at the trio in front of them.
"You don't have to worry. She will feel no pain." When Ardifiel finally spoke, Harry could fully admit that it didn't exactly fill him with confidence at all.
"You're some heartless sons of bitches, you know that?" Dean spat, making Harry grab his wrist and pull him nearer to his side. He squeezed his hands tightly in an attempt to silently tell the hunter to shut up.
"As a matter of fact, we are. And?" Castiel asked, looking like he couldn’t quite understand what the problem was. Had the situation been any different, then Harry would have had to have laughed. Instead, he kind of just want to cry a little.
"And? Anna's an innocent girl!" Sam exclaimed, moving even closer to them and making Harry want to hit him for his stupidity.
"She is far from innocent," Castiel explained and Harry eyed him in confusion, glancing over to see that both Yebemiah and Ardifiel were standing behind him stiffly, looking as emotionless as statues. Harry could also sense the power coming from the two of them and it made his skin itch.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry spoke up before Sam could inevitably ask the same thing. At least Harry had less chance of being struck down than Sam did. Especially as Ardifiel still hadn't quite forgiven the man for what he's doing with Ruby.
"It means she's worse than this abomination he's been screwing. Now give us the girl!" Ardifiel demanded with a sneer at Sam that made Harry want to flinch, never mind how it made Sam feel.
"Sorry. Get yourself another one. Try JDate," Dean told them and Harry didn't even bother to hold back his groan at that.
"Who's going to stop us? You two? Or this demon whore?" Yebemiah asked them blandly, making Ruby bristle in anger but she didn't say anything. Harry wasn't sure if he should feel offended for whores all over the world or agree with Yebemiah's words. He didn't actually have time to decide though, as moments later, Yebemiah had sent Ruby crashing into a wall and Dean had tackled him to the ground.
"Fuck! Dean! Stop!" Harry cried out, moving to try and drag Dean away from Yebemiah and silently hoping that Heaven thought Dean too valuable to smite.
"Cas, stop… please!" Sam pleaded and Harry looked over to see that Sam was standing in the angel's way of the back room. Cursing, Harry left Dean to his own devices and rushed over to Sam just as Castiel placed two fingers on Sam's forehead and made him collapse.
"Castiel! No!" Harry cried out, grabbing the back of the angel's trenchcoat to get him away from Sam. Just as Harry had managed to get between Sam and Castiel, a bright light flashed through the room, making Harry hiss in pain and cover his eyes. When he opened them again, the three angels were gone.
"What the…" Dean asked, glancing over to where Ruby was slowly getting up from the floor and then back to Harry and Sam. "Sam?"
"I think he's fine. Cas just… I dunno, sent him to sleep…" Harry said, looking up at Dean and then glancing behind him to the room Anna was in. Anna stepped out, blood covering her arms and making Dean stare at her before running over to her.
"Shit! Anna! You okay?"
"Are they-are they gone?" Anna asked, looking at them then behind her. From his place next to Sam, Harry could see that there was a sigil on a mirror looking like they'd been painted in blood. Which explained Anna's arms.
"Did you kill them?" Dean asked her incredulously, looking away from the mirror to examine her arms.
"No. I sent them away… far away," Anna told him in that dream-like voice she had that really reminded Harry on Luna Lovegood.
"You want to tell me how?" Dean asked her, suspicion now clear in his voice. Anna shrugged and wiped her hands slowly on a rag that Dean handed her.
"That just popped in my head. I don't know how I did it. I just did it."
Later that night, Harry sat with Sam and Dean in the cabin, Anna having fallen asleep in the back room and Ruby off doing who knows what. Harry wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know and part of him really hoped she got herself killed whilst she was at it.
"So, what do you think?" Dean finally broke the silence that had descended over them, making Harry and Sam look over at him. Harry just shrugged in answer to his question, not really certain what to think.
"I think Anna's getting more interesting by the second," Sam said with a glance towards the door of the room Anna was sleeping in. Harry silently agreed with that.
"Yeah, I agree. And what did they mean by 'she's not innocent'?" Dean asked them. Harry shrugged once more, then decided that he should probably participate in the conversation a little more than with wordless body twitches.
"With angels, who bloody knows? I mean, if you read the Bible, it could be something as petty as her not having been Christened or Baptised. Though given who her parents were, that doesn't seem all that likely. Might be because of the whole being able to hear the angel's conversations."
"I think Harry might be right with that one. I mean, that blood spell - some serious crap," Sam said with a small shake of his head.
"Something's going on with her. Maybe you should see what you can find out. Harry, she seems to be most in awe with you, what with you being friends with the angel brigade. Maybe she'll tell you something more than she has already let on, and Sam, you could go do some computer mojo and see if you can find anything that way," Dean said, which just made Harry wrinkle his nose. He really didn't want anyone fawning over him. He'd had enough of that at Hogwarts to last him a lifetime.
"Fine… what are you going to do in the mean time?" Harry asked, really not sure he agreed that Anna would share all her worldly secrets with him. Especially given that he was apparently close with the angels in her mind.
Said angels that want to currently kill her.
"Anna may have sent the angels to the outfield, but, sooner or later, they're gonna be back. We got to get ourselves safe now."
20th November, 2008. Singer Scrapyard, SD
When Harry had wondered where Dean meant to go that would be safe from angels, because he didn't have any idea where they could have gone that either muggles could see or even enter and that he'd willing go to and not fear being killed. So of course, Bobby Singer's house was not the first place on his mental list.
Harry wasn't quite happy to even mentally admit that sometimes Dean was a genius with his ideas. Not all the time. But sometimes he had little moments of sheer genius that actually shocked Harry a little.
"Iron walls drenched in salt. Demons can't even touch the joint," Dean said as he walked around the small panic room, glancing at Anna as he did so. Harry just grinned a little and stayed where he was seated next to Anna when he caught sight of Ruby standing just at the entrance.
"Which I find racist, by the way," Ruby said, clearly not understanding that neither he nor Dean actually liked her, thus couldn't care less.
"Demon isn't a race. It's a plague. Or a disease. Or, in fact, an abomination. Whichever, I don't think many people are going to get up in arms if we discriminate against you. You could ask God for justice… but it'll probably just get you smote. Ooh! Go ask God!" Harry said excitedly, grinning widely when Dean gave a startled bark of laughter and even Anna gave a small giggle that she tried to cover with a cough. Ruby just glared at him then turned her attention back to dean.
"Here." Dean caught whatever it was she threw at him, something that made Harry's skin crawl and want to get as far away from it as possible.
"Hex bags?"
"Extra-crunchy. They'll hide us from angels, demons, all comers," Ruby explained, and Harry still just wanted to burn them in order to get rid of them. Plus, he liked some of the angels. Sure there were one or two that were complete dicks, but most of the ones Harry had met he liked. So he wasn't too sure he wanted to hide from them completely.
Plus, though he wasn't going to admit it out loud, Harry was a little worried about the angels. He had no idea what the blood magic Anna had pulled had done to them and he really didn't want them to be hurt. Sure he didn't agree with what they were trying to do to Anna, but he didn't want to hurt them for it.
"Thanks, Ruby," Dean said, looking as shocked as Ruby did at his thanks. He then just shook his head and turned to face Anna, handing one of the hex bags to her. "Don’t' lose this. So, Anna, what's playing angel radio? Anything?"
"It's quiet. Dead silence," Anna told them, which really didn't make Harry feel any better about what had happened to the angels. He wondered if Dean was just as concerned about Castiel, though he admitted that Dean wasn't really as close to the angels as Harry had been.
"Good. That's not troubling at all," Dean muttered with a frown on his face, Harry glanced at him and caught Dean's eye, the look he received telling him that Dean was a little worried about the angels as well.
"We're in trouble, huh? You guys are scared?" Anna asked, looking from Dean to Harry. Harry just sighed and decided he should be the one to reassure her at least, considering he was currently the one that had spent the most time talking to her and letting her mourn her parents as much as she could in the current situation.
"Nah, we'll be fine. We've been in worse mixes than this and came out golden. We just need to shufty about to find some things out and work out what we can do," Harry said with a grin, which faded a little when Anna just looked at him blankly.
"I… I don’t know what you just said."
"Yeah, most of the time we're pretty sure he's speaking English, but we can never be quite sure. He seems to make words up."
"Oi! We made the bloody language, you ignorant little gobshite! Not my fault you're so uneducated that you can't speak the Queen's English!" Harry snapped, huffing a little and crossing his arms over his chest.
"Er…" Dean looked like he was about to possibly try to defend himself, but was interrupted before he could by Sam shouting from upstairs. Which really, given Ruby was there, Harry figured was likely to happen soon enough.
"Guys! Come on!" Sam yelled, a little closer this time, clearly not having any patience in the least and was fed up with waiting for Harry and Dean. Clearly he didn't accept physical impossibility of getting from one place to the other in a matter of seconds - Harry was never telling him of apparating. In face, Harry blamed that little bit of impatience on the angels. Clearly Sam had been spoilt.
It was the only explanation for Sam being impatient with Dean and Harry only seconds after he'd actually shouted for them.
"Just stay in here, yeah? You're safe in here," Harry lied to Anna. Well, technically she was safe from demons in there, but who knew if the panic room kept angels out. Harry doubted it.
Getting a nod and a smile from Anna, Harry smiled back at her and then followed Dean out of the panic room - Dean having spoken to Ruby whilst Harry was telling Anna to stay there apparently - and they headed for where Sam was.
"How's the car?" Dean asked as soon as they entered the dining room where Sam was looking through books and papers. Sam just looked up at them and grinned.
"I got her. She's fine. Where's Bobby?" Sam asked them, which was actually something Harry wouldn't have minded knowing. He had been too busy letting Anna cry over her parents on his shoulder when Dean had contacted Bobby to actually overhear where he was.
"Uh, the Dominican. He said we break anything, we buy it," Dean told them, grinning at Harry when he snorted in amusement.
"He's working a job?"
"God, I hope so. Otherwise he's at Hedonism in a banana hammock and a trucker cap," Dean said with an exaggerated shudder which was mirrored by Sam.
"Now that's seared in my brain."
"Hey! Come on now. Bobby ain't that bad looking. I've slept with way worse. And do you really think he'd still be wearing his cap when only wearing a pair of budgie smugglers? I figured he'd have better fashion taste than that," Harry said with a frown and a shrug. He liked Bobby, well as much as he knew of the man, which admittedly wasn't all that much. Given the horrified looks on the Winchesters faces, they didn't quite agree with him on his opinions of Bobby.
"Dude! He's like our father! Don't be making those images even worse! Gah! Now I'm thinking of him hiring hookers! Come on!!" Dean whined, rubbing his fists in his eyes as though t physically erase the images. A glance at Sam let Harry know that the younger brother had clearly been broken.
"What? I'm just saying, give the man a bit more credit. And! If he is on a job, then how come we never get jobs in nice, sunny places with scantily clad people walking around?" Harry asked, feeling it was quite a valid point.
"Dean doesn't like flying. Can we get back on track, please?" Sam asked, well whined. Harry definitely heard a tone of whining in there.
"All right. What did you find on Anna?" Dean asked, visibly thankful for a change in subject.
"Uh, not much. Her parents were, uh, Rich and Amy Milton - a church deacon and a housewife. I don't know what Harry might have found out from Anna herself, anything?"
"Not much, not really. She was understandably more upset over her parents. Sorry, I don't think she knows what's going on anymore than we do," Harry told them with a shrug.
"Ah, well, there was something I found in the report. See, it turns out that this latest psych episode wasn't her first," Sam told them, and Harry wondered if there was a reason that Anna hadn't mentioned it to him.
"No?"
"When she was two and a half, she'd get hysterical any time her dad got close. She was convinced that he wasn't her real dad," Sam told them grimly, and Harry got the answer to his unasked question. Anna was probably too young to even remember the incident.
"Who was? The plumber, hmm? A little snake in the pipes?" Dean asked with a grin, making a wiggling motion with his hand that completely confused Harry.
"Dude, you're confusing reality with porn again. Look, Anna didn't say. She just kept repeating that this real father of hers was mad. Very mad - like wanted-to-kill-her mad."
"Hang on, one, what the hell kind of porn do you watch? And two, a two year old thinks her dad is going to kill her? What did her parents do about that?" Harry asked, frowning and hoping that Anna hadn't been neglected by her parents, though given she was actually genuinely upset about their deaths, Harry didn't think she had been.
"Well, she saw a kid's shrink, got better, and grew up normal."
"Normal? What the hell is normal? And do we really think talking to shrink made everything magically better again? This all seems a little weird to me."
"Maybe she just blocked it. She was pretty young. Well, until now, at least. So what's she hiding?"
"She might not even know she is hiding something," Harry pointed out and then yelped and knocked over a pile of books on the table by banging into them when Anna spoke up behind them.
Harry scrambled to stop the rest of the books from joining the first couple on the floor, looking up at Anna as she snapped at them.
"Why don’t you just ask me to my face?"
"Jeeze! Give me a bit of warning! Hello! I have a weak heart! You sure you're not related to those damned angels? They're pretty damned good at sneaking up on us too! What, are you just trying to kill me off naturally? You're a total dick! Gah!" Harry yelled, looking up at the ceiling and thus not seeing the amused looks of the Winchesters and the startled looks from Anna and even Ruby look a little lost.
"Er… who is he talking to?" Ruby asked, dragging Harry's attention back from his one-sided conversation.
"God. He's a twat. Anna! What happened to staying safe in the panic rom?" Harry asked Anna, who just stared at him like he'd grown another head. Clearly she hadn't seen anyone telling God off before.
"Yeah, and nice job watching her, Ruby," Dean snapped, which just earned him a glare from Ruby.
"I'm watching her."
"No, you're right, Anna. Is there anything you want to tell us?" Sam asked, clearly deciding to head off the argument before it could start. Which, given they were on a bit of a time limit, was wise.
"About what?"
"The angels said you were guilty of something. Why would they say that?" Sam asked her and even Harry would like to know the answer to that one.
Sadly, Anna would have liked to know as well. "You tell me. Tell me why my life has been levelled… why my parents are dead. I don't know. I swear. I would give anything to know!"
"Okay, then let's find out," Sam told her with a firm nod, making Harry wonder just what was going on in his freakishly overly coiffed head.
"How?" Anna asked the question Harry was thinking, though there was a dodgy feeling in his stomach telling him that he really didn't want to find out.
He was right. An hour or so later, Dean had come back with the person who could help them get some answers from Anna. Someone Harry had honestly hoped to never meet up with ever again. Someone that actually made Harry feel guilty over something he had no control over for the first time since he'd turned his back on the wizarding world.
"We're here!" Dean called out as he led the psychic, Pamela, down the stairs and into the basement. They had decided that it might be safer to go through with it in the panic room. A decision that pissed Ruby off, yet amused Harry to no end.
"Pamela, hey!" Sam said, walking over to greet Pamela and sounding just as awkward as ever. Harry decided to just stay quiet where he was standing next to Anna.
"Sam?"
"It's me. It's Sam," Sam told her, rather redundantly if you asked Harry. She was blind, not dense. Harry was pretty sure she knew exactly who was in the room with her.
"Sam?" Pamela said a little louder, walking slowly towards where Sam was standing. Harry watched them with a bemused smile on his face, not quite sure what Pamela was up to, though he would place a bet on it being amusing.
"Yeah."
"Sam, is that you?"
"I'm right here."
"Oh, I know. Know how I can tell?" Pamela asked just as she reached round and grabbed Sam's ass, making Sam jump and Harry chuckle quietly. "That perky little ass of yours. You could bounce a nickel off that thing. Of course I know it's you, grumpy. Same way I know that's a demon, and that poor girl's Anna and that you've been eyeing my rack."
"Uh… Wait." Sam stammered, then frowned and Harry could practically see his mentally counting who Pamela had mentioned. "How many people are in the room, Pamela?"
"What kind of question is that? There's five, including me. I still got more sense than most, Kiddo."
"Yeah… only there's six in the room, not five," Dean said, clearly catching on to what Sam already had and what Harry had fervently hoped wouldn't be brought up. Honestly, he'd forgotten that there may be an issue here with what Ardifiel had done to him.
"Six? Who else is here?" Pamela asked, actually sounding a little unsure of herself for once, now that she realised she couldn't sense everything.
"Ah, hey, Pamela," Harry spoke up, stepping away from Anna and redundantly giving a little wave of his hand. Redundant because Pamela couldn’t exactly see it now, could she?
"Harry? Huh. Didn't sense you when I first met you either. How come?" Pamela asked, warily looking towards where Harry was standing.
"Ah. See, I'd completely forgotten about that. Sorry. Ardifiel, my uh… angel handler person, he kind of made it so that no one could sense or find me through scrying and such. Demon, psychic, what have you. Though, seeing as Ardifiel and the angels haven't really had an issue in finding me, I'm guessing it doesn't work for them. I really had forgotten about it though. Sorry," Harry added a little feebly, not too sure what else he could say and hoping that this didn't work against him and make Sam and Dean stop trusting him.
"Nah, don't worry about it. Hey, Anna. How are you? I'm Pamela, in case you hadn't guessed," Pamela added with a grin as she looked towards where she clearly sensed Anna was standing.
"Hi."
"Dean told me what's been going on. I'm excited to help!" Pamela told her, actually sounding excited about it as well and making harry seriously wonder about her mental health.
"Oh. That's nice of you," Anna said, though not actually sounding too sure about that.
"Oh, well, not really. Any chance I can dick over an angel, I'm taking it," Pamela told her. Harry just wondered if he was the only one who thought 'dicking over an angel' sounded like something he'd normally charge for.
"Why?"
"They stole something from me," Pamela told her, taking off her glasses and revealing white eyes that made Harry flinch away, guilt over being partially to blame for that just growing. "Demon-y, I know. But they're just plastic. Good for business. Makes me look extra-psychic, don't you think? Now… how about you tell me what you deal is? Hmm? Don't you worry."
They'd moved into the panic room once all the introductions had been finished with, leaving Ruby trapped outside, which made Harry feel a little more comfortable. Once inside, they had shut the door and Anna had laid down on the bed in the room, with Pamela sitting on a chair next to her.
Harry wasn't too sure he was in total agreement with doing this. He had lived his life by the rule of letting some things go undiscovered. Though if looking into Anna's past could help them survive this, then Harry wasn't going to stop them.
"Nice and relaxed. Now, I'm going to count down from five to zero. When we're at zero, you'll be in a deep state of hypnosis. As I count down, just go deeper and deeper, okay? Five, four, three, two, one. Deep sleep. Deep sleep. Every muscle calm and relaxed." Harry hoped every muscle wasn't too calm and relaxed. It'd be just their luck if Anna's heart just gave up on her.
"I can hear you," Anna told her in a calm, dreamy voice. One that made the hairs on the back of Harry's neck rise for some reason, and made Harry shuffled nearer to where Sam and Dean were standing.
"Now, Anna, tell me… How can you hear the angels? How did you work that spell?"
"I don't know. I just did," Anna said in her dreamy, spaced voice. Harry really hoped this didn't go on for too long because it was really creeping him out.
"Your father… What's his name?"
"Rich Milton," Anna told her and Harry rolled his eyes. They really were going to be there all night if Pamela didn't word her questions a little less ambiguously.
"All right. But I want you to look further back… when you were very young… Just a couple of years old."
"I don't want to," Anna said stubbornly, sounding like the young child they were hoping her to remember being. Though Harry hadn't banked on her actually regressing to sound like that.
"It'll be okay. Anna, just one look - that's all we need," Pamela told her calmly, voice soothing and gentle even to Harry.
"No."
"What's your dad's name? Your real dad. Why is he angry at you?" Pamela asked, sounding a little more firm as though to let Anna know they needed to know the answer.
"No. No! No!" Harry jumped as Anna began to scream and thrash about on the bed. "No!"
"Calm down!" Harry took a step closer to Anna but was stopped by Sam, who just silently shook his head and went back to watching Anna continue to fight with whatever memories she didn't want dredging up.
"He's gonna kill me!" Harry felt a tingle of fear go down his spine at Anna screamed plea and glanced over at Sam and Dean to see what they should do. In his opinion, he felt they needed to stop it.
"Anna, you're safe."
"Maybe we should stop this."
"No!" Anna screamed and suddenly the lights exploded and glass shattered around the room. Harry ducked to try and avoid getting hit by any shards of glass and shook off Sam's hand to move over to Harry.
"Calm down."
"Stop this!"
"He's gonna kill me!"
"It's all right, Anna."
"Pamela, wake her up!" Harry pleaded, noticing Dean walking towards Anna as well, concern clear on his face.
"It's all right, Anna."
"Anna?" Dean asked as he reached out, just before he touched her, he was sent flying across the room.
"Wake her up now!" Harry shouted at Pamela, whilst Sam ran over to Dean to make sure he was okay. Pamela glanced towards him and then nodded.
"Okay. Wake in one, two three, four, five. Anna… Anna? You all right?"
"Thank you, Pamela. That helps a lot. I remember now," Anna told them in a serene voice considering she'd just been screaming blue bloody murder seconds before.
"Remember what?"
"Who I am." Harry felt an almost overwhelming feeling of foreboding on what the answer to who Anna was would be. He just knew the answer was going to bite them in the ass.
"I'll bite. Who are you?" Dean asked, looking just as confused and wary as Harry felt.
"I'm an angel." Yeah, Harry knew that one day he was going to listen to the warning feelings his subconscious was giving to him and just run the fuck away. Hopefully before his wilful ignorance got him killed.
It was decided, after Anna had dropped the bomb, so to speak, that they all went upstairs to Bobby's library, where there were more seats for one and they could try to think up a plan in comfort. Which Harry was down with, though he also wished there hadn't been a need for a plan in the first place.
"Don't be afraid, I'm not like the others," Anna told them once they had all moved into the library, which far from made them feel any better. For Harry, it was mostly because he liked most of the other angels he'd met.
"I don't find that very reassuring," Ruby muttered and Harry bit his tongue to stop himself from either agreeing with her out loud or asking why the hell she was still lingering around like a bad smell.
"Neither do I," Pamela stated, saving Harry to trouble of having to verbally agree with the demon that was making his life more and more stressful the longer she existed.
"So… Castiel - he was the one that came for me?" Anna asked, making Harry gape at her for seemingly ignoring the two angels Harry felt no one should ignore. Not if they wanted to continue to survive.
"Yeah, and Ardifiel and Yebemiah. Do you know them?" Dean asked, and it was clear to Harry at least, that Dean also wondered why Anna hadn't mentioned them.
"Ardifiel and Yebemiah as well? Castiel and I were… well, we were in the same foxhole. Ardifiel and Yebemiah had nothing to do with me however," Anna admitted with a shrug.
"So, what, Cas was like your boss or something?" Sam asked curiously, that incessant need to ask questions rearing it's ugly head again and making Harry want to smack the urge out of him. Or fuck it out of him. Depending on his mood.
Given Ruby was in the room, his mood was currently swaying towards smacking him.
"Try the other way round." Anna told Sam, and Harry narrowed his eyes at her and stepped closer to her.
"But not Ardifiel and Yebemiah. Sure, you're higher up than Castiel, but you're not higher in rank than Yebemiah or Ardifiel," Harry pointed out, which Anna just nodded her head in agreement in that.
"And now they want to kill you?" Pamela asked, sounding confused by the entire conversation, Harry didn't blame her. He was pretty confused as well, and barring Anna, Harry probably knew the most about the goings on in heaven than anyone else in the room.
"Orders are orders. I'm sure I have a death sentence on my head."
"Why?" Pamela asked, and even Harry wanted to know the answer to that question.
"I disobeyed… which for us, is about the worst thing you can do. I fell."
"Meaning?"
"She fell to earth, became human," Pamela said, sounding both like she already knew the answer and yet was also guessing.
"Wait a minute. I don't understand. So, angels can just become human?" Sam asked, sounding like someone had just shattered all his beliefs in one go. Considering what he did, that would be quite the feat.
"It kind of hurts. Try cutting you kidney out with a butter knife. That kind of hurt. I ripped out my grace." Harry winced when Anna described what she had had to do in order to become human, recalling Ardifiel telling him once about his grace.
"Come again?" Clearly Dean and Castiel hadn't had a similar conversation.
"She ripped out her grace. Ardifiel once told me that a grace is what makes an angel what they are. It gives them purpose, connects them to heaven, God and the other angels. It's part of them and I can't even imagine how much it must have hurt you to rip it out," Harry said with a wince, glancing at Anna with a small amount of sympathy. Though he also sort of wanted to know what it was she had done in order to get thrown out of heaven in the first place.
"So… you ripped it out and just forgot that you were God's little Power ranger?" Dean asked, sounding like he wasn't entirely sure he believed her.
"The older I got, the longer I was human, yeah."
"I don't think you all appreciate how completely screwed we are," Ruby spoke up, giving an unpleasant reminder that she was still in the room.
"Oh gods, are you still here? Why don't you just run off and hide, like a good little demon?" Harry asked her, fervently hoping she took him up on the offer. Or she pushed him so far that he had no other choice but to kill her. Well, in Sam's eyes. Harry felt her mere presence was reason enough to kill her.
"No. Ruby's right. Heaven wants me dead."
"And Hell just wants her. A flesh-and-blood angel that you can question, torture, that bleeds. Sister, you're the Stanley Cup. And sooner or later, Heaven or Hell, they're gonna find you."
"I know. That's why I'm gonna get it back," Anna said, making everyone in the room turn to face her, wondering just what the hell she was talking about.
"What?"
"My grace."
"You can do that?" Dean asked her, looking like he didn't believe her in the least.
"If I can find it."
"So, what, you're just gonna take some divine bong hit, and shazam, you're Roma Downey?" Harry stared at Dean, wondering how the man had the spectacular ability to sum up the most complex of things into the most banal sentence. He also really wanted to know who Roma Downey was.
"Something like that," Anna said, clearly knowing who Roma Downey was, unless she was deliberately being vague in her answer because she, like Harry, had no idea what Dean was talking about.
"All right. I like this plan. So, where's this grace of yours?"
"I lost track. I was falling about ten thousand miles per hour at the time," Anna told them, all she needed was a shrug and she'd have completed the blasé attitude she was treating them to.
"Wait. You mean falling, like, literally?" Maybe Harry could punch the incessant need to ask pointless bloody questions all the time out of Sam.
"Yes."
"Like the way a human eye can see? Like a comet, maybe, or a meteor?" Sam asked her, sounding more and more excited as he went on, which made Harry look at him like he'd lost his mind.
"Why do you ask?"
"I think I might be able to find out where it is," Sam told her and then quickly hurried out of the room before anyone else could question him.
"Dean, you're brother is a freak," Harry pointed out, still staring at where Sam had been.
"I hear ya." Harry grinned at Dean, and then scowled when he noticed Ruby slipping out of the room to follow behind Sam.
"God, I hate her."
"Hear ya on that as well. You have any clue on what to do to kill her?" Dean asked him, moving to stand next to him and lowering his voice. Harry looked over to where Anna and Pamela were talking about something quietly, then turned back to Dean and shrugged.
"No idea. Frankly, it's terrifying me. It's like there's a giant clock ticking away my doom above my head and I've got no way of stopping it. I really hate having a death sentence," Harry muttered, getting a dry chuckle from Dean and in a surprising moment, Dean placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly.
"You'll be fine. Ardifiel and Castiel won't let you go to Hell, you know that."
"Are you worried about them? Because, I'll admit, I'm a little worried about them. We have no idea what happened to them when Anna did her little blood spell," Harry whispered, glancing over at Anna quickly before looking back at Dean.
"A little. I mean, I'm not as close to them as you are, but Cas and Ardy… they grow on you, man."
"I know what you mean. So, when all this is with Anna is over, you think you're ready to start being my pimp? Because let me tell you, I really need to let off some steam."
"Er... yeah. Are you really sure about that though? I mean, we'd be fine carrying on with credit card scams and hustling people. You don't have to go back to what you did in order to get money. You have a choice this time, you know that, yeah?" Dean told him, not moving his hand from Harry's shoulder and looking at him in concern.
Harry just smiled at him and nodded his head, "I know. It's fine, Dean. I get that no one really believes me when I say it, but I really did enjoy my job. Sure, I moaned about it, but I'm English! We like a good moan. If there's nothing to moan about, then we moan about shit that is actually fine. Or the weather," Harry added as an after thought, not letting on to Dean that Harry didn't actually have a choice in the matter this time either. He wasn't lying about enjoying his job though. All jobs had shitty sides to them, and his was no exception, but the good far outweighed the bad. Well in his eyes at least.
"Well, if you're sure, then yeah. I'm ready to be your pimp. And at least this way me and Sam know where you are and that you're relatively safe," Dean admitted with a wry grin, which just made Harry chuckle and shake his head.
"Of course, all of this is completely moot, if the angels are either dead, which I really hope not, or vying for our deaths, given they're the ones that'll play taxi for me. God, I hope they're okay and they don't hate us," Harry muttered, only getting a slight squeeze to his shoulder as a response from Dean.
"Hey, Dean, think you could take me home now? You don't really need me anymore, and I'll be honest, I'd be much more comfortable no longer involved in this," Pamela admitted with a sheepish grin.
"Sure thing, Pamela."
"Pamela?" Harry called out tentatively, not really sure he wanted to say what he was going to, but knowing that he needed to.
"Harry? What's up?" Pamela asked, turning to face where Harry was.
"I just… I wanted to say I was sorry. About, well, about the first time we met, you know? I should have tried harder to stop it," Harry admitted with a grimace, not really liking admitting it, but knowing it was true.
"How? You were in a tricky position, Harry. I've never blamed you for what happened. You wouldn't have been able to stop it without putting yourself in danger, so really, you have nothing to be sorry for."
"Maybe, but I still could have tried harder."
"Maybe. But I could have listened to you when you first said don't do it. I could have listened to Castiel when he warned me to stop prying. Could have, would have, should have. No one's at fault, Harry, least of all you," Pamela told him with a small smile. Harry just sighed and nodded, before he realised she couldn't actually see that.
"Yeah, okay. I'm still sorry, but I accept what you're saying. Stay safe, yeah? It was nice meeting you again, shame it couldn't be under better circumstances," Harry told her with a weak chuckle.
"Hey, next time we meet up, you can tell me how to make Sam less grumpy. Maybe give me a couple of tips. We can share stories!" Pamela told him with a wicker grin, cackling when Dean made a noise of protest.
"Dude! No way! Do not share any stories about my brother when I'm around! Come on, let's get you home before you decide you can't wait to hear them and stick around," Dean told her, gently ushering Pamela towards the front door.
"Aw, don't you turn into Grumpy."
"Maybe you could try and get the grumpy out of Dean on the way home," Harry suggested, laughing when Dean just stuck his finger up at him and then hustled Pamela out of the door before she could reply.
Harry chuckled quietly and shook his head as he heard Dean bitching at Pamela as they walked to the car, then he glanced at Anna sitting on the sofa and decided to join her and see if she had anything interesting to say.
"Can I ask you something?" Harry asked tentatively as he took a seat next to her on the sofa. Anna just smiled at him and nodded.
"Sure, ask away. Though I make no promise to answer, if I can, I will, but there are some questions I just don't know the answer too," Anna admitted with a small shrug.
"Ah, well, I'm not going to be asking the meaning of life or anything like that. I don't actually think I'd want to know. I just wanted to know… Why would you fall? Why would you want to be one of us?"
"You don't mean that."
"I don't? A bunch of - of miserable wankers. Eating, crapping, confused, lecherous, unfaithful, guilt-ridden, scared bastards," Harry said, listing off the worst of what he had seen in his job.
"I don't know. There's loyalty… forgiveness… love," Anna added with a smile, making Harry grimace. He'd never believed in love. Not in the way movies tried to sell it as. Love was pain, just wrapped in a nicer wrapping paper.
"Pain."
"Chocolate cake."
"Guilt."
"Sex." Harry opened his mouth to counter her and then paused and closed his mouth once more with a sigh. He gave her a grin and shook his head.
"Okay, you got me there. Sex is good. Though I have it on good authority that angels can have sex," Harry told her with a grin, getting a questioning look from Anna for that.
"I mean it. Every emotion, Harry, even the bad ones… it's why I fell. It's why… why I'd give anything not to have to go back. Anything."
"Feelings are overrated, if you ask me."
"Beats being an angel."
"How's that possible? You guys are powerful and perfect. You don't doubt yourselves or God or anything! Humans are made of doubt. Ask any human and I think most would willingly admit they wished they were something or someone else."
"Perfect… like a marble statue. Cold… no choice… only obedience. Harry, do you know how many angels have actually seen God? Seen his face?"
"Seen his face? Five. Maybe four. Ardifiel told me that he only took orders from God, but that he hadn't actually seen God. And that the lower down in rank you are, the more diluted the order gets. Or something like that. But Ardy told me that you know it's God telling you what you need to do. That your faith is just so intense and strong, that you just know what it is you're needed to do sometimes," Harry said, with a slight hint of awe in his voice as he thought back on conversations he'd had with Ardifiel about God and Heaven.
"Huh, Ardifiel really likes you. He's told you a lot about Heaven. But still, he's one down from an archangel. If that. He's more to the side seeing as even the archangels can't actually tell him what to do. It's easy to have faith when you're that close to God. I was… I was far lower down than him. And eventually, after millennia stationed on earth, just watching and wanting to go back home. Waiting for orders from an unknowable father… it got hard to keep my faith. And up there? We're killed if we don't have faith."
"So you just lost faith? That's why you fell? That sucks. I can kind of see your problem then. I mean, if I lose faith, chances are I'm gonna be struck down into Hell. I mean, my faith got me into this mess to begin with. Faith kinda sucks sometimes, don't it?"
"You see what I mean then?" Anna asked him, looking like she was actually relieved that Harry could see where she was coming from.
"Yeah, I see what you mean. Anna? If you had the choice, are you saying you wouldn't want to be an angel?"
"Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But I don't have a choice."
"Well, you could die," Harry pointed out, then winced when Anna gaped at him. "Wait, that didn't come out right. I just meant, that you have a choice. It's just a shitty choice. I mean, it's basically, live and be an angel once more or die a human."
"Put that way, I guess I can accept being an angel. Harry, why do you still have your faith?"
"I don't know… I was raised in a barely religious house, but the belief that God had his ways and everything was for a reason was still there. And when I turned to Him for help, He actually did give it to me. I understand that there are billions of humans in this world, and it would just be petty and selfish to expect God to single me out. When He does, it stuns me and humbles me a little. Yeah, He's a complete bastard at times, but I don't think He's ever claimed to be otherwise. Humanity's mess is humanity's mess. We can't expect God to step in and clean it up for us. I guess my faith has actually grown since being thrown into all this," harry admitted with a shrug.
"How? I mean, I don't know you, but what I've heard about you, your life hasn't been pleasant. And then you're dragged into a situation that either ends with your death, your damnation or you going back to London alone. How can you have faith in a being that caused that?"
"I think it'd be foolish and pompous of me to think that God singled me out for all of this pain and loneliness. I'm human, humans were gifted with free will. Everything that I've done in my life was down to free will. God had nothing to do with it until the very end. And even then, I have faith that He believes I can succeed. Because if I don't have that faith, then what do I have?" Harry asked, feeling a little hollow when it was all narrowed down to that pivotal question. What did he have? Not a lot.
"You have faith because it's what keeps you going?"
"Pretty much. Faith is what keeps many people going. Sometimes it's all we have, and sometimes it's all we need."
"Huh. You know, you've actually made it easier for me to accept going back to being an angel. Thank you, Harry," Anna said with a smile.
"No problem! Think we can change the subject now because it's getting a little too heavy and depressing for me," Harry said with a grin, which widened when Anna just nodded.
"Think Dean will be back from dropping Pamela off soon?"
"No idea. He should be unless Pamela decided to take me up on my suggestion and try to make him a little less grumpy. Then who knows when he'll be back," Harry said with a wicked grin, chuckling when they heard the engine of the Impala second later.
"I guess she didn't follow your suggestion, huh?"
"Well, at least that means Dean isn't scarred for life, I suppose." Anna laughed at that, which made Harry grin and Dean look at them in confusion as he'd just walked in the door.
"What? What's so amusing?" Dean asked, looking down at himself. For what, Harry had no idea. Sadly it just made Anna laugh even more and Harry to duck to hide his own chuckles. "No, really, what?"
"Dean?" Thankfully, Anna and Harry were saved from answering by Sam walking in the room, shooting Harry and Anna a confused look before turning back to Dean.
"Hey, you find something?" Dean asked him, moving to lean on the back of the sofa that Harry and Anna were sitting on.
"I think so."
"So?' Harry asked when it actually looked like Sam wasn’t going to answer. He took a second to throw a glare at Ruby standing behind Sam before turning his attention back to Sam.
"Oh, yeah, Union, Kentucky. Found some accounts of a local miracle."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. In eighty-five, there was an empty field outside of town. Six months later, there was a full-grown oak. They say it looks a century old at least."
"Anna, what do you think?" Harry asked, not too sure what he was asking nor what the answer would be. Judging by the small smile Anna gave him, she knew exactly what he was thinking.
"The grace. Where it hit, it could have done something like that, easy," Anna admitted.
"So grace ground zero - it's not destruction. It's…" Dean trailed off, clearly not sure what it could be seen as. Thankfully Anna helped him with the answer to that, as clichéd as her answer was.
"Pure creation."
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