Summary: Cast down from Heaven with your Grace locked away and your memories fractured, you wake up alone and very much human – until you cross paths with the Winchesters. As the three of you search for answers that Heaven doesn’t seem to want to give, you’re forced to navigate the world without your divinity and face the fact that some truths may have been buried to protect you. Or others.
Tags/Warnings: Mystery, Canon-divergent, strangers-to-friends-to-lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, eventual romance, angel learning human shenanigans, fluff, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, no use of Y/N, no beta we die like men
Each part will have its own list of tags included in it
Read on Ao3
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19
Epilogue
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Moodboard for the series made by the lovely @wvffles
Summary: Cast down from Heaven with your Grace locked away and your memories fractured, you wake up alone and very much human – until you cross paths with the Winchesters. As the three of you search for answers that Heaven doesn’t seem to want to give, you’re forced to navigate the world without your divinity and face the fact that some truths may have been buried to protect you. Or others.
Tags/Warnings: Mystery, Canon-divergent, strangers-to-friends-to-lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, eventual romance, angel learning human shenanigans, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, no use of Y/N, no beta we die like men
A/N: Alright, let’s kick things off! I know this is tagged as canon-divergent, and trust me, it’s going to be. Just for some reference of where I’ve got in mind for setting it, this takes place around mid-season 8 when they’ve just got the bunker. Post-purgatory, post-Benny, but we’re setting aside the trials, Kevin, and Amelia for this. It’s a little too tough to try and shift things around to fit exactly right, so bear with me if you please.
Ashes of Grace Masterlist
Everything came to you in flashes, glimpses of memories that fluttered through your consciousness like pages torn from a book. The exact details were lost to you but bits and pieces pushed to the forefront of your mind.
Something grabbing hold of your Grace – unseen fingers closing around your very essence and squeezing until you couldn’t breathe. A lock clicking shut – the sound reverberating across dimensions and sealing something precious away from you. Your name – someone shouting it but cutting off before the final syllable. Light became dark. Heat became cold. There was the sensation of being shoved into something too small. Too compact. Too painfully finite.
The transformation stripped you layer by layer, peeling away the millennia of celestial being-ness that had never questioned its permanence or mortality. Wind rushed past you, and the sensation of falling registered somewhere in your brain. You willed your wings to catch you, mentally picturing their vastness stretching across the sky and stopping your descent. The sheer magnitude of them could blot out the sun. Nothing happened.
Impact.
Pain flooded your senses in a way angels never experienced. In a way you had never experienced before. Your form – your body – crumpled against soil and stone. Bones that hadn’t been yours until this very moment absorbed the shock and punched the air from your lungs in a shocked gasp. The sound that escaped your lips was raw and mortal, and you instinctively curled in on yourself, eyes squeezed shut. Something foreign and heavy thumped in your chest, and the sound of your own heartbeat lulled you into unconsciousness.
When your awareness returned to you and you finally cracked your eyes open, you found yourself in a wide, open field. There was no crater or trench carved into the earth to signal your arrival, just the subtle signs of something unnatural happening. The tall grass was bent outward, bowing away from you, and there was a strange sort of static charge that made the air taste like metal on your newly human tongue. Your entire body hurt in a way that was more physical than you had ever been before, a punishing ache that radiated through every joint and muscle. It was the kind of pain that belonged to fragile beings. Not warriors of Heaven.
You tried to sit up, but your limbs didn’t respond properly. They felt heavy and unwieldy, like you were trying to operate machinery without knowing which control did what. Your fingers dug into the dirt beneath you, and you briefly marveled at the way it pressed against your skin. The sky above you was painfully blue, completely indifferent to your fall, fluffy white clouds rolling across their canvas without a care in the world. The sun hurt your eyes, and you blinked, dropping your gaze back to the earth around you.
It was eerily quiet. The constant chorus of your siblings’ voices was missing. You couldn’t hear their reports. Their songs. Their endless communications across the galaxies. You reached for it only to find emptiness. Even worse than the silence, though, was the gaping chasm in the center of your being. A hole where your Grace should’ve been, warm and pulsing and alive. Instead, all that remained was a strange sort of vacuum, as though it had just... opened up and swallowed your celestial self whole. The more you searched for it within yourself, the more the void inside you yawned open. You took a deep breath, shifting your attention to search for your wings. You stretched the muscles that should’ve unfurled vast appendages of light and intent, but all you got was the awkward shifting of shoulder blades beneath unfamiliar skin. You weren’t sure what made you feel the most vulnerable – the silence, your missing Grace, or the lack of your wings.
Cold seeped into the edges of your awareness, the sensation startling you. The clothes on your body weren’t yours. The jeans were frayed at the hems. The t-shirt hung loose across your shoulders. The jacket smelled of a life you had never lived. You’d heard of angels coming to Earth before, but they needed willing vessels that could house them. You didn’t remember requesting permission from a vessel, and when you dug through your mind for signs of the human whose body you wore, you couldn’t find them. There was no one. No memories of a life lived before all of this. No thoughts of family flitting around your mindscape. It was like this vessel had been crafted specifically for one purpose. To house you. To contain you.
A strange sensation hit your abdomen. A hollow, twisting feeling accompanied by a low rumble. You felt your expression morph into something confused. You’d spent countless spans of time watching humans, and you knew the concept of hunger… but was this what it felt like? The basic, human need that was entirely foreign to your existence. The discomfort bewildered you, and you had only just begun to examine it a little closer before it curled through you again, this time more insistent.
You moved to stand, stumbling over twice before you finally figured out how to convince your legs to hold you upright. Balance came slowly, the mechanics of bipedal movement requiring a level of concentration your celestial form never needed. Gravity felt like an adversary you weren’t sure how to face, an enemy you had never encountered before. The weight of this form felt like a prison sentence.
Slowly, you started walking. Where you were going, you couldn’t say for sure, but somehow, staying still felt dangerous. There was an echo of the urge to run, but you couldn’t figure out exactly what from. You couldn’t summon your angel blade to yourself which was just another thing to add to your growing list of things you were missing. Every step sent small shocks through your ankles, knees, and hips. Joints that you never had to consider before. The human body, you realized, announced itself with each movement. It demanded constant attention. Required perpetual management. It was exhausting having to keep track of everything.
The field gave way to a smattering of trees. A forest, you recalled. You had seen many of them from your vantage point in heaven, but the trees were much larger looking at them from the ground. Your true form would’ve dwarfed them several times over. They opened up to a road that carved its way through the forest, and you followed it because sticking to a well-traveled path made the most sense even if it left you out in the open.
Time passed differently in this form. Without the eternal perspective of an angel, minutes dragged on and rushed by in unpredictable patterns. You weren’t sure how to track the passage of time. Centuries didn’t pass between each blink of your human eyes. You counted the seconds instead. The sun moved overhead as you walked, and your shadow gradually overtook you until it stretched ahead of you on the road. It looked nothing like what you once were. You studied the flat, wingless silhouette that moved in time with you, taunting you as it slowly stretched longer and longer with the setting sun. It was a strange, earthbound thing.
Signs of civilization cropped up. Powerlines overhead, discarded trash along the sides of the road, and the occasional passing car that slowed to stare at you before speeding off in the direction you had come from. Your hunger grew more adamant, your stomach twisting and contracting as it let out an impossibly loud noise. A second sensation joined it, an odd sort of sticky dryness across your tongue. Thirst, you realized as your throat constricted in a way that made swallowing difficult. These sensations – the things humans felt on a daily basis – were overwhelming, pushing their way to the forefront of your consciousness and demanding to be sated.
A town appeared as you crested over a small hill, and a feeling of elation spread through you at the sight. The town was very different from the forest. It was louder. More chaotic. There were more cars, and even though the sun had turned the sky a beautiful orange color, there were still people on the sidewalks. Smatterings of conversations surrounded you. The rumble of vehicle engines distorted as they moved past you. A neon sign flickered in the window of the building you stopped in front of.
Mae’s Diner.
You could see people sitting in booths through the large windows. Some were conversing. Others had drinks and food in front of them. It struck you just how easily they just... existed. Like it was effortless. The sight of them so comfortable and content in their humanity made something tighten in your chest. Envy, perhaps? Or maybe longing? It was hard assigning the proper name of an emotion to something that had merely been a concept to you for countless eons.
You pulled open the door of the diner, and it was like stepping into another world. Voices layered over top of each other. Silverware clinked against plates. The smell of coffee and grease and perfume all mingled in the air. It was practically an assault on your senses, and if there wasn’t the promise of relief from your hunger and thirst driving you forward, you were sure that you would’ve turned right around and gone back to the forest.
“Take a seat wherever you’d like, hun!” A woman in an apron shouted over the noise. You looked at her, and she made a vague motion with her hand. After a moment, you awkwardly sat at the counter, taking the seat that was closest to the wall and doing your best to mimic the behavior of those around you. Your movements felt stiff and mechanical as you folded your hands in your lap. Then unfolded them. Then gripped the edge of the counter because you weren’t quite sure what else you were supposed to do with them. The woman who had greeted you approached, her face lined with years of expressing emotions. “What can I get for you, hun?”
She set a laminated menu in front of you. The symbols on the page swam before your eyes, looking both familiar and unfamiliar. Words, the currency of communication. You could read them somehow, but understanding the meaning behind them required more concentration than you felt capable of in the present moment. What was a compote? Or an eggs benedict? The meaning swam somewhere in your head, amorphous and unformed but just out of reach.
“Water,” you finally said. The word felt rough in your throat and clumsy on your tongue. Your voice didn’t sound like yours. The waitress nodded and left you. You stared at the menu. The words might not have made sense to you, but there were pictures at least. What did this body need to function? Did it run off of French toast? When the waitress returned with a glass of water, you glanced at her with uncertainty before pointing to one of the pictures on the menu. She scribbled something down and took the menu back, and you gulped down the water greedily. The cold liquid slid down your throat, quenching one of the sensations that had been gnawing at you. The ice rattled in the cup as you set it down.
You were halfway through your ordered meal when the bell above the diner door chimed. You didn’t turn to look as you had done the past four times it happened, but you felt the way the air in the room seemed to shift. A weight entered the room. Not a physical mass but one of intention and focus. You recognized it without fully understanding how. Out of the corner of your eye, you caught a glimpse of two men walking in, their boots making distinct sounds on the linoleum floor. One set was heavier and measured. The other was quicker, more purposeful.
The diner’s ambient chatter died down slightly as a few heads turned to look at the newcomers. You followed along with one of the other patrons near you and looked. One of them was tall with long hair, and the other was slightly shorter with watchful eyes. They paused just inside the door, scanning the room with practiced casualness that wasn’t casual at all. The shorter one clocked you instantly, his gaze locking onto you for three heartbeats before sliding away. You didn’t blend in. Not even a little bit.
You ducked your head and went back to pushing the food on your plate around in an attempt to look normal. The waitress came by and refilled your water, and you closed one hand around the glass, the cool surface giving you a physical sensation to focus on. The men’s footsteps drew closer to you before stopping abruptly. The sound of vinyl seats squeaking met your ears, and you snuck a glance in their direction. The two of them had taken a booth near you, and they leaned over the table, speaking in low voices.
Why did this feel dangerous? Why did you feel exposed? You called for your angel blade, willing it to manifest in your hand. You called for your Grace, reaching for the void inside of you. You called for your wings, searching for their familiar weight and comfort. Anything to quell the overwhelming urge to get up and run. Nothing responded to your call.
You lifted the glass to your lips, but for reasons you couldn’t comprehend, your hand shook. Water sloshed over the rim, spilling onto the counter in front of you. The movement of bringing the liquid to your mouth suddenly took more coordination than your frayed nerves could manage. You set the glass down harder than you intended.
One of the men stood from their booth suddenly, having murmured something to his companion. You kept your eyes fixed on your plate as his footsteps approached. He moved through the diner with the easy confidence of someone who knew precisely what he was doing. When he reached the counter, he slid onto the stool beside you, his body angled in your direction. The weight of his attention settled over you.
“You alright there, sweetheart?” His voice was low and casual with an undertone that suggested he already knew more than he was letting on. You froze at the endearment. It was something meant to soothe. To provide a false sense of familiarity. The concept of false niceties wasn’t foreign to you, and you were thankful that not everything was entirely unknown to you.
“I–” Your voice caught in your throat. What was the proper response? The taller man hadn’t moved from his spot in the booth, but he watched your interaction with careful eyes. His posture seemed less aggressive than his companion’s, but that didn’t mean he was any less vigilant.
“You look like you’ve been through hell,” the man beside you continued when you didn’t give him a response. His green eyes didn’t match his easy-going smile. They were sharp, assessing your every movement.
“I’m fine,” you managed, the words feeling strange on your tongue. You weren’t. Your first lie in your entire existence. You weren’t very good at it.
“Yeah?” He nodded, though it was clear he didn’t believe you. “Got a name?”
The question struck something raw in you. Your name, your true name, was a sequence of celestial harmonies. A vibration that couldn’t be replicated by human tongue. You stared at him, feeling like an animal in a cage, and the door was closing. What were you supposed to call yourself? The question felt more profound than he probably meant it. It was about identity. About who you were now that you had been stripped of your celestial nature. A name rolled off your tongue. Something you had heard before. Something human. Something that just felt… right. He repeated it, and it settled over you, etching the beginning of this new identity.
“You new to town?” He shifted on his stool, one arm resting on the counter. You nodded slowly. Lying didn’t feel like something you could confidently pull off with this man. “Where are you from?” he continued, casually reaching over to the salt and pepper shakers.
“I… don’t know.” You stared at the counter’s speckled surface like the answers you needed would suddenly reveal themselves.
“They don’t season their fries well enough here,” he said, gesturing to your plate. “Try throwing some of this on ‘em.” He slid the salt shaker over to you, the movement smooth like he had done it countless times before. You stared at the shaker for a moment, uncertain if there was something more to this gesture than just seasoning or if perhaps it was a common human greeting. Not wanting to offend him in case it was a greeting, you lifted it and tipped it over your plate. He watched you with an intensity that made your skin prickle uncomfortably.
“Thanks,” you said, picking up one of the freshly-salted fries and eating it. His expression didn’t change, but something in his posture relaxed slightly. Just a fraction. Not enough to make you feel any less like you were being scrutinized, but enough that you noticed.
“You don’t know where you’re from?” he asked, his tone skeptical as he jumped back to the previous topic. The taller man finally rose from his booth and approached, hovering just beside his companion. The fact that he positioned himself just enough to block off your exit wasn’t lost to you. “What do you know?” The seated man’s tone grew harsh.
“Dean.” The taller one finally spoke. There was an edge to his voice. A warning, perhaps? Your gaze darted between the two of them. They exchanged a loaded look, a conversation in a glance. It reminded you of your connections with your celestial brothers and sisters, of the language of siblings. Another thing that had been taken from you. “I’m Sam,” he continued, his voice gentler than it had been a second ago. “Were you in some kind of accident?”
“Accident,” you repeated, tasting the word on your tongue as you considered his question. The word was inadequate to describe what had happened. You winced, trying to recall anything more substantial than the flashes before the field. “Yes. I fell.”
“You fell,” Dean echoed, his tone flat and eyes narrowing. “Like, you tripped? Or fell from…?” He made a vague upward gesture with his hand. You met his gaze, unsure of how to explain dimensions and the cosmos to them. Was there a way to make them understand?
“I don’t remember the details,” you said honestly. “Just… falling. Then waking up in a field.” Sam and Dean shared another look. Dean’s jaw tightened, a muscle tensing just beneath the skin. He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice so only the three of you could hear him.
“Look, we know you’re not human. We just need to figure out if you’re the dangerous kind of not-human.”
You shifted uncomfortably on the stool, feeling exposed under their scrutiny. Something twisted in your stomach, but it wasn’t the same sort of twist that felt like hunger. This felt more like fear. Terror. Everything about this existence felt wrong. Too loud. Too bright. Too confining. And now these men with their probing questions and knowing looks.
“I should go,” you said, moving to stand. Dean’s hand shot out, not quite touching you but hovering near your wrist in warning.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Metal glinted from beneath his jacket, and you met his gaze, eyes widening.
You froze, caught between your instinct to flee and the realization that they could – and would – stop you with very little effort. There was a subtle shift in the diner’s atmosphere. Other patrons seemed to sense the tension radiating from your corner and averted their gazes, suddenly fascinated by their own meals.
“I’m not…” Your voice faltered. What were you not? Dangerous? Human? An angel anymore? All of the above felt true and false at the same time. “I’m not going to hurt anyone.” Sam’s expression softened slightly, but Dean’s didn’t change, suspicion etched into every line of his face.
“We’ve heard that one before.” Dean drummed his fingers against the counter. “Usually it’s right before things get real messy.” Sam cleared his throat meaningfully.
“If you’re hurt or confused… we might be able to help. We deal with these kinds of things.”
“What kind of things?” you asked, voice just loud enough for them to hear it above the diner’s ambient chatter. Dean leaned closer.
“The kind of things that fall from the sky and don’t leave craters.”
Your breath stuttered. They knew. Somehow, they knew what had happened to you. Or at least… they had some idea. Some experience in things that were beyond normal mortal knowledge. It should’ve been comforting – someone who might actually understand what you had to say – but instead, it only sent a cold spike of dread through your new form.
“I don’t know what I am anymore,” you admitted, the words feeling more raw and honest than you were prepared for. Your eyes stung. “I just woke up… like this.” Sam’s expression softened further, sympathy flashing behind his eyes that Dean’s didn’t mirror.
“Like what exactly?” Sam asked.
“Mortal,” you whispered, and the word was ash on your tongue. Dry and bitter. “Human.” Dean’s eyes narrowed as he scrutinized your face, as though he were expecting to find the traces of a lie somewhere in your features.
“Humans don’t fall from the sky and survive.” You flinched at his accusatory tone.
The noises around you suddenly amplified, too loud and too close. Someone behind the counter was saying something, but their words tangled together, swallowed by the rush of blood pounding in your head. The lights grew brighter, glaring and unforgiving. You blinked hard, but it didn’t help. Everything felt overexposed. The edges were too sharp, and the colors were too vivid, like the world’s saturation had been turned up. The floor tilted beneath you, a sickening lurch in your stomach as though the ground itself had decided that it couldn’t hold you anymore.
The walls around you were closing in. Not moving, not really. But the air thickened, pressing against your skin. There wasn’t enough of it. You tried to breathe deeper, but each breath caught halfway in, shallow and useless. Your heart slammed against your ribs, too hard and too fast, like it was trying to beat its way out of you. Something was wrong – catastrophically wrong – but you didn’t know where in the room to look or how to fix it.
A hand rested on your shoulder. You blinked, and everything was right again. The diner’s walls hadn’t moved, and the floor was still solid under your feet. Your heart raced in your chest, and you gulped down lungfuls of air. Sam had stepped closer, placing himself slightly between you and Dean, and you could feel warmth seeping into you from the contact. It was surprisingly comforting, and you leaned into it slightly.
“We have a safe place,” Sam said quietly, his tone having gone impossibly soft. “Somewhere we can talk about this without…” He glanced around the room at the other patrons meaningfully. “Without an audience.”
“Or we can keep doing this here,” Dean added, annoyance flickering in his gaze behind Sam. “Up to you.”
You weighed your options. Staying in this diner meant remaining exposed, vulnerable to these men – hunters, something in your brain supplied – or possibly what had done this to you in the first place. But going with them to their “safe place” meant trusting strangers who clearly knew more about your situation than they were letting on.
“If I go with you,” you said carefully, “I can leave when I want, right?” Dean snorted, shaking his head.
“That’s not how this works.”
“Dean,” Sam’s tone was warning again. He looked at you. “You’re not a prisoner. We just need answers.”
“I don’t have many to give,” you replied, meeting Sam’s gaze. Sam felt far less volatile than Dean did. Felt less likely to stab you. “I’m not… withholding information. I don’t know what happened to me.” Dean ground his teeth together, his jaw tightening.
“Well that’s what we’re gonna find out,” he said, standing up from the stool. “Because something’s not adding up here.”
Lower divider by @/kodaswrld
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Summary: Cast down from Heaven with your Grace locked away and your memories fractured, you wake up alone and very much human – until you cross paths with the Winchesters. As the three of you search for answers that Heaven doesn’t seem to want to give, you’re forced to navigate the world without your divinity and face the fact that some truths may have been buried to protect you. Or others.
TW specific to this chapter: Self-harm/su*cide attempt mentioned (not actively shown on screen, only aftermath is shown), brief mention of vomit, su*cidal theme briefly touched on, implied overdose
Tags/Warnings: Mystery, Canon-divergent, strangers-to-friends-to-lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, eventual romance, angel learning human shenanigans, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, no use of Y/N, no beta we die like men
A/N: Alright, folks. Final chapter. For my past series, I’ve uploaded the epilogue at the same time as the final chapter, but I am a little less prepared. So for now, here’s the final chapter. The epilogue will be uploaded before the end of the weekend, so please be patient with me :) I have thought about this ending for months and months, and it is absolutely wild to me that we are finally here. Thank you to absolutely everyone for coming on this journey with me. Y’all are amazing 💜💜💜
Ashes of Grace Masterlist
Heaven always felt a little more quiet around Seraphiel. Not silent, exactly. Heaven thrummed with hymns and distant choirs and the steady vibration of creation itself, but where other angels burned bright and sharp, Seraphiel carried a sort of stillness that seemed to swallow sound whole. You stood before them with your hands neatly clasped behind your back, wings tucked close in perfect discipline. The light around Seraphiel was soft when they approached you. Their usual blinding brilliance was muted. It was the kind that angels used in quiet places. When they weren’t looking to be overheard.
“You’ve been asking questions again,” they said gently. You turned to look at them but made no effort to deny it.
“I didn’t realize that observation was forbidden,” you replied. Seraphiel smiled at you. It was fond. Almost indulgent.
“It isn’t. But comparisons can be dangerous.”
“How so?”
“They can lead to dissatisfaction, especially to those who mistake curiosity for something else.”
“I’m not dissatisfied,” you said quickly. “I just don’t understand why human free will is celebrated when ours is treated like a flaw.” Seraphiel’s expression didn’t change, but something tightened behind their eyes
“Humans were designed to choose,” they explained. “Angels were designed to know.”
“But we do choose,” you insisted. “We choose loyalty. We choose obedience. We choose not to fall.” Their smile softened as though you had said something terribly naïve but endearing. Your hold on your own hand tightened.
“And that is why it matters when an angel begins to wonder what choice would look like without consequence.”
“I only wondered why their mistakes are called growth and ours are called betrayal.” Seraphiel stepped closer to you. They extended one of their wings, wrapping it behind you as they stood before you. They reached out, brushing their fingers against your cheek.
“Little observer,” they began, “you’ve always been different. More attentive. More… open to ideas.” You brightened at their words.
“You’ve noticed.”
“Of course I did. It’s why I wished to speak with you myself.” Hope flickered within you as you looked up at them. You relaxed slightly, unclasping your hands and letting them fall to your sides.
“Then you understand that I have no intention of rebelling. I just want to know.”
“Knowing can change you,” they said with a slow and thoughtful exhale. “And not always in ways you can undo.”
“I’m not afraid of change.” You gave them a reassuring shake of your head.
“I know. That’s what worries me.” You frowned at the tone in their voice. Something felt off.
“You sound like you think I’ve done something wrong.”
“No,” Seraphiel said immediately. Too quickly, perhaps. “You haven’t done anything wrong.” They leaned down and cupped your face with both of their hands. “You’re simply standing too close to a truth you aren’t ready to carry.”
“What truth?” Seraphiel let go of you and stepped away, their wings sweeping past you as they moved. You turned to watch them.
“Others listen when you ask questions. They lean in close to hear your thoughts on humanity. They stop their singing in order to better hear what you have to say. Are you aware of that?” You shook your head.
“I am not responsible for the actions of others.”
“No, you are not,” they agreed easily. “A strong foundation is important for anything, angels especially. We are built on order. Others believe that it would take an army to dismantle our structure. But Heaven is more fragile than it likes to admit.”
“I don’t understand. I am merely one of many other Observers. I don’t have the influence to do something like that,” you insisted.
“You hold more power over Heaven than you realize.” Their voice wasn’t unkind, but there was a certain tension laced through it, weighing it down.
“Then what would you have me do?”
“You will go where we cannot. You will live. You will learn. And when the moment comes, you must remember what you are.”
“You’re going to have me forget?”
“Your Grace would anchor you too firmly,” they explained, voice softening. “You would not be able to experience humanity as they do.”
“But will I be safe without it?”
“My child, I would never send you somewhere unsafe.” You paused, taking everything in. They were sending you to Earth? Without your Grace or your memories to let you experience the very thing you questioned and were curious about? That was–
“But I don’t have a vessel to walk among them,” you said, frowning. Seraphiel lifted a hand, and the space beside them rippled open like curtains being pushed aside. You stared as an image formed within the light. A woman. Human. Curled up in a cramped bathroom. She was lying in a puddle of her own vomit. Her eyes were open but unseeing, an empty bottle just beyond her fingertips. “She’s dying,” you murmured.
“Yes.” Seraphiel’s voice held no trace of concern as they spoke. “She is ready to rest, and you will be a mercy.” Your attention on the woman sharpened. She looked… tired. Tear tracks stained her cheeks. Something uncomfortable twisted in your chest. You had only possessed a vessel one other time. Not many Observer assignments required you to go down to Earth. But something about this seemed… off.
“How long do you intend for me to remain?” you asked, Grace flickering unevenly within you. Seraphiel’s expression gentled with something that bordered on pity.
“Long enough for you to understand. And come to your senses about humanity.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You will.”
Seraphiel’s words were resolute, and they thrummed within your very being. Even though you knew it was an impossibility, Heaven felt colder. You looked back at the human woman. The one who was to be your vessel for an unspecified amount of time. There was something suspicious about the way that this had all been arranged before you’d even arrived.
You took a step back before you could stop yourself. Seraphiel watched you carefully. Patiently. Like the way one might observe an animal approaching the edge of a snare. Understanding crashed into you, threatening to drown you. Your Grace flared hot with sudden panic, wings extending behind you. Not that you had anywhere to go.
“You’re banishing me.”
“No,” Seraphiel said smoothly. “I am giving you the opportunity to rise above this indecency.”
Everything around you was too much. Too bright. Too open. Your thoughts raced. Every conversation you’d had. Every assignment you’d taken. Every subtle correction whenever you questioned too much. It all culminated into this. Your gaze snapped to the entrance to the chamber. And for the first time in your existence, you thought about running.
Seraphiel saw it instantly. They raised a hand, and the entire chamber around you trembled. “You will go to Earth, and you will learn the folly of mankind’s free will,” they said, voice carrying the weight of a command that crashed down all around you. “If there were any other way, know that I would take it instead.”
Fear hit you for the first time in your existence. Not fear of Earth or experiencing humanity. But of Seraphiel. Of the fact that you never truly had a say in any of this. You turned to run just as light exploded across the chamber walls. Your Grace surged violently, just once, before chains ensnared it, coiling around it like an endless snake. Your wings were compressed until they ached. The force around you tightened, and you could feel Heaven begin to slip away.
“No–!”
You reached for them, and your first human breath caught as you witnessed a hand – your own hand – extend in front of you. The sensation of falling overtook you just as the lock around your Grace clicked shut. Your celestial name echoed across the Heavens. The world went dark.
The church screamed around you, walls trembling as your Grace pulsed beneath your skin. Too much and not enough all at once. You could feel the instability of it. Most of you was still locked behind the chains they had put in place. Seraphiel was an ocean while you were a cracked cup trying desperately not to overflow. You couldn’t outlast them. They moved, and you barely managed to bring your blade up in time. Angelic metal shrieked against angelic metal as Seraphiel struck hard enough to unmake any being lesser than you. Instead, you met them head on. Your boots scraped over the broken pews beneath you, and sparks burst between your weapons.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Seraphiel hissed. You shoved them back with a strained cry, kicking off with one foot and letting your wings carry you sideways just as a burst of Grace detonated where your head had been mere moments before. The impact blasted stone chunks from the wall that had been behind you. Fragments of it rained down, and Seraphiel didn’t hesitate before they were on you again.
You skidded slightly over the shattered stained glass on the floor, and your human instincts took over before your angelic ones did. You ducked another swipe of their blade and stumbled backwards. Too slow. Seraphiel’s free hand caught you across the ribs, and the hit felt like getting hit by a semi-truck. Your breath left you in a violent burst.
You hit the ground hard enough to crater the splintered wood beneath you, broken pew legs snapping under the impact. Seraphiel didn’t let up. They descended on you in a blur of brilliant light and wings, their blade driving down towards your throat. You caught it with your own, the force of it shoving your arms trembling towards your chest.
“You are exhausting yourself,” they said, voice low and almost sorrowful. “Why cling so desperately to something so temporary?” Your elbows buckled another inch, and desperation surged through you as your death drew close.
“Because I’m one of them now.” Seraphiel’s expression deepened, frustration worming its way across their features.
“It hurts you.”
“Yes,” you agreed. “But the pain is worth all the good things.” Your Grace surged in response to your conviction. Light flashed beneath your skin like lightning trapped in veins not suited to contain it. The chains around your Grace tightened somewhere deep inside you, and agony ripped through your chest as you pulled on it. Seraphiel’s blade twisted. Your arms gave out completely. Steel slammed towards your throat. You threw your hand up on instinct.
A chunk of your power broke free from its restraints, and a blast tore through the church in a screaming wave of light. Seraphiel was hurled backwards through three rows of pews before crashing against the altar. It cracked under the impact, the sound deep and sacrilege. You gasped, pushing yourself to your knees then up to your feet.
It was too much. too fast. Your Grace bled from your fingertips in uneven flickers, dripping like liquid at first before dissipating like smoke mid-fall. Your vessel screamed in protest as you forced yourself to your feet, every nerve ending on fire. You were beginning to understand it now. This vessel had worked just fine for you so long as your Grace was locked away, but now you had the issue of compatibility. You could feel your vessel’s cells making and unmaking themselves dozens of times in the space of a second.
Across the sanctuary, Seraphiel rose from the wreckage, unharmed. They didn’t even appear winded. The realization hollowed your stomach. They stepped over the broken remains of a pew with dreadful calm. Their Grace filled the church until it became difficult to breathe around it.
“You cannot keep this up,” they warned, stalking towards you with deliberate steps. Your blade shook in your hands, and Seraphiel raised an eyebrow and they saw it. “Oh, little one,” they murmured. Not mocking. Worse. Fond. “You were never built for war. That was never your purpose.”
Something ugly twisted in your chest. Maybe once, that tone would’ve worked. Once, you would’ve folded beneath it. You would’ve mistaken their control for care. Their obedience for love. But then Sam gave you the permission to be uncertain. Dean taught you how to do things without purpose. You had learned how laughter sounded when it echoed down the bunker halls. You had learned about choice. And now you could see their manipulation for what it was.
Seraphiel moved again, but this time, you moved first. Your wings carried you upwards just before Seraphiel obliterated the floor where you had just been standing. The force of it cracked straight through the foundation beneath the church. Wood and stone flew up from the impact site before collapsing downwards. You dove through the falling debris, and your blade met theirs midair. The clash rang like a bell.
Grace detonated between you both in shockwaves, rippling out and shaking the whole building. A beam overhead cracked, and your attention snapped to where Sam stood, still frozen by Seraphiel’s working of Grace. You kicked off of Seraphiel and were by Sam’s side in an instant. You pressed your hand to his shoulder and let your Grace sink into him, digging into the binding the same way Sam had once explained how he tackled cases. Not through brute force but by finding the right thread and pulling on it. It unraveled beneath your intention, and Sam gasped sharply as his world unfroze.
“What–” His gaze landed on you immediately. You were sure you looked awful. You could feel it in the way your existence leaked through your vessel’s skin.
“Listen to me,” you began. But he cut you off.
“No. Whatever you’re about to say, we’re not leaving you here.”
“I’m sorry, but you don’t get that choice right now.” You grabbed his arm and blindly reached for the space that felt deliberately obstructed from your sight. Sam pressed his lips together in a thin, frustrated line and shook his head even as he guided your hand. Confident that you had a hold on both of them, you focused on where the Impala sat outside of the church. Your feet had just barely touched the ground before you turned back.
“Feathers,” Sam said. You paused, glancing over your shoulder at him. “Come back, okay?” You nodded before spreading your wings and meeting Seraphiel head on.
Seraphiel fought like inevitability. No wasted movements. No hesitation. There was nothing frantic about them. Every strike carried overwhelming force behind it, the kind born from millennia of certainty. You met them blow for blow, but you gave ground every time they struck. Seraphiel pressed harder, elegant and merciless. They fought the way stars moved. Predictable only because perfection always followed rules. Every attack flowed seamlessly into the next.
And that was their problem.
Humans survived by adapting.
You ducked late instead of early. You swung before you were properly balanced. You stepped into a strike before you were fully prepared to catch it. Seraphiel’s blade struck yours just as they expected, but instead of pushing back as you had before, you let your arm go slack. The sudden lack of balance threw them off for half a heartbeat. Just long enough for you to slam your body into them shoulder-first. The collision surprised them more than it hurt, but the surprise was all that you needed.
They staggered half a step, and you took advantage of it to grab a fistful of their robes and pull them towards you, driving your forehead into their face. The crack echoed through the church. Seraphiel recoiled in genuine shock, one hand flying instinctively to their nose, though there was no blood to find. Angels didn’t fight like that. Not with desperation. Not with the kind of violence that came from creatures who knew they could die.
“You–” They sounded almost offended. You kicked their legs out from under them before they could recover. It wasn’t graceful or dignified. But it was effective. They caught themself instantly, but you were already moving, not into a better spot to fight. Not where they expected. Not where a celestial warrior should’ve moved. Hunters survived by making the other thing uncomfortable enough to make mistakes.
And Seraphiel had never needed to learn how to recover from mistakes.
Their blade curved towards your ribs in another immaculate arc. You didn’t dodge. In fact, you let it cut into you, pain ripping hot across your side as you stepped into their reach rather than away from it. Too close for comfort. You slammed the hilt of your blade into their wrist. Their fingers spasmed. It wasn’t enough to disarm them, but it broke their rhythm.
Seraphiel’s power flooded the sanctuary like a cathedral hymn while yours came in bursts. Heartbeat pulses. Sudden surges tied to fear and fury. It was unstable. It was human. Seraphiel could see it. Every strike cost you. Every burst of power tore something loose inside you. Your vessel was beginning to break apart.
“You are unraveling,” they said, driving you backwards. “Your Grace is disordered. Corrupted by emotion. You will burn your vessel out.” A laugh burst out of you before you could stop it. Breathless and a little hysterical.
“Yeah,” you gasped, “then I guess I’ll burn.”
“You will cease to exist.”
“I know.”
Seraphiel’s expression darkened with something more than frustration. Something that you thought might’ve looked like fear. You pressed your advantage, driving forward despite the pain in your side. Seraphiel’s blade had cut into your very being, and no amount of Grace could fix it immediately.
Seraphiel’s strikes grew faster. Sharper. You had irritated them. Their movements became increasingly devastating in their efficiency, each attack aimed to end the fight immediately. Stone exploded where their Grace touched. Entire chunks of the sanctuary disintegrated from near-misses. And the angrier they became, the more predictable they grew. And perfection had patterns where humanity did not.
You took another graze across your shoulder and attempted to drive your blade through them, but Seraphiel seemed to see what you had in mind. They struck you across the face hard enough to send you sprawling again. Your blade nearly slipped from your fingers as your vision doubled. You landed among the broken stone and rubble, and you forced yourself upright again, unsure if the wet feeling along your side was blood or Grace or some strange combination of them both.
Seraphiel approached slowly. Almost pleading.
“You would put yourself through all of this for them?” They made a vague gesture at your fracturing vessel. You looked up at them, one hand braced on your knee, blade still clutched like a lifeline, and the other steadying you on the floor.
You thought of the bunker kitchen. Of Dean handing you a warm mug of coffee. Of explaining the strange syntax of proto-Sumerian to Sam in the library. You thought of the way the land passed outside of the Impala windows on a drive. Of the times you, Sam, and Dean sat around the table eating a shared meal. Of the way Dean looked at you. Of the way he called you Feathers like the name meant something significant. You smiled up at them. Seraphiel had stopped less than a couple feet away from you.
“Yes.” You lunged up at them, driving your blade through Seraphiel’s heart. “I’d do this a thousand times for them.”
Light erupted from the wound in a catastrophic burst. Seraphiel gasped, their angel blade slipping from their grasp and clattering to the ground. Their vessel went rigid, mouth opening in a silent scream as Grace poured from their eyes and mouth and wound like liquid starlight. You watched, transfixed, as Seraphiel’s true form unraveled from within their vessel. Your vessel’s eyes burned, searing themselves from the inside out, but you couldn’t bring yourself to turn away.
Then all at once, the light died.
Seraphiel’s body slumped, and you went down with them. Your hands and knees hit the stone and the floor cracked beneath you, a deep groan splitting through the ruined sanctuary. Your angel blade rang against the rubble and went still.
Your Grace had come loose from your vessel. It moved through you in the wrong directions, pressing outward against the inside of your vessel like something trying to get out. It leaked through your wounds. Each surge burned. Each lull was worse. Your vision strobed. The air tasted like copper and ozone and something older than either. You couldn’t tell if you were still bleeding. You couldn’t tell much of anything. Your arms were shaking. Every breath hurt. Every heartbeat felt too loud inside your vessel. You swayed where you knelt.
Something inside you gave way. The chains, the ones Seraphiel had wrapped around your Grace before casting you down, were breaking. They didn’t shatter so much as they unraveled link by link. Each celestial restraint dissolved into drifting motes of pale light that floated weightlessly in the cavern of your soul. They rose slowly like dust caught in sunlight before dissipating. But there was nothing beneath them. You had already pulled your Grace free from them for the fight.
The church groaned around you, and you looked up sluggishly, only barely able to make out a massive crack in the ceiling overhead. With all the destruction wrought by a celestial fight, you were a little surprised the structure hadn’t come down sooner. But it was collapsing now, beams cracking and crashing down around you. And somewhere outside, Dean and Sam were waiting. You reached for your Grace instinctively.
But there wasn’t enough left.
The truth of everything struck with terrible clarity. You had burned through almost everything just to stay alive, and now the last of it was guttering out like a candle at the end of its wick. Angels burned out when their Grace was exhausted. You had seen it happen only once before. But you never thought you would feel it from the inside. Your vision blurred as exhaustion rolled through you in crushing waves. The floor pressed cold through your palms, though you couldn’t feel your hands.
Your thoughts went to Dean. The way his fingers tapped on the steering wheel in time with the music. The way the light caught his eyes when he smiled. The weight of his hand on the small of your back. The way his hand felt in yours.
You thought of all the human things you’d learned. Messy things. Small things. You wanted them. God, you wanted all of them. You didn’t want Heaven. You didn’t want purpose or eternity or the cold mathematics of the divine. You wanted the Impala. You wanted bad diner coffee and Sam correcting your idioms and Dean’s laugh, low and surprised, like joy still caught him off guard sometimes. You wanted every ordinary, exhausting, breakable human day you hadn’t lived yet.
So you prayed. Not upwards. Not to anything that had never answered. You prayed the way humans prayed in their final moments. Desperately. Without dignity. With everything you had. You begged. Not for the sky to save you. Not for redemption or for another chance at taking back your angelic mantle. But you begged for a chance to stay on Earth. Begged for Heaven to let you lay your wings down and keep learning the cost of every day. You begged for the mercy to continue the existence you had come to love. It was raw and graceless but entirely your own.
“Please,” you whispered, the words tearing out of you, “let me stay.”
The motes of Seraphiel’s Grace still drifted through you, faint as ash. You seized them, pulling them into yourself like a drowning thing frantically grabbing for rope. They burned like the first breath of existence, but still you reached for more. It wasn’t nearly enough to restore what you’d expended. But it was enough for one thing.
You let the Grace ignite within you, cloaking you in borrowed fire and light. Divinity returned to you, moving through you like an answer. Your wings unfurled one last time. Your prayer echoed back to you across the cosmos. You could hear your own broken voice begging. And with it, a second prayer. Addressed directly to you.
Come back to me, Feathers.
Humans prayed. Angels answered.
And you were overdue for a miracle.
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Ashes of Grace series Taglist: @sepho @bitchykittenconnoisseur @reginaphalangelobster @kellyls04 @lilylilyyyyyy
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Summary: Cast down from Heaven with your Grace locked away and your memories fractured, you wake up alone and very much human – until you cross paths with the Winchesters. As the three of you search for answers that Heaven doesn’t seem to want to give, you’re forced to navigate the world without your divinity and face the fact that some truths may have been buried to protect you. Or others.
Tags/Warnings: Mystery, Canon-divergent, strangers-to-friends-to-lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, eventual romance, angel learning human shenanigans, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, no use of Y/N, no beta we die like men
Tags specific to this chapter: tending to injuries, reader retches, discussions of sex (but nothing explicit)
A/N: Time to finish up the case and start having some fun here :D
Ashes of Grace Masterlist
You sat in the backseat of the Impala, staring out the window as trees blurred past. The uncomfortable knot in your stomach had only tightened since you’d examined the feather. Something fundamental wasn’t adding up, but you couldn’t place what it was. Dean’s distrust radiated from the driver’s seat like a physical force, and you found yourself shrinking against the leather upholstery, trying to make yourself smaller. The Impala turned onto a narrow gravel road. Through the windshield, you could see yellow police tape fluttering between some trees further down a dirt path.
“All three victims were found on this trail,” Sam said, pointing to the map spread across his lap. “About half a mile in, there’s a clearing where hikers will camp sometimes.”
“Remember, you stay in the car,” Dean said as he parked, meeting your eyes in the rearview mirror.
“I’ll stay here,” you promised, clasping your hands in your lap to stem your nervous fidgeting.
As they gathered their equipment from the trunk, you watched through the back window, the familiar anxiety of being left alone settling in your chest. Dean pulled out a large duffel bag while Sam checked something on his phone. Their movements were practiced and efficient, a well-choreographed routine that you were still learning to understand.
“We won’t be long,” Sam said, opening the door closest to you. He held out his phone. “If you need to contact us, you press this button here.” He pointed. “Just stay put, okay?” You nodded, taking the phone from him and looking down at the screen to see a photo of Dean.
“Be careful.”
“We’ve handled worse than some overgrown birds,” Dean scoffed, slinging the bag over his shoulder.
They disappeared down the trail, leaving you alone with your thoughts and the troubling inconsistencies that wouldn’t stop circling in your mind. The feather’s coloration, the precise wounds, the location of the bodies... None of it matched what you knew about Avernian harpies. You leaned your head against the cool glass of the window, trying to fit the pieces together in your mind. The silence of the car pressed in around you, a stark contrast to the constant hum of activity in the bunker.
Minutes stretched into what felt like hours as you waited, eyes fixated on the trail where Sam and Dean had disappeared. You looked down at Sam’s phone again, the photo of Dean staring back at you. Should you call them to make sure they were okay? Sam had said that you were allowed to contact them, but he hadn’t placed any stipulations on it. You set the phone down on the bench beside you and fished out the small evidence bag with the feather that Dean had left in a folder by your feet. You turned it over in your hands as you examined it again. The iridescent blue caught the light filtering through the clouds, the copper specks seeming to pulse with an energy that almost felt familiar.
Something nagged at the edges of your consciousness. A memory or a piece of knowledge trying to make itself known. You closed your eyes, concentrating on the sensation of the feather through the plastic. It crinkled between your fingers, and something clicked into place in your mind. You froze abruptly, the thought coming to you like a bubble breaking the water’s surface.
Hybrid.
The word materialized in your mind with startling clarity. Not Avernian. Not Stymphalian. Both. A hybrid harpy. Something that shouldn’t exist in nature but somehow did. The realization sent a chill down your spine. It would explain everything. The conflicting signs. The blue feather with copper – genetic traits from two distinct subspecies. The precise, deep wounds – the strength from one variant combined with the surgical hunting style of another. The bodies left at the kill sites instead of being taken to a nest – conflicting instinctual behaviors warring within the same creature.
You sat up straighter, heart pounding. This wasn’t just unusual. It was unprecedented. Hybridization between harpy subspecies was theoretically possible but incredibly rare. Unheard of. The implications sent your mind racing. If a hybrid existed, it would explain all the contradictions. The normal rules wouldn’t apply. Which meant you weren’t wrong. You just didn’t have the full picture.
You hit the button Sam had pointed to and held the phone to your ear. It rang. Once. Twice. Three times. Then,
“This is Dean Winchester. If this is an emergency, leave a message.”
A new thread somewhere in the far recesses of your memory was pulled at the sound of his last name, but that was the least of your priorities.
“It’s a hybrid. It’s–”
Beeeep.
“Dean?” He didn’t answer. “Hello?” You looked at the phone, confused. From what you understood, it was supposed to allow for real-time communication. Maybe he was just listening. “It’s a hybrid. It’s both Avernian and Stymphalian. I think it’ll take both bronze and iron to kill it.”
You waited for a response. A confirmation that he had received your message.
Nothing happened.
You looked back at the tree line beyond the windshield. It was too still. Too quiet. Too wrong. Did they know? You were sure that they had taken both iron and bronze with them, so at least they were equipped for it. But if they didn’t know that they needed both...
The door opened with a soft click, and your feet hit the gravel before you could second-guess yourself. Breaking Dean’s trust now was going to destroy what little progress you had made, but if you were right, the brothers were walking into danger with incomplete information. The gravel crunched beneath your feet as you oriented yourself towards the trail. Adrenaline surged through your veins, carrying your body forward before your mind could fully process the decision.
The forest path stretched before you, roots and stones threatening to trip your still-clumsy human feet as you navigated the trail, and you wished now more than ever that you had your wings. You could’ve covered the distance from the car to them in a heartbeat. You stumbled over an exposed root, catching yourself against a tree trunk. The rough bark scraped against your palms, sending a sharp sting up your arms. The sensations were so raw without the buffer of celestial detachment.
A shout echoed through the trees, closer than you expected. You pushed forward, legs burning with the exertion as you ran towards the sounds of conflict. The forest blurred around you, your human senses struggling to process everything at once. The sharp scent of pine. The uneven terrain beneath your feet. The distant calls of birds fleeing the commotion ahead. But you couldn’t focus on any of that. Your focus was pinpointed on Sam and Dean’s safety.
You broke through a dense patch of underbrush and stumbled into a small clearing. The scene that greeted you sent ice through your veins. Sam and Dean stood back-to-back, weapons raised as they faced the creature that confirmed your theory.
The harpy circled overhead, its massive wingspan casting flickering shadows across the grassy clearing. Its body was a horrifying blend of features. The powerful build of an Avernian harpy with the sleek, predatory grace of a Stymphalian. Midnight blue feathers with copper accents caught the light as it dove, talons extended towards Dean. He dodged its first strike, rolling to one side as talons gouged the earth where he had stood just moments before. Sam moved in time with him, keeping the harpy between them so it couldn’t strike one of them without leaving itself open for the other. The creature shrieked, the sound so loud and piercing that you had to cover your ears. The high-frequency made your skull vibrate painfully.
“Dean!” you shouted, your voice nearly drowned out by the harpy’s cry. He spun around, eyes widening when he caught sight of you. His moment of distraction almost cost him as the harpy swooped again, talons barely missing him.
“What the hell are you doing here?!” he yelled, ducking behind a fallen log. “You were supposed to stay in the car!”
“It’s a hybrid!” You dipped behind the tree closest to you as the harpy turned in your direction. “Iron alone won’t kill it!”
Sam pivoted, swinging the sharpened metal rod in his hand at the harpy as it went for him. The iron connected with a sickening thud, and the creature screeched in pain. But it stayed airborne. It circled higher, wings beating furiously as it prepared for another attack.
“What do you mean ‘hybrid’?” Sam called, keeping the creature in his sights.
“It has traits from multiple subspecies,” you explained, peeking around the tree to scan the area. Your eyes landed on Dean’s duffel bag that was dropped several feet away from you. You could see the fletching of the bronze arrows poking out from the open zipper. “You need both iron and bronze to kill it!” Dean cursed aloud, dropping down to avoid another attack and landing another blow with an iron rod of his own.
“Great timing, Feathers! Maybe lead with that next time!” he snarled. The guilt hit you immediately. If you had just figured it out faster, then you wouldn’t have broken the tentative trust that had begun forming between the two of you. But there wasn’t time to dwell on that. Not when the harpy was circling back for another attack.
“The arrows!” You pointed at the bag across the clearing, and Sam nodded in understanding. Dean raised his weapon defensively as the harpy made another pass. Its claws sparked against the metal, and he took advantage of its moment of hesitation to stab the sharpened end through its side. It shrieked in pain, ripping the weapon from Dean’s hands as it pushed off from him. He stumbled backwards.
You darted from your hiding place, and the harpy tracked your movement, its intelligent eyes fixing on you with predatory focus. Sam reached the bag first, fingers frantically closing around one of the arrows. You took it from him, the metal cool against your skin and the weight of it strange in your hand. You understood the weapon in theory, but you had never wielded it in your lifetime.
The harpy screeched again, abandoning its futile attempts on Dean and pivoting mid-air towards you. You turned just in time to see its massive form descending, talons extended like daggers aimed straight for your chest. Time seemed to slow down. Dean shouted something, but the sound was drowned out by the rush of blood in your ears.
Your body reacted on instinct. Muscled you didn’t know you had tensed as you gripped the arrow tightly and launched yourself to the side. The harpy’s talons tore through your shoulder as you rolled across the ground, sending a white-hot flash of pain through your awareness. You gasped, the sensation stealing your breath for a crucial moment.
“Stay down!” Sam shouted, and you flattened yourself against the ground as Sam swung above you. There was a sickening crunch noise as the rod connected with the harpy’s wing. It faltered mid-air, one dangerous talon carving its way through the dirt just beside you as it descended towards you.
You scrambled to get your bearings, rolling onto your back and ignoring the warm trickle of blood sliding down your arm. You shoved the sensation of the throbbing pain in your shoulder to the back of your mind as you lunged up at it. The arrow felt heavy in your grip, its weight unfamiliar but right in your hands as you thrust it forward with all the strength your human body could muster.
The arrowhead connected with the harpy’s chest, sliding between the iridescent feathers and into flesh. The creature’s momentum carried it, impaling itself upon the bronze shaft. Its shriek morphed into a guttural, choking sound as the metal pierced its heart. Hot blood spilled over your hands, startlingly warm and sticky. The harpy’s massive wings beat frantically, once, twice, then went still. Its weight crashed into you, knocking the air from your lungs as its body pinned you to the forest floor.
For a terrifying moment, you couldn’t breathe beneath it. Its body was heavier than you had expected as the last twitches of life left it. The smell was overwhelming, a mixture of copper blood and something wild and musky that filled your nostrils.
“Feathers!” Dean’s voice cut through your panic as rough hands grabbed the harpy’s shoulders, lifting the dead weight off your chest. Air rushed back into your lungs with a painful gasp. Sam was helping you sit up as Dean tossed the harpy’s corpse aside.
“Are you hurt?” Sam asked, his eyes roving over you. Your shoulder throbbed where the talons had torn into you, warm blood still seeping through your shirt. But the pain felt distant, a secondary sensation to the rush of adrenaline still coursing through you.
“I... I don’t believe it caused any permanent damage,” you said slowly, but you winced as you tried to move your arm.
Dean stood over the harpy’s body, his expression complicated as he studied it. His jaw was set in a hard line, and you could see the familiar tell-tale-twitch of the muscle beneath the skin. When he finally turned to look at you, his eyes were sharp and angry, frustration etched into every line of his body language.
“What part of stay in the car wasn’t clear?” he demanded, his voice low and dangerous. You struggled to your feet, Sam’s steadying hand on your elbow to keep you from swaying.
“I realized what it was,” you explained, your voice shakier than you had intended. “And I couldn’t get a hold of you. I tried to contact you, but I didn’t know if you heard me or not. You didn’t respond.”
“So you thought the best plan was to run straight into danger?” Dean’s voice rose as he stepped closer, looming over you. The adrenaline that had carried you through the fight began to ebb, leaving you trembling slightly under his glare.
“You were in trouble. And I knew iron alone wouldn’t be enough,” you said, meeting his eyes despite the urge to look anywhere else.
“You could’ve been killed,” Dean snapped, gesturing at your bleeding shoulder. “It nearly took your head off!”
“But she was right,” Sam interjected. “It’s exactly like she described. Traits from multiple subspecies, and it took both iron and bronze to kill.” Dean’s jaw worked as he struggled between acknowledging your contribution and maintaining his stance on your disobedience. The silence stretched between you, filled only by the sound of your labored breathing and the distant calls of startled forest birds.
“Let’s get you back to the motel,” he finally said, his voice dropping to something less harsh but no less serious. “We can discuss this once you’re patched up.”
You pressed your lips together into a fine line, your shoulder pulsing in painful anticipation. Without the adrenaline, dizziness sunk into you, and you were becoming increasingly aware of the warm wetness seeping down your arm. You swayed slightly, and Sam’s grip on your elbow tightened.
“We need to get that cleaned up,” Sam said, nodding towards your injury. “Infection can set in quickly.”
The drive back to the motel passed by in a blur of discomfort. Every bump on the road sent a fresh flare of pain through you, and you focused on staying upright. Sam and Dean spoke in hushed tones on the front bench during the drive, but you couldn’t focus on their words through the haze of discomfort. They both sounded upset. You thought you might’ve heard something like ease up from Sam and ticking time bomb from Dean, but you would’ve been hard pressed to try and make much sense out of it.
Sam had told you that the wound didn’t look deep enough to need stitches, but they had left the bulk of their medical supplies back at the motel room. Dean had stripped off his jacket, folded it neatly, and pressed it hard against your shoulder, telling you that it was important for you to maintain pressure on it despite the pain. You had dutifully kept your hand pressed over his jacket.
You shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position that didn’t subject your shoulder to the unevenness of the road, but nothing seemed to ease the wave of nausea that washed over you with every jolt of the car. Sam insisted on grabbing food as soon as the three of you pulled into the motel parking lot. Dean grumbled a protest, but Sam’s stubbornness won out. The weight of the door slamming shut as he left felt oddly final, leaving you and Dean alone in the motel room.
“Sit,” Dean ordered, motioning towards one of the beds. You obeyed, sinking on the mattress with a soft groan. “Let me take a look.” Dean crouched in front of you, carefully peeling back the blood-soaked fabric of his jacket before brushing his fingers along the edge of your torn shirt. “Doesn’t look like it got you too deep,” he said gently. “You said they got toxins?” You nodded slightly, head spinning.
“Causes disorientation. Isn’t enough to kill on its own,” you said.
“You got lucky, Feathers.”
The toxin must’ve worked its way into your system thoroughly because you were sure that the nickname landed differently this time. It was softer, somehow, lacking the dismissive edge it usually carried. You blinked, trying to focus on his face even when it wobbled in your vision. “Come on, let’s get you into the bathroom and get you cleaned up.”
He helped you stumble into the bathroom, a steadying hand on you the entire way before helping you perch yourself on the ledge of the bathtub and opening up a first aid kit that had seen many, many uses. He nudged the torn jacket off of your shoulders, and it stuck slightly where the blood had dried. You hissed as it pulled free. Your shirt had been torn, and Dean cut the tatters of the sleeve off with a pair of medical scissors from the kit.
“This is gonna sting,” Dean warned as he poured antiseptic on a gauze. It burned like fire when he pressed it against you, and you bit down hard on your lower lip to keep from crying out, your fingers pressing into the cool porcelain of the tub as the world wavered around you. The smell of antiseptic mixed with the metallic scent of blood made your head swim, and combined with the disorienting toxins from the harpy, your body didn’t stand a chance.
You pushed Dean away and turned your head to the tub, your body heaving as your stomach emptied itself. Bile and acid burned its way up your throat, and you coughed as you instinctively leaned further over, retching. You vaguely felt Dean’s hand on your back as your body convulsed, each involuntary movement pulling your shoulders up and sending new pain through you.
“Is this… dying?” you asked between gasps, your body shuddering. Dean let out a humorless laugh despite himself.
“Not dying. You went through a lot in a short amount of time. You’re just processing,” Dean murmured, his having gone low and surprisingly gentle. His hand moved in small circles, a gesture of comfort that was foreign but welcome. You flinched as another wave of nausea hit, but nothing came up this time. Your throat burned, and tears pricked at the corners of your eyes. The taste in your mouth was foul, and a cold sweat had broken out across your forehead. Dean reached past you to turn on the faucet, washing away the mess. “That’s it, get it all out.”
You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and immediately regretted it as the coppery tang of harpy blood met your tongue. You gagged again. Dean grabbed you a small plastic cup of water. “Rinse and spit,” he instructed. “Don’t swallow.”
You did as he told, the cool water soothing your raw throat before you spat it into the drain. When your stomach was a little more settled, Dean set about cleaning your shoulder. Each touch sent sparks of sensation through you, though not every one of them was painful. You weren’t sure what else it was, though. A new sort of silence settled over the two of you as he worked. “Doesn’t look like you’ll need stitches, but it’s gonna hurt like hell for a few days.”
You nodded, watching his face as he concentrated on bandaging your shoulder. The furrow between his brows had softened, his earlier anger having given way to something more complex that you still didn’t know the name of. His fingers moved with surprising gentleness, wrapping gauze around your shoulder with careful precision.
“Thank you,” you said quietly, your voice barely above a whisper. Dean paused for just a moment, his eyes flicking up to meet yours for a brief moment before returning to his task.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, the words coming out gruff but genuine. He finished securing the bandage with medical tape, his fingertips brushing against your skin one last time before he pulled away. The absence of his touch left you feeling oddly bereft. “How’s that feel?” he asked, packing the supplies back into the kit.
“Better,” you said, experimentally moving your shoulder and wincing at the pull of the damaged tissue. “Still hurts, but… it will recover.” Dean nodded, his expression softening slightly as he handed you a water bottle. You took it gratefully, your hands shaking slightly. The cool plastic felt odd in your blood-crusted fingers.
“Drink,” he instructed. You did so, taking careful sips as he watched you with the same assessing gaze you had grown used to. The water soothed your parched throat, washing away the metallic taste of fear that had lingered there since the harpy’s attack.
“Dean?” you began softly.
“Yeah?”
“Is… is being human always like this?” He went still, like the question had caught him completely off guard.
“Like what?”
“Hurting,” you said. “It seems like there are so many ways the human body can experience pain.” Dean leaned against the bathroom counter, bracing his hands on either side of himself.
“No,” he started slowly. “It’s not all pain.”
“But there’s a lot of it?”
“There is… but it’s not always like that.” He sighed and reached for one of the folded washcloths, ran it under warm water, then crouched in front of you again. “C’mon, gimme your hand.” You placed it in his without hesitation, and he began gently wiping away the dried blood.
“Then what’s the point of it?” you asked. “Why endure all of this if it hurts so much?” He didn’t answer right away. He kept his gaze trained on your hand, thumb brushing absentmindedly over your knuckles as he worked. Something in his expression had shifted. Something softer. Something melancholic.
“Because there’s more to it than just pain,” he said finally. “There’s lots of good things. Good food. Stupid movies. Music that hits you right in the chest.” A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “There’s pie.”
“Have I had that?”
“Not yet,” Dean replied, a flicker of something that might’ve been excitement crossing his face. “That’s something we need to fix.” The pain in your shoulder had settled to a dull throb that pulsed in time with your heartbeat, and the toxin in your system must’ve dissipated quickly because you were already feeling much better after emptying your guts into the tub. “But there’s also connection,” Dean continued to speak as he cleaned, eventually finishing one hand and urging you to set down the water bottle and give him the other. You obeyed, listening to him. “There’s learning that not every touch is meant to hurt.”
“What do you mean?” you cocked your head to the side. He paused again, your hand resting in his with the washcloth held in the other. He set it down, moving slowly and deliberately.
“Like this.” His fingers brushed against your wrist, a gentle touch that sent a strange warmth up your arm. You watched, fascinated by the sensation. Warmth bloomed in the wake of his fingers, quick and fleeting. This touch was different. You didn’t get that kind of warm feeling when he had been cleaning your shoulder. This wasn’t a functional touch. It was something else entirely. Something you had no idea the name of. For a single moment, both of you held your breaths.
Then, Dean pulled his hand back to himself, grabbing for the washcloth again as though he just realized what he had been doing. He wouldn’t meet your eyes, suddenly very intent on cleaning the blood from between your fingers. “There’s plenty of good stuff in the world. The kind of things that made the bad stuff... survivable.”
“Is that what keeps humans going?” you asked. “For those moments?” Dean swallowed, still not looking at you.
“Yeah. I think so.” There was a long beat of silence between you as he finished what he was doing. Then,
“Is sex one of those ‘good things’?” Dean froze, movements paused halfway through wiping dried blood from one of your knuckles.
“... I’m sorry,” he began after a beat. “Is what one of those things?”
“Intercourse,” you repeated simply. “I saw it referenced often in a book.”
“Christ, what the hell is Sam teaching you?” Dean heaved a sigh, letting go of your hand in favor of rubbing the back of his head. “It– uh… yeah. I mean… it can be.” You watched him with interest, noticing a pinkish hue rising to his cheeks.
“Is it connection?”
“Sometimes,” he said, recovering slightly. “Sometimes it’s just–” Dean caught himself and sighed again. “Look, it’s complicated.”
“But it’s one of the good things?” You dipped your head down slightly to meet his gaze, and when you caught it, there was something cautious but honest there.
“It can be. With the right person. When everyone’s on the same page.” You nodded, filing that away.
“Is it painful?” Your question earned you a startled huff of laughter before he could stop himself.
“No. No, not usually.”
“Then… it’s the opposite?”
“...Yeah,” he said slowly. “Pleasure.”
You rolled the concept around in your mind, trying to find the right way to categorize it. Pain and pleasure. Opposites on the same spectrum, you supposed. You were plenty familiar with the former, but the latter was something entirely unknown.
“I think I want to experience that,” you said. “Pleasure.” Dean straightened up abruptly, standing and putting a careful step of distance between you as he tossed the washcloth beside the sink.
“Okay,” he said, his voice a little rough. “That’s– that’s not a conversation for right now.” You blinked up at him.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” His answer came far too quickly, and it gave you the sneaking feeling like you had said the wrong thing. “No, you didn’t. I just…” He sighed again, scrubbing his hand over his face and turning to look into the bathroom mirror. “How about this? You don’t ask me about sex until you understand what it means to want something.”
You nodded, unbothered, but the flicker of curiosity played at the edges of your mind. You weren’t entirely sure what he meant by wanting something, but the idea was intriguing. Wanting. Desire. Abstract concepts that were foreign but enticing. You understood the principle of longing from stories you had watched unfold, but, just like with everything else relating to the human experience, living it in your new form was something else entirely.
Dean hastily closed the first aid kit and ushered you out of the bathroom, tossing you a flannel from his bag. “You should change into this. So you don’t have to sleep in a bloody shirt.”
“Thank you.” You stripped, noticing that Dean abruptly turned away from you as you did so. “I’m sorry about leaving the car,” you started slowly, buttoning up the shirt with minimal difficulty. Your first time with buttons had been better than shoe laces, but the fine motor functions needed for it hadn’t been very well developed. This time, your only fumble with them was missing a hole which left the shirt bunched up oddly in one spot. “I know you told me to stay put.”
“Yeah, well… for what it’s worth, you did good out there. For someone who’s only been human for a week, you handled yourself better than most.”
You blinked at the unexpected praise, warmth flooding your cheeks at his words. That wasn’t what you had been expecting from him at all.
“But I broke your rule,” you reminded him, testing to see if his anger had truly dissipated or if it was just temporarily buried beneath the concerns for your wellbeing.
“Yeah, you did,” he admitted, his voice soft. “But you saved our asses back there. So I guess I can let it slide. This time.” He peeked, making sure you were decent before he turned around and pointed a finger at you, but there wasn’t any heat behind the gesture like you had seen before. “Don’t make a habit of it.”
A smile tugged at your lips, a strange lightness in your chest at his acceptance. Every interaction with Dean thus far had felt like a negotiation. A careful dance of boundaries and trust that you had hoped was slowly building into something more solid. But for once, you felt like actual progress was being made.
You sat on the edge of the bed, shifting slightly and adjusting to the comfort of his flannel. It smelled like him. Gunpowder and leather and something distinctly human that you didn’t have a name for. It was grounding in a way you hadn’t expected. Familiar already despite how new everything was to you still.
Dean pulled his phone out of his pocket and sat on your uninjured side, close enough that your shoulder almost touched his. And he stayed there, quiet and unmoving, as he tapped at his phone screen.
The silence that settled between you wasn’t awkward. It didn’t press in on you or demand to be filled. It simply existed, – shared and steady – and you got the distinct feeling that maybe, just maybe, Dean had decided that you were less of a liability than he had expected.
Lower divider by @/kodaswrld
Likes, reblogs, and comments are greatly appreciated!
Summary: Cast down from Heaven with your Grace locked away and your memories fractured, you wake up alone and very much human – until you cross paths with the Winchesters. As the three of you search for answers that Heaven doesn’t seem to want to give, you’re forced to navigate the world without your divinity and face the fact that some truths may have been buried to protect you. Or others.
Tags/Warnings: Mystery, Canon-divergent, strangers-to-friends-to-lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, eventual romance, angel learning human shenanigans, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, no use of Y/N, no beta we die like men
A/N: I feel like I'm running out of things to say about this. I hope it makes sense. I originally started with a really good lead on this story and had chapters done weeks in advance. Then I lost that lead and I'm writing as I go along anymore lol As per the usual, huge shoutout to @kblognar for being such an amazing bean and letting me yap 💜💜💜
Ashes of Grace Masterlist
Sam found you in the bathroom, head in your hands and curled up on the floor like the tiles held all the answers.
“Hey.” His voice was soft and careful, like he was addressing a wounded animal. You didn’t look up right away, keeping your head tucked close to your chest. The remaining lights in the bathroom buzzed overhead, a constant reminder of imperfection that suddenly felt too loud. “You alright?”
“I don’t know,” you whispered, your own voice sounding foreign to you. The cold of the floor had seeped through your clothes and numbed your legs, but you couldn’t bring yourself to move. It was anchoring somehow. Sam sighed, and you watched his boots as he stepped into the bathroom. Though, he didn’t come right up to you. Instead, he leaned with his back against the sink, giving you your space while establishing that you weren’t alone.
“It can be hard finding out that there’s some grand plan in place for you,” he said after a moment of silence. The tone in his voice suggested that he was speaking from experience. You lifted your head to look at him. His expression was gentle, understanding written across his face, but you watched as confusion passed over him as he looked at you, brow creasing slightly. “Did you heal yourself?”
You shifted on the floor, turning your gaze to look at the broken glass scattered a short distance away, more evidence of something you hadn’t meant to do. Something that had happened because your Grace had moved of its own accord. The broken bulb was the least of your concern.
“Not intentionally,” you admitted. “It just… happened.” Your fingers traced along your brow, feeling where the cut had been previously. “My Grace acted on its own. Like a reflex.” Sam pushed away from the sink and carefully approached, crouching down to your level.
“Is it coming back to you?”
“In bits and pieces. Like fragments trying to find their way home.” Sam nodded slowly, considering your words as he settled more comfortably on the floor beside you.
“That’s a good sign, right? Means whatever is binding your Grace is coming undone?” And when he said it like that, yeah, it should’ve been a good thing. So why didn’t it feel like one? Sam made it sound so simple. Logical. Like it was progress that was clean and measurable. You didn’t answer him right away. Because the truth that sat heavy in your chest was tangled up in something you weren’t sure how to name yet.
“Maybe,” you said finally, but it came out thinner than you intended. Uncertain. Sam didn’t push. He never did, even though you were sure he saw right through you. You kept your gaze on the broken glass on the floor. Kept your attention on the way the room still felt wrong, like the air hadn’t settled back into place after your Grace had slipped. Sam was quiet for a moment longer before,
“If I hadn’t come in here, you wouldn’t have told us that any of this happened, would you?” It wasn’t an accusation, just a soft observation. Your fingers curled slightly.
“I didn’t–” You caught yourself and restarted. “It wouldn’t be necessary.” Sam huffed a quiet breath at that, not quite a laugh but not quite disbelief either. He said your name, and you looked at him.
“I don’t think breaking a light and accidentally healing yourself is something you get to decide isn’t worth mentioning.” You swallowed. The silence stretched again. Then, “You don’t want Dean to know.”
The words landed between you like something solid. Unavoidable.
Your breath caught. Not in a dramatic or loud way but enough for Sam to catch. He didn’t move closer or crowd you. If anything, he leaned back just slightly, giving you space to deny it or… not. You squeezed your eyes shut for a second before you could stop yourself. Your silence was enough of an answer for him. “Why?” he asked, not in a prying sort of way but rather in a way that suggested he wanted to understand. You shook your head.
“I don’t want him to look at me differently.” The answer made you feel small. Honest. Exposed.
“Differently how?” You let out a breath that felt too heavy for your lungs.
“Like I’m…” you hesitated for a moment, searching for the right words. “Like I’m something that could become a problem.” Sam’s expression shifted, something sharper cutting through the softness, but somehow you knew that it wasn’t directed at you. It was directed at the idea you had brought up.
“Hey,” he said, firmer now. “No. That’s not–”
“But it is,” you cut in insistently. “My Grace almost hurt you.” Your voice cracked on the last word. “If I wasn’t able to pull it back at the last second then…” You didn’t finish the sentence. You pivoted. “What if it continues to lash out? What if I’m not able to control it? What if the more it comes back, the more I return to being like other angels and start seeing humans as just…” You gestured vaguely.
“You won’t,” Sam said with such certainty that you just about believed him on the spot.
“How can you be so sure?” you asked, the question coming out more desperate than you’d intended. You looked at him, searching his face for any sign of doubt. There was none.
“Because I know you,” Sam said with unwavering conviction. “Dean and I have seen angels at their worst. We’ve seen their disregard for humans time and time again. But you? You embraced learning about humanity when it would’ve been easier to push it away and complain.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that if my Grace is no longer fully bound, and it acts without my instruction, then that is not safe.”
“For who?” Sam asked, and the question caught you off guard. You blinked.
“For–” You faltered.
“For you?” Sam pressed gently. “Or for us?” Sam sighed when you didn’t answer, rubbing the back of his neck before letting it fall into his lap. “Look, I get it. I do. You want to figure it out before it becomes… something that you can’t take back.” You nodded. “But hiding it from me – or Dean for that matter – isn’t gonna make it any less real.” You flinched slightly, not from his tone but from the truth in his words.
“I’m not hiding it,” you said, but even you knew that it was a lie. Sam didn’t call you out, but he did tilt his head knowingly.
“Then what are you doing?”
“I am…” Your voice trailed off as you opened your mouth. Then closed it. Then tried again. “Containing it,” you said finally. That felt true, at least. Sam was quiet for an extra beat. “Or, trying to,” you added. Your gaze dropped again. The lights above you buzzed. The air hummed. Something inside of you shifted, faint and restless beneath your skin.
“You’re still you. Okay?” he murmured softly. “Grace or no Grace, leaking or locked up or whatever… that doesn’t change who you are.”
You wanted to believe him. You really did. But Sam didn’t understand the way that your Grace let you feel the rotation of the earth or the vastness of the cosmos or the way the stars shifted in the sky. It might, your inner voice warned, and that was the truth that scared you the most.
Though Sam hadn’t made any promise of secrecy, he didn’t bring up your Grace’s resurgence in the following days, and aside from Dean chalking up your sudden recovery to your angelic durability returning, he didn’t seem to suspect that anything was amiss. You weren’t sure if you were relieved or more anxious that he hadn’t said anything more.
Each day that passed without incident should’ve been reassuring, but instead, you found yourself growing more vigilant, constantly monitoring the whispers of your Grace for any sign of it slipping from its containment. The day that Dean commented that the bunker was reminding him of a “shitty motel with its flickering lights” was the day that you began to limit your time in common spaces. Even when the lights weren’t actively flickering, you could feel your Grace shifting beneath the surface, coiling like it was trying to find the right way to sit within you.
You had to tell him.
Logically speaking, it was silly not to. But logic hadn’t been the driving force behind your decision to keep quiet. Fear was. Not of Dean himself but of what might change between you once he knew. The way his eyes might’ve shifted when he looked at you if he knew that your Grace was slipping through cracks you couldn’t see. The way his trust in you might’ve dissipated if he learned that you had been sent as some sort of… spy agent to learn about humanity. The way he might’ve assumed that anything you felt was… feigned.
That thought struck you the hardest.
Because it certainly felt real. The warmth that stirred in your chest when Dean looked at you wasn’t just some mimicry of human connection. It felt genuine. The way that your heart raced when he stood too close wasn’t just your vessel’s automatic response but something that belonged to you. And the shared glances and the moment in the motel when he kissed your forehead?
That wasn’t fabricated or performed. It was real. It was the moment when it felt like Dean had reached across the void between human and angel and touched something essential within you. And the thought that Dean might doubt that authenticity made your chest ache in ways you hadn’t thought possible.
You needed to tell him. Because hiding it might do more harm than good.
You found Dean in the garage. Or rather... you tried to.
At first, everything seemed normal. The Impala sat beneath the low lighting, and there were numerous tools scattered across the nearby workbench that suggested recent use. There was the faint scent of oil and metal in the air. You liked it. It had grown on you.
You took a step forward, and the entire world shifted. It was subtle. So subtle that, for a moment, you thought you might’ve imagined it. But the way your perception seemed to lag slightly behind reality wasn’t your imagination. You looked at the Impala.
Dean was there. You knew he was there. You could hear movement beneath the car. Could hear the scrape of metal against metal and the clank of a wrench. But when you looked under the vehicle, the space was empty. Your brow furrowed as you straightened, turning in a slow circle to scan the garage. The sound of metal continued, and it was definitely coming from the front end of the Impala.
“Dean?” you asked, your voice echoing strangely in the garage. the sounds stopped, and you waited for Dean to emerge from wherever he might’ve been. Nothing. You swallowed hard. Then, something in the space moved. A shape. A suggestion. A disruption in the air itself like heat rising off asphalt. Your vision stuttered around it, unable to fully settle. Your breath caught. “No…” you whispered. Your Grace that hummed in your chest spiked violently. You took half a step back and watched as the distortion shifted in front of you in response. You reached out tentatively and stopped short when your Grace surged.
Several lights that hung from the ceiling suddenly burst, sending broken glass to the ground in the wake of loud popping sounds. The lights that didn’t break flickered wildly in response to your power, and several tools sitting on the nearby workbench flew off, clattering to the ground. The distortion recoiled, and for a split second, you could see him.
Dean.
Real and solid and close enough that you could touch him if you just reached a little more. His eyes were on you, sharp with concern.
“Hey– what the hell was–” And he was gone again. You pulled your hand back to your chest and staggered backwards.
“No,” you said again, fear creeping into your voice. “That’s not–” Another bulb shattered.
“Feathers?” You could hear him, just barely. Like he was at the end of a tunnel or underwater. Your Grace pulsed again, and you desperately grabbed for it, trying to reign it back in as it thrashed against your mental grip. Your throat went tight.
“I can’t,” you started then stopped. You didn’t have the words. Two more bulbs went out.
“What’s going on?” Dean asked, and you could hear his voice just a fragment closer. You could hear the shift in his voice. The concern in it sharpened into something more serious. You took another step back because you were suddenly, acutely aware of what could happen if you couldn’t control it.
If it lashed out–
If it touched him–
“I can–” Your voice fractured. “I can fix this!”
“Hey– Feathers, wait–”
But you had already turned to run.
You hadn’t left your room in three days.
The bunker’s air had gone stale around you, or maybe it was just the stillness in your lungs that made it feel that way. When was the last breath you took? Your door was shut and locked, but it was ultimately irrelevant. It was more of an idea of a boundary rather than an actual one. What you were containing had never been something wood or metal could stop.
The quiet had pressed itself into every surface, coating it like dust. It didn’t settle. It stretched thin and taught, like something pulled too far and threatened to snap. It threaded through the air and along the walls, vibrating just beneath perception. It wasn’t just silence. It was absence. The kind that existed before sound was ever made.
You moved across the room, though... that felt more like an approximation than anything else. Your body occupied the space, but your awareness kept slipping – skimming just beyond the mortal coil and brushing against something vast and distant before snapping back into the confines of flesh and blood. The room around you bore the strain.
The wooden chair at the desk had collapsed, its structure given way at precise points of weakness, as though something had pressed against it from the inside to find all the spots it would fail first. The wood hadn’t so much as sprinter as it had separated, fibers pulled apart instead of broken. You adjusted your weight, slightly, and something sharp pressed into the sole of your foot. There was a delay before your vessel understood it. A moment before the sensation was translated into something recognizable. When it did, it wasn’t pain that followed. Just information.
The floor was scattered with fragments that caught the light from the single remaining intact bulb in the room. Remnants of your bedside lamp, though you couldn’t quite recall the moment it had stopped being whole. Memory required continuity, and this – whatever this was – did not move in a straight line. You lifted your foot to look at it, vaguely feeling the way your skin split. Thin lines opened up on the underside of it, clean and precise. And for a moment, they simply existed. Then, something beneath your skin shifted.
Light threaded through the openings, slipping into the space where something had been displaced. The edges of the wounds didn’t bleed. They hesitated, like they weren’t sure whether to remain open or not. You blinked, and your feet were whole again. Not healed. Not fixed. Simply... made whole. Across the room, something answered.
A fracture appeared along the far wall, simply there as though the material had reached its threshold and quietly gave up the effort of holding itself intact. The dresser followed suit, one of its drawers haphazardly pulled out and the front panel splitting along the grain just enough to expose the hollow interior. You moved to your bed, leaving bloody footprints in your wake.
You didn’t look down, but you could feel the way your vessel recalibrated with every step. Your Grace pressed outward and met resistance from skin and bone. It pressed against every boundary at once, searching for something that didn’t exist within the confines of your vessel.
You sat on the floor, back pressed to the side of your bed which had miraculously managed to make it out unscathed so far, though you were sure it was only a matter of time before it fell prey to your Grace too. The blankets hung half-off the mattress, pulled down at some point when you had dragged yourself out of bed to… do what, exactly? You didn’t know. You had lost track of time somewhere between the second sleepless night and the point when your Grace started slipping through your skin like smoke.
Your hands rested in your lap. For a moment, they were hands. Then they weren’t. There was a faint shimmer along your knuckles and a low hum beneath your skin that felt like something alive pacing back and forth in a cage too small to hold it. The soft light crawled over your fingers, curling like heat waves in summer air before fading out again.
Your vessel wasn’t made for this. Wasn’t made to contain your Grace. You could feel the strain. Not as pain but as a constant correction. Cells unmaking and remaking themselves in rapid succession, maintaining the illusion of stability without actually being stable. Every time you felt like you were finally getting a grip on it, your Grace bucked harder. The air itself felt charged, thick and electric like the pressure right before a thunderstorm broke. Hairline cracks spider-webbed across the wall to your left. A drawer rattled violently in the dresser across the room before you heard it break against a different wall.
You didn’t lift your head to look. You couldn’t bear to.
It wasn’t just the damage. It wasn’t the destruction. It was the knowledge that it simultaneously was and wasn’t accidental. Your Grace was reacting and responding. You were fraying at the seams, and it was spilling out of you like water through a broken dam. And underneath all of it was the weight. The awful, crushing weight of knowing.
The realization had been lurking at the edges of your awareness for days now, creeping around at the perimeter of your thoughts, but you had finally let yourself name it in the quiet. And that was the worst part.
You weren’t just here to observe. You weren’t just here to learn. You were here to stop it. To stop the fall. Heaven’s fall. The collapse that would tear through your siblings and through the structure of everything you’d ever known. And the more you circled around the truth, the more something inside of you recoiled. Because if you were sent here to stop it… then you were expected to go back.
You didn’t want to go back.
The truth lodged itself in your ribs like a blade, and your Grace snarled against it. Metal screamed against concrete as something struck one of the walls with impossible force. The sound didn’t reach you properly. It fractured, breaking apart before it could settle into the shape of something recognizable. Your hands came up to cover your ears, but the motion lagged behind your intent. The sound was already gone.
The quiet rushed back in, and you squeezed your eyes shut. You cradled your head in your hands, as though that could somehow keep it from bursting like a balloon with too much air. You didn’t want to think about Heaven. You didn’t want to think about what was waiting there. About the responsibility. About the way it felt like a noose wrapped around your throat and tightening. Every time you thought of it, something human inside of you panicked like a trapped animal that knew what came next.
And then there was Dean.
Your chest tightened at the thought of him. It wasn’t sharp like pain. It plucked at something deeper. Warmer. Worse.
He was here. On Earth. Solid and real and stubbornly, infuriatingly good in the way humans were. They were messy and loud and impossible to ignore. Dean had given you a name you liked. He’d handed you a weapon and expected you to learn, not because it was your duty, but because he believed you could. He had looked at you as something… more. Not as a soldier. Not as a tool. But as… a friend.
And that terrified you more than Heaven ever had.
Because wanting him wasn’t part of the mission. But it was somehow the one thing you couldn’t seem to stop doing.
Another tremor rippled through your Grace. The light above you flickered once then twice then shattered in a burst of sparks that rained down onto the floor. You curled in on yourself, dragging your knees towards your chest as the heat beneath your skin grew hotter.
Your Grace had never been out of your control before. You had never struggled with it before. Maybe this vessel was faulty. Maybe this was a side effect of it being locked away from you for so long. You tried to breathe. Tried to steady yourself the way Sam had taught you the first time you had been overwhelmed with everything. But the air wouldn’t come easy, and your thoughts refused to slow.
You were unravelling.
No matter how hard you tried to hold yourself together, you could feel your grip slipping.
You didn’t realize anyone was in the room until something subtle changed. Not a sound but a shift in the air. A disturbance like static pressing against your senses. Something like a weight displaced the stillness like the way a current would part around an object.
You lifted your head slowly. The door was open. You didn’t remember hearing it. You blinked once then a second time, trying to force your eyes to focus. Something at the back of your brain told you that something – someone – was there. But your eyes slid off of it, refusing to lock onto it. Like your brain couldn’t process the information that was right there in front of you.
Your breath caught. You knew that distortion. You knew what it meant.
Dean.
Your pulse jumped so hard that it hurt. Your Grace reacted instantly, snapping like a live wire. You heard a sharp crack come from behind you, and you somehow knew without looking that the wall had a new split in it. The air crackled, energy crawling over you, burning your skin away and restoring it in an instant. The presence didn’t move away. Instead, there was the faint sound of glass crunching beneath a boot. You swallowed.
“Dean?” you asked, but the word barely came out. It scraped against your throat like dry stone, hardly more than a poor excuse for a breath. The air in front of you rippled like light bending around something solid. Your Grace pushed harder, a reflexive surge that made the dresser draws rattle and the mirror on the far wall crack in its frame. The energy arced outward blindly, and you instinctively pulled back on it, trying to keep it from striking him.
But it didn’t touch him even as it radiated away from you. And you realized with a start that it couldn’t. You couldn’t see or hear Dean with your Grace, so it stood to reason that your Grace couldn’t perceive him either. Couldn’t find him to hurt him. Ironically, Dean was likely the safest person to be around you, no matter how out of control you got.
You tried to force your eyes to track the distortion in the air again. The outline of him refused to solidify, but the longer you stared at it, the more you could begin to recognize the way your vision warped around him. It was just enough that you could follow it so long as you focused really hard on it.
The distortion moved, and there was a soft sound from your bedside table. Your eyes snapped to it. A glass of water sat on top of the wooden surface. Fresh and clear with condensation beading along the outside. You pushed yourself up from the floor. The water hadn’t been there a moment ago. Even without seeing him, you could feel his presence. Could feel him watching you. Though, you couldn’t feel if there was anything more there. Fear or anger or… anything.
What you wouldn’t give to just hear him tell you that it was going to be okay. To have him say something in that tone that made everything seem simple because you always believed it was that simple.
“You’re okay, Feathers.” You could practically hear him in your head. But that’s the only place you could hear his voice. Your shoulders curled forward, your arms wrapping tightly around yourself as a ragged breath shuddered out of you.
“I can’t–” Your voice fractured. “I thought if I found what I was supposed to do–” You slowly folded in on yourself, dropping down to your knees, unbothered by the broken shards of glass on the floor. Your head dipped forward, shoulders drawn up tight. “I have to go back.” Tears splattered onto the floor. When did your cheeks get wet? Everything blurred. “I don’t want to.”
The words landed between you and the space you hoped Dean occupied, heavy and irreversible and dangerous. A sob wracked through your body, and your breath stuttered. You tried to steady it, but your vessel wouldn’t cooperate. None of this probably made sense to him. You hadn’t told him anything. You weren’t sure if Sam had. Maybe he had, maybe he hadn’t. You couldn’t be bothered to care either way.
“I don’t want to leave this. I don’t want to–” Your voice wavered. “I don’t want to leave you.” The words fell from your lips before you could stop them, raw and honest in a way that made your Grace shudder beneath your skin. The light fixture above you, already broken, sparked again as if in response to your confession. You grabbed fistfuls of the sleeves of your jacket, the fabric creaking in your grip.
Something brushed the back of your hand. A pressure, light and careful and barely there. You thought you might’ve imagined it at first. But a different kind of warmth seeped into your skin right where the pressure was. You looked up. The distortion had moved, no longer in the same place where you had last catalogued in. But the warmth was still there, so you lowered your gaze to it.
Your entire body went still. Your Grace stuttered like a flame caught in a sudden draft. You couldn’t see his hand. But you could feel the weight of it. A grounding point in the chaos. A quiet, steady insistence. The pressure in your chest eased slightly. Just a fraction. But it was enough to let you take what felt like your first breath in days.
You let go of your sleeves and tentatively reached out, turning your palm upwards. Dean’s hand settled more firmly against yours, and you traced the shape of it by the warmth he gave off. Your fingers curved around the invisible warmth, seeking the contours of a hand you couldn’t see but desperately needed to feel. The pressure adjusted, his grip tightening just enough as if to tell you that he was there, solid and real despite being hidden from your sight. Your Grace settled momentarily, like an animal that had found a quiet place to rest.
“I’m scared,” you confessed, your voice quiet. “I’m scared of what I’m supposed to be. What I’m becoming. I don’t know how to hold it all in anymore. I keep trying to pull it back in. But it’s like trying to hold water in your hands. It keeps slipping through.”
Your Grace flickered again, agitated by the admission, by the fear threaded through it. It pressed against your ribs, against your skin, searching for somewhere to go. Something to do. You tensed instinctively, trying to force it down, to shove it back into whatever fractured place it had been sitting in before. The warmth in your hand moved. A soft drag of skin against yours. Fingers slipping from your grasp. Your breath caught.
“No–” It came out small. Fractured. “Don’t–”
Something pressed into your palm. Not skin this time. Your fingers curled reflexively around it before it could drop. The absence of his hand hit a second later, sharper for how brief the contact had been. The room seemed to tilt with it, the quiet rushing back in too quickly. Too loudly. “Dean?” you tried. Nothing answered, only the restless stirring of your Grace.
The paper trembled slightly between your fingers, and you unfolded it slowly, careful in a way you were sure you didn’t need to be. It wasn’t like whatever was on it was going to disappear if you rushed. You brushed remaining tears away as you looked down at the ink on the note.
You’re treating it like it’s not yours. You’re still you, with or without it.
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Ashes of Grace series Taglist: @sepho @bitchykittenconnoisseur @reginaphalangelobster @kellyls04 @lilylilyyyyyy
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Summary: Cast down from Heaven with your Grace locked away and your memories fractured, you wake up alone and very much human – until you cross paths with the Winchesters. As the three of you search for answers that Heaven doesn’t seem to want to give, you’re forced to navigate the world without your divinity and face the fact that some truths may have been buried to protect you. Or others.
Tags/Warnings: Mystery, Canon-divergent, strangers-to-friends-to-lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, eventual romance, angel learning human shenanigans, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, no use of Y/N, no beta we die like men
A/N: Alright! *cracks knuckles* Let's start getting into it. Have I mentioned how much I love creating Spn lore? It's seriously one of my favorite things in the world, and I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. Want to craft a creature or some lore for your own piece? Seriously, hit me up. It's my jam! 💜
Ashes of Grace Masterlist
Even though Dean had said that you couldn’t sleep wrong, you were confident that you were. You kept waking up throughout the night, left staring at the ceiling in confusion as your body refused to maintain its unconscious state. The blankets felt too heavy then too light. The pillow was too flat then too fluffy. You kept rolling on the mattress. First lying on your back, then your side, then onto your stomach, then to your other side. Comfort remained frustratingly elusive.
Your body protested in unfamiliar ways when morning came. The mattress had left indentations in your skin, and your neck ached from the awkward angle you’d maintained for hours. The lack of windows in the bunker made it hard to distinguish between night and day, and it was only thanks to the dull throb of hunger in your stomach that indicated that time had passed at all.
Even after a full week of experiencing humanity from the driver’s seat, you still felt like a tourist in your own skin. You had watched Dean and Sam closely, trying to mimic their fluid mannerisms and casual confidence. The way Dean leaned against doorframes or how Sam’s hands moved when he explained something. But all of your attempts felt mechanical, like you were playing a role you hadn’t properly rehearsed.
Your first three mornings waking up in the bunker had left you face to face with Dean standing in your doorway. And just when you suspected that he might’ve been checking on you while you slept, – or, more likely, making sure you weren’t slinking around looking for the right moment to slit their throats – he stopped doing it. The fourth morning, you’d woken to an empty doorway, the silence of the bunker pressing in on you, and you couldn’t decide if his absence was a relief or a disappointment. The two of you had formed a tenuous truce that lived somewhere between mistrust and mutual necessity. You tried to stay out of his way.
The door to your room remained cracked open, just as Dean had left it that first night. You never closed it fully, finding comfort in that sliver of light from the hallway. It was your first 'anchor,’ as Sam might’ve called it. A constant in your shifting reality. You had slowly begun to learn the rhythm of the bunker. Sam was usually up first, though you never heard him leave, only ever hearing him clattering around in the kitchen after returning from a morning run.
You heard the brothers before you saw them as you padded down the hallway, voices rising and falling in a heated exchange that echoed down the bunker’s corridors. The sound had lured you out of your room where you had been staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the concrete while you waited for the proper amount of time to pass.
“We can’t just walk in there blind, Dean!” Sam’s voice carried a tension you’d come to recognize.
“Well we can’t sit on our asses waiting for perfect intel either. People are dying, Sam!”
You peeked around the corner of the war room to see them standing on opposite sides of the map table, a collection of papers and ancient texts spread between them. The map table glowed softly, casting their faces in amber light that accentuated the tension between them.
“Look at this.” Sam jabbed his finger at an old tome that was open. “The pattern suggests that we’re dealing with an entire nest, not just one rogue.” Sam ran a hand through his hair, frustration evident in the rigid set of his shoulders.
“So what? We’ve handled worse. We pack extra ammo. Maybe throw in some of those bronze-tipped arrows we’ve got in storage.” You poked your head in further, drawn by the intensity of their discussion.
“Bronze won’t work if they’re the Avernian variant,” Sam argued, flipping through another book and pointing at something in it. “We need to be sure before we go in.”
“What about silver?” Dean asked, leaning over the table.
The text in the book on the table caught your eye. An ancient manuscript with detailed illustrations of winged creatures, their bodies half-human, half bird. Several symbols around the margin looked familiar, tugging at something deep in your memory. Without thinking, you stepped into the war room and reached out towards the manuscript, fingers brushing against the ancient markings.
“That’s incorrect,” you said softly, your voice breaking the tension. “These aren’t Avernian. The wing structure is different.” Both men turned to you at the same time, surprise written across their faces.
“What did you say?” Sam asked, his brow furrowing. You swallowed, suddenly self-conscious under their scrutiny. But this knowledge was stable. It remained even when you reached for it, letting you grab hold of it and put it into words.
“The translation in the margin is wrong. It’s referring to Stymphalian harpies, not Avernian. Stymphalian harpies are vulnerable to bronze, not iron or silver.”
“And you know this… how exactly?” Dean’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at you.
“I…” you paused, uncertain of how to explain that the knowledge simply existed in your mind without context or memory of learning it. “I just know. The symbols here–” You pointed at the curved symbols at the corner of the page. “–they’re indicators of the Stymphalian bloodline. They nest in caves, not trees like the Avernian variety.”
Something shifted in the air as both of them stared at you. Sam’s expression morphed into cautious interest while Dean’s face hardened, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he ground his teeth together.
“Convenient that you just happen to know about what we’re after,” he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous register.
“I wasn’t–” you started, but Dean interrupted.
“You weren’t what? Eavesdropping? Interfering?” He straightened up from leaning on the table and rounded on you. “What exactly were you doing?”
The sudden shift caught you off guard. One moment, you had been offering to help and the next, you were facing an accusation. Your throat tightened, a new sensation you hadn’t experienced in the past few days, but you didn’t have the time to mentally catalogue it right now. The air in the room was suddenly too thick. Too heavy. Something inside your chest constricted.
“I was just trying to help,” you managed, your own voice coming out smaller than you intended. Dean’s expression didn’t soften.
“Help? By messing with a hunt you know nothing about?”
“Dean–” Sam began, but Dean held up a hand, silencing him.
“We’ve been down this road before, Sam. Something shows up with convenient information, and the next thing we know, we’re walking into a trap.” His eyes never left yours, their intensity boring through you. “For all we know, she could be working with whatever we’re hunting.”
The accusation stung more than you expected it to. You had spent days in their bunker, trying to navigate human existence. Trying to find ways to be useful. This last week had been nothing but confusion and vulnerability, and now Dean was looking at you like you were the enemy. The hurt must’ve shown on your face – you didn’t know how to mask your emotions yet – and something in Dean’s expression flickered, not quite softening but shifting.
“I didn’t realize that offering information for a hunt was a rule,” you said quietly, meeting his gaze despite every urge telling you to look away. “That’s not the same as breaking it.”
Dean had established several rules over the course of the last few days. Don’t wander the bunker alone. Don’t touch weapons. Don’t open unmarked doors. You had faithfully stuck to each one of them – following after one of the brothers (usually Sam) like a lost puppy, quietly observing the way Dean took apart and reassembled all the different guns in the bunker, and only opening a total of three doors: yours, the one to the bathroom, and the shower door.
Dean’s jaw tightened as your words landed, the muscle there working as he fought against whatever he had been about to say next. His eyes darted to Sam who simply gave him a she’s right kind of look. You preened with the validation. Dean took a deep breath before sighing, his shoulders dropping slightly.
“Fine,” he said, his voice still tight but lacking the accusatory edge from moments before. “Rules aren’t just about keeping you in line. They’re about keeping everyone alive.” You nodded, understanding clicking in your mind. His anger wasn’t entirely personal. It was protective. Of himself. Of Sam. Of what he had.
“I’ll be more careful,” you said, taking a step back from the table and lacing your fingers together in front of you. Sam cleared his throat.
“Actually, the information about Avernian harpies could be useful.” He shot Dean a cautious look before turning his attention back to you. “What else do you know about them?” Dean cut in before you could respond.
“Sam, can I talk to you? Alone.” It wasn’t a request.
The two of them stepped away, moving just far enough into the library that their hushed conversation was unintelligible to you. You caught fragments of it. Dean’s tight whisper of liability and Sam’s softer resource drifted through the doorway to you. You remained perfectly still, a statue of uncertainty as they argued in hushed tones just beyond your hearing.
The tension was palpable, and if you didn’t know better you were sure you could almost taste it in the air. You would have to ask one of them if that was an actual thing or if it was your brain trying to assign definitions to sensations that didn’t exist. After what felt like an eternity, they returned. Dean’s face was still set in hard lines, but some of the accusation had faded from his eyes.
“Alright.” He crossed his arms. “You think you can help with this harpy situation? Start talking.” You hesitated, acutely aware of the weight of the moment. This was a new kind of test. Perhaps your first real chance to prove that you had worth beyond just taking up space in their bunker.
“Avernian harpies hunt in groups of three to five,” you explained carefully, reaching for the manuscript you had pointed out earlier but stopping short of touching the text. Instead, you tucked your hands close to your chest, not quite sure what to do with them as you spoke. “They’re highly territorial and hunt at dawn and dusk. They prefer taking their prey back to their nests rather than consuming it on site.”
You paused, parsing through the knowledge that seemed to float around in your head without context. “Their talons secrete a mild toxin that causes disorientation. It’s not lethal, but it makes escape nearly impossible.” Sam leaned forward, his expression shifting to focused interest.
“How do we kill them?”
“Iron to the heart is most effective. Beheading works as well, but they’re fast. They can shriek at frequencies that can destroy human eardrums, so ear protection would be wise.” It was almost shocking how easily you could recount the information. Like you were reciting facts that you had always known. “They’re vulnerable after feeding. Slower and less alert. If you track them back to their nest and wait until they’ve fed, it might give you an advantage.”
“Okay,” Dean finally said after a momentary pause. “That’s… actually helpful.” The admission seemed to cost him something, but he gave it anyway. You felt like you stood just a fraction taller.
“Does this say anything about how to find their nests?” Sam asked, turning the manuscript towards you without actually handing it over – a subtle acknowledgement of the boundaries Dean had established. You leaned in closer, resting one hand on the table while avoiding touching the pages.
“Avernian harpies prefer limestone caves with multiple chambers. They line the nests with the remains of their victims. Bones, clothes, personal effects. You’ll know you’re in the right cave because they have a distinct smell. Rotting meat and such.”
“Sounds great,” Dean muttered, but the hostility towards you seemed to have drained from his voice. “So we find the nest, go in with iron, protect our ears, and aim for the heart or head. Sounds straightforward.”
“I could help identify the exact variant if I had more information like detailed accounts of the attacks. Or if I had a feather,” you offered. “There are subtle differences between sub-species that might be important.” Dean’s eyes narrowed slightly as he considered your offer, his posture still rigid with lingering suspicion.
“We’re not taking you on a hunt,” he said firmly. “You’re still figuring out how to be human. A harpy hunt is no place for on-the-job training.”
There was a strange mixture of disappointment and relief that washed over you. The idea of facing these creatures – things that you knew the clinical details of but not actually come face to face with – was both intriguing and terrifying. Human bodies were fragile and squishy, and harpies were built to be apex predators. There was a very real disadvantage.
“What if I waited in the car?” you suggested, surprising yourself even as the words left your lips. “I could help identify–”
“You’re not going anywhere near this hunt. You stay here where it’s safe.”
“Dean,” Sam cut in. “If we leave her here and something finds her, she won’t even know she’s in trouble. At least if she’s with us, then we can see what’s happening.” Dean frowned, running a hand across his face and clearly frustrated with the logic in Sam’s words. He let out a long, heavy sigh before finally,
“Fine. But she stays in the car.” He pointed at you. “And you don’t move unless we say so.”
You felt a strange flutter in your chest. It wasn’t quite excitement. And it wasn’t fear either. It lived somewhere on the cusp of both emotions, not quite teetering fully into one or the other. The possibility of being useful and seeing more of this world beyond the bunker’s walls sparked something inside you that felt akin to hope.
“I’ll do exactly as you say,” you promised, the words coming out more eager than you intended. “I won’t be a liability.” Dean’s eyes met yours, searching for something – you weren’t sure what – before giving you a curt nod.
“One wrong move,” he warned, “one step out of line, and you’re benched. Permanently. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Your second ride in the Impala went marginally better than the first. This time, you knew what to expect. The rumble of the engine was less jarring, and your body settled into the leather seat easier than before. You still flinched at particularly sharp turns or when Dean hit the gas too hard, but the overwhelming sensory assault had dulled to something more manageable.
Sam gave you a rundown of what to expect. A five hour drive to the small town of Oakridge where three hikers had been found dead in the past week, their bodies torn apart in ways that matched harpy attacks. You pursed your lips as he spoke, gears churning in your mind already.
Three hikers in a week wasn’t enough to feed multiple harpies. And the way Sam spoke made it sound like the bodies were left at the kill site which didn’t line up with the Avernian harpies you knew. Sam had given you the book he was looking at that had notes about harpies written in olde English. The drawings were crude and didn’t capture all the subtle differences between the variations of species, but it was well documented otherwise.
“Isolated roads and preying on travelers sounds more like the Stymphalian variant…” you mused aloud, flipping through the pages. Dean made a dismissive sound, skepticism coming off of him in waves. “But… the wounds they described suggest three talons and a hallux… Stymphalian harpies only have two…” Dean cut you off with an exasperated sigh.
“We’ll see when we get there.”
You heard the quiet part regardless.
We’ll see if you’re wrong.
An uncomfortable feeling had settled in your stomach, and you finally had to set the book aside as a sort of queasiness worked its way through your system. You closed your eyes, trying not to focus on the sway of every bump or turn in the car.
Dean pulled the Impala into the small town of Oakridge. The landscape had shifted from rolling highways to densely wooded areas, and now to quaint buildings lining a main street that seemed infinitesimally smaller after experiencing the vastness of the bunker. You were relegated to stay in the motel room while Sam and Dean drove off after changing into suits you didn’t realize they had.
They returned several hours later, the door to the motel room swinging open to reveal the brothers deep in conversation. You looked up from your perch on the bed where you had been studying the book Sam had left you, trying to make sense of the inconsistencies that had been bothering you. Dean’s tie hung loose around his neck as he tossed a manilla folder onto the bed nearest to you.
“Three victims, all found with lacerations to the chest and throat,” he said, rubbing a hand over his stubble. “Coroner says it looks like they were attacked by some kind of animal, but the claw marks don’t match anything native to the area.” Sam shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over a chair.
“The sheriff took us to see the bodies. Not pretty.” His hazel eyes found yours. “Feathers were found at two of the scenes.” Your stomach twisted with anticipation.
“What kind of feathers?”
“See for yourself.” Sam pulled a small evidence bag from the pocket of his jacket and tossed it to you.
You caught it awkwardly, fumbling with it slightly before securing it between your fingers. Inside was a single downy feather, about three inches long with an iridescent sheen that caught the light as you tilted the bag. It was primarily a deep midnight blue with flecks of copper along the edges. Nothing like you would’ve expected from an Avernian harpy. The feather should’ve been ashen gray with copper specks.
“This isn’t right,” you murmured, frowning as you examined it more closely. Dean crossed his arms.
“What do you mean ‘not right’?”
“Avernian harpies have gray feathers, not blue. And they don’t have this sheen to them.” You held the bag up to the light, watching how the copper specks seemed to shift and dance across the blue. “This coloration is closer to a Stymphalian, but…” You hesitated, chewing on your lower lip.
“But what?”
“The structure is all wrong,” you continued, turning the bag in your hand to look at the feather from different angles. “The shaft is too thick for Stymphalian. And the barbs are arranged in the wrong way. They’re packed more densely than they should be.” Sam moved closer to you, peering at the evidence in your hands.
“So if it’s not Avernian and not Stymphalian… then what is it?” You shook your head, frustration bubbling up as you tried to reconcile your known facts with the direct contradiction in your hands.
“I… I don’t know.”
“Great,” Dean muttered, pulling off his tie with a sharp tug. “Our resident expert doesn’t know what we’re dealing with after all.”
The dismissal in his voice cut deeper than you supposed it should have. You carefully set the feather down on the bed beside you, and it took far more effort than you expected to try to keep your expression neutral despite the disappointment flooding through you. The confidence you had felt earlier wavered, replaced by an uncomfortable uncertainty.
“I know what it is. I just don’t know the variant. There are numerous harpy subspecies,” you argued. Sam glanced between you and Dean, clearly trying to find a way to diffuse the tension.
“Let’s look at the rest of the evidence before we jump to conclusions.”
Sam opened the manilla folder, spreading the crime scene photos across the bed. Your stomach lurched at the images, and you felt a strange sensation at the back of your throat, like something was threatening to come up. The bodies in the images were torn and shredded, deep gashes exposing bone and tissue with the torsos ripped open and organs missing. You were not prepared for the visceral reality of the pictures. You turned away, unable to bear looking at them any longer.
“The talon marks,” you said, turning your eyes up to the ceiling and focusing on the shape of a yellowing water stain. “They’re too precise. Too deep.” You traced the shape of the stain with your eyes, trying to push the images out of your mind while still retaining the details of the gashes you had seen. It was difficult to separate the two. “Stymphalians leave jagged, uneven wounds. Those are… cleaner.” You focused on the facts, leaning into the clinical knowledge.
“So what you’re saying is that everything you told us earlier doesn’t apply anymore?”
“I’m saying that the evidence doesn’t align with any single harpy variant I’m familiar with.” You met his gaze, trying to convey your certainty despite your growing doubts. Dean shook his head.
“You’d think Feathers over here would know a thing or two about birds,” he muttered, turning away from you.
You winced at the nickname. Dean had started using it three days ago, because ‘feathers-for-brains’ was too much of a mouthful. It stung, carrying none of the playful camaraderie that might’ve made it bearable or affectionate. It reminded you of everything you had lost. Your wings. Your Grace. Your purpose. It was like calling an amputee “Stumpy.”
“Look. There are two things that can kill harpies, right? Iron and bronze? We’ll just take both of those with us. You’ve already given us way more than we could’ve gotten on our own,” Sam said.
“That’s not the point,” Dean grumbled, stepping between you and Sam. “The point is that I need to know I can trust the intel we’re getting.” You pulled your gaze away from the ceiling to look at Dean. You should’ve been used to the way his green eyes seemed to bore into your very being. You should’ve been past the sting of his mistrust, but every time he looked at you like that, it was like being thrown back to your first day in this body. Vulnerable. Lost. Confused. “I need a straight answer from you, Feathers.”
You hesitated, the evidence and your knowledge warring inside your mind. The inconsistencies nagged at you like an itch that you couldn’t scratch. It would make the most sense if your information was wrong, since the proof in front of you was undeniable. But there was a large part of you that was confident in what you knew.
“We should check the attack sites,” Sam suggested, gathering the photos back into their folder. “Maybe there’s something the police missed.” Dean nodded curtly.
“Fine. But.” He pointed a finger at you. “You’re staying in the car. No exceptions.”
“I understand,” you said, hoping that your compliance might ease his suspicion. Dean didn’t respond. He just grabbed his field jacket and jeans from the bed before moving towards the bathroom to change. You were left wondering if the truth was going to prove you right or prove that you couldn’t be trusted.
Lower divider by @/kodaswrld
Likes, reblogs, and comments are greatly appreciated!
Summary: Cast down from Heaven with your Grace locked away and your memories fractured, you wake up alone and very much human – until you cross paths with the Winchesters. As the three of you search for answers that Heaven doesn’t seem to want to give, you’re forced to navigate the world without your divinity and face the fact that some truths may have been buried to protect you. Or others.
Tags specific to this chapter: SMUT 18+ MDNI, fingering, oral (m and f receiving), swallowing
Tags/Warnings: Mystery, Canon-divergent, strangers-to-friends-to-lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, eventual romance, angel learning human shenanigans, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, fluff, no use of Y/N, no beta we die like men
A/N: Same warning as before; if you would like to skip the smut, skip over the basic dividers (Again, you won’t miss anything plot-relevent) 🙂
Ashes of Grace Masterlist
You woke slowly. Not abruptly or with a jolt like you had who knew how many times in the last few days. It was a gradual return to consciousness. A little reluctant, even. Like your mind was urging you to stay exactly where you were. There was an arm slung over your side and a weight pressed to your back. And what caught your attention most was the way the room wasn’t quiet in its usual way.
Your senses latched onto the sound of breathing that wasn’t your own.
Dean.
Alive and warm and still asleep behind you.
For one strange, suspended moment, you didn’t move. You simply laid there with your cheek against the pillow as the realization settled into you slowly but steadily. His hand was warm against your skin, and his breath ghosted against the back of your neck. One of your legs was tangled with his, the sheet twisted somewhere around your hips.
Morning didn’t really have any true meaning without any windows for sunlight to peek through, but the room carried the quiet softness of the early hours regardless. You looked down at his arm that had been thrown over you like some part of him had reached for you in his sleep and refused to let go. You held your breath, waiting for the moment when your Grace flared and he vanished from your perception again. For the moment when your Grace decided that it didn’t like the new space you had given it. For the moment when he would slip out of view, the edges of him dissolving into the terrible, hollow absence you had grown used to.
He stayed.
There was no vanishing. No terrible, aching absence. Dean Winchester remained stubbornly and impossibly solid and real. And yours. The weight in your chest suddenly dissipated, so quick that it almost hurt. Carefully, like you might’ve startled the moment into breaking, you shifted just enough to turn your head. Dean’s face came into view over your shoulder, still half-buried in the pillow.
His hair was a mess, and his brow was furrowed slightly even as he slept, like he didn’t quite trust peace enough to fully relax into it. You let your gaze drag over him, slow and reverent in a way you didn’t have the language for. You could see him. You could feel him. You could choose him. Your fingers moved before you could think better of it, brushing lightly over his forearm where it rested across your stomach. The contact felt different somehow. Real in a way that Heaven never was.
Dean stirred, his grip on you tightening instinctively and pulling you just a fraction closer. You froze. His nose pressed into the back of your shoulder as he exhaled, voice rough and barely awake.
“Don’t move.” You waited a moment. When he didn’t say anything more, you asked,
“Why?”
“Because I just got comfortable,” he mumbled in response, nuzzling his face in the crook of your neck. There was a pause. Then a quieter, “and you’re warm.” Something soft bloomed low in your chest.
“I’m always warm,” you pointed out.
“Yeah, well,” he muttered, eyes still closed, “now I get to enjoy it.” You hummed quietly in response and scooted back, abruptly freezing when your hips pressed back into him. Your breath caught, and Dean splayed his hand across your stomach, gently soothing you. You could feel him hesitate, neither pulling away or pushing forward. He simply waited, giving you the reins of the moment.
You rolled your hips against him, feeling the way the hard length of him pressed against your skin, and he inhaled sharply, the sound catching somewhere in his chest like he hadn’t expected that from you. “Feathers…” he said in that familiar warning tone. But you had learned that it wasn’t a sign to stop. Not in this context.
“Good morning,” you said, a little cheekily.
“You’re really making me reconsider here.”
“Reconsider what?”
“Getting out of bed any time soon.” His hand slid down to your hip and held you still as he ground himself against your ass. The pull that you recognized as arousal coursed through you. “Keep this up, and I’m not gonna be responsible for what happens next.” You made a low noise of acknowledgement.
“I’m not asking you to be.”
That was all the permission Dean needed. His hand slid forward, dipping between your thighs and sliding through your folds with an intimate knowledge that you still were getting used to. You moaned softly, feeling the way your cheeks warmed even though there was no embarrassment. He pressed a warm kiss to your neck, his teeth grazing gently along your skin. You shuddered slightly. “Do we need protection again?” you asked, a little breathless as you turned to head to look at him over your shoulder.
“Oh, Feathers,” he chuckled against you. “There’s so much more to it than just last night.”
“More?”
“Let me show you. I think you’ll like it.” He adjusted, urging you to roll onto your back and leaning in to kiss you. It was deep and demanding, leaving no doubt about his intentions as he settled over top of you. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders, fingers threading through his hair as you held him close.
“You haven’t been wrong before. I trust you entirely.” Your words landed with a quiet devastation.
“That’s… that’s a lot of faith to put in me, Feathers.”
“Isn’t that what I was made for?” Dean went still above you, his expression shifting into something unreadable. His eyes found yours, something vulnerable flickering across his face before he shook his head and pressed his lips to the column of your throat.
“Not anymore,” he murmured against your skin, his words carrying just as much weight as yours had. “You’re not made for anything except what you choose now.”
He trailed kisses along your collarbones before dipping lower, pausing at the swell of your breasts. He traced a slow path around one nipple before moving to lavish attention on the other. Your head fell back against the pillow, eyes fluttering shut as he moved further down. His hands explored each curve and dip of you, as though he were mapping every inch through touch alone.
When he reached your navel, a new sort of anticipation reared its head. His breath was warm against you, and every kiss left a path of fire in its wake. The air in the room shifted as Dean’s weight disappeared from above you, and you propped yourself up on your elbows to see where he’d gone.
“What are you doing?” you asked, your voice catching slightly as he pressed a kiss to your inner thigh.
“Something you’re gonna like,” he promised. He spread your legs wider, his hands gentle but firm as he held you open. There was a brief flash of self-consciousness with his face so close to spot so intimate, but the look in his eyes chased it away. There was nothing but pure reverence in his gaze. His thumbs traced small circles on your thighs. “Relax and let me take care of you.”
You watched, transfixed, as he lowered his head between your thighs. The first touch of his tongue against your core was hesitant, a light stroke that made you gasp and instinctively try to press your legs together. But he kept you splayed open for him, fingers digging into your skin in a way that felt comforting. His tongue pressed against you a little more firmly, the second stroke more confident. And by the third drag of his tongue, you had sunken back against the pillows, covering your mouth with the back of one hand as a moan was pulled from you.
He hummed against you, the vibration sending a shock of pleasure through you. His tongue traced slow, deliberate patterns across your core, finding what made you shiver then proceeding to keep it up until you were practically melting into the mattress. You tangled your fingers in the short strands of his hair again, unsure if you wanted to pull him closer or push him away. His hands slid beneath you, gripping your hips and pulling you against his face as he explored you.
He focused his attention on your clit circling it with the tip of his tongue before drawing it between his lips. Your breath came in short gasps as your fingers curled in his hair, nails scraping against his scalp. You could feel him smile against you as your hips bucked against his mouth. The sensation of his tongue was wildly different than his fingers. It was softer. More intimate. More focused.
“Dean,” you gasped, your voice barely recognizable to your own ears. “That’s–”
One of his hands released your hip, and you felt his fingers slide through your wetness before circling your entrance. He glanced up at you, watching your face as he slowly pressed a finger inside. He curled it, finding the same spot from the previous night that had you reduced to a litany of breathy moans and whimpers in no time flat. Your back arched off the bed as he added a second finger, stretching you gently and pulsing them against that spot while his tongue continued lavishing your clit with attention.
“Please,” you begged, the word falling from your lips before you could stop it. You weren’t even sure what you were asking for. More. Less. Faster. Slower. Mercifully, Dean seemed to understand. His movements became more insistent as he twisted his fingers just right and dragged the flat of his tongue against you.
You weren’t sure when your hands had found the sheets, but you grabbed fistfuls of them as pleasure built rapidly. The tension in your body wound tighter and tighter until you felt the familiar sense of teetering on the edge. Your release crashed through you with unexpected intensity. Dean didn’t stop, his tongue working you through the sensations until you were practically writhing beneath him, sensitive and nearly overwhelmed.
He withdrew his fingers and gave you a reprieve as you squirmed away from him slightly before pressing a kiss to your inner thigh again. Then, he steadily moved up, lips brushing along the jut of your hip bone, then across your stomach. He settled beside you, propped up on one elbow and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. A satisfied smirk tugged at his lips as he looked down at you.
“Still with me, Feathers?” he asked, voice low and gravelly with desire. You nodded, body still tingling as you stared at him with a newfound wonder. “Good,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss you. You could taste yourself on his lips, and knowing where his mouth had just been and what it had done sent a fresh wave of heat through you. Your hands found his shoulders, pulling him down to you. The kiss was slow for half a moment, but deepened quickly as he pressed his body against yours. You could feel his arousal against your thigh, hot and hard.
“I want to try,” you whispered against his lips. Dean pulled back slightly, his pupils blown wide.
“Try what?”
“What you did. Can I… can I do that for you?” His breath caught.
“You don’t have to–”
“I know,” you interrupted. “But I’m choosing to.” The way he looked at you shifted, vulnerability and want passing over his features. His fingers traced your jawline as he nodded.
“If you’re sure…”
You nodded and sat up, urging him onto his back where you had been laying moments before. He complied, settling against the pillows with his eyes fixed on you. You moved to straddle his thighs, a sense of overwhelming timidness climbing within you. This was new territory, and even though you did want to explore it, there was something different about being the one in charge when you weren’t even sure what you were doing.
With a steadying breath, you slid down his body. The bed dipped beneath your weight as you settled yourself between his legs, and you lowered your head, pressing your lips to his hip bone, mirroring what he had done for you. When he didn’t protest or tell you that you were doing something wrong, you continued your exploration, kissing a path over the dip of his hips. He tensed beneath you, and you paused, glancing up at him through your lashes.
“Feathers,” he groaned when your lips brushed the sensitive skin at the juncture of his thigh. The sound sent a shiver through you, and in a rush of boldness, you gently wrapped your fingers around him and pressed a tentative kiss to the base of his length. He sucked in a sharp breath, and it only encouraged you. You traced a path upwards with your tongue, learning the taste and shape of him. Your tongue circled the tip before you took him in your mouth, wrapping your hand around the rest of him that didn’t fit between your lips. Dean’s hands flew to your head, grabbing fistfuls of your hair but not pulling, simply anchoring himself as you explored.
“Oh fuck,” he gasped, his grip on your hair tightening. You moved slowly, testing the weight of him on your tongue. It was strange at first. There was more texture to him that you hadn’t been able to appreciate previously. You dragged your tongue along a prominent vein that ran up the side of him on an upstroke before swirling your tongue around him as you sank back down on him. A strangled groan rumbled from deep in his chest. “Just like that,” Dean breathed, his voice strained. “You’re doing so good.”
This was a different sort of power that was no less intoxicating than any other kind. Dean was always so composed, so seeing the way you could unravel him so effortlessly was addictive. You worked your way down the length of him, adjusting to the stretch of your lips around him. His thigh tensed beneath your hand as you found a comfortable rhythm, moving your head up and down while your other hand followed the motion. His breathing grew ragged, punctuated by soft groans that made your own body respond with renewed interest. His hips jerked slightly.
“Feathers,” he warned, “I’m not gonna last if you keep that up.” You pulled off of him with a soft, deliberate sound.
“Then don't,” you said simply. Dean stared at you for a long moment like he was trying to figure out if you understood what you were saying. You did. The intimacy of the moment struck you as you met his gaze. Here he was, completely vulnerable to you. Not because you were an omnipotent being with power that demanded acquiescence but because he was choosing to hand himself over to you. Willingly. You rather liked this power dynamic.
His thumb brushed along your cheekbone, and when he made a quiet noise of agreement, you slid back down onto him. You hummed around him experimentally, remembering how it had felt for you and settling back into the rhythm you had found before. His hips rose off the bed slightly, his thighs tensing on either side of you. He twitched against your tongue, and a thrill of satisfaction raced through you.
His entire body went taut, the fingers in your hair holding you steady. You glanced up at him, watching the way his eyes were squeezed shut and the way his jaw clenched.
“Feathers–” he started, hand gently pushing against your head. “Feathers, I’m–” His warning was cut off as his release hit. You kept your mouth on him, feeling the way he pulsed between your lips. The taste of him was salty and musky, and you swallowed instinctively, learning this part of him too. Remembering the way he eased you through your own moment, your hand kept working the base of him as his hips stuttered slightly against your mouth.
When he finally stilled, you carefully pulled away, a strange sense of accomplishment settling within you. Dean’s chest was heaving, his eyes still closed as he came down from his high. You crawled back up his body, settling beside him with your head pressed against him. His heartbeat was loud beneath you.
“I didn’t know you knew how to do that,” he murmured, one hand resting on the top of your head and gently stroking your hair.
“I didn’t,” you admitted, pressing a kiss to his collarbone. “I improvised.” Dean hauled you up to kiss him.
When you finally crawled out of bed properly dressed and presentable, the kitchen already smelled of coffee. It hit you before you crossed the threshold, the rich smell wafting down the hallway and tempting you with the comfort of routine. It felt like it had been too long since you had last ventured into the common areas of the bunker. Somehow four days felt like an eternity.
Sam was already in the kitchen when you walked in, leaning back against the counter with a mug in hand, one ankle crossed over the other. He looked like he was deep in thought but was startled back into the present moment when he caught sight of you. He said your name, a hint of surprise coloring his voice.
“Hey,” he said softly, looking you up and down. “You’re here. You good?” You beamed at him.
“Yes,” you replied. “I believe I’m back to myself.”
“And… your Grace?” he asked slowly. You pressed a hand to your sternum.
“Still here. But separate. I had to make a new space for it.” Sam’s responding smile was warm.
“Glad to hear it. You had us worried there.”
“My apologies for that,” you said, moving to grab a mug from the cupboard and pouring yourself your own cup of coffee. You lifted it without taking a sip, simply breathing in the rich aroma. “I simply needed time. And a little bit of a new perspective. I’ve decided that I’m going to stay.”
“Stay?” Sam furrowed his brow, cocking his head slightly.
“Yes. I… would like to choose to stay here. I believe I may have jumped to conclusions about my role in preventing a fall. I was never a seraphim. And I certainly wasn’t an archangel. In retrospect, it seems… unrealistic that I alone would be responsible for stopping all of Heaven from falling apart.” Sam nodded slowly, exhaling a long sigh through his nose as he sipped at his coffee.
“That… yeah, that makes sense. I take it you’ve been talking with Dean,” he mused aloud. “Meaning you can see him again?” You perked up.
“Yes,” you replied eagerly. “And feel him. And taste–”
“Feathers.” Dean’s voice from the kitchen doorway abruptly cut you off. You turned to look at him, finding him leaning against the frame with one hand pressed to his face, half covering a look of exasperation. “You’re not supposed to kiss and tell,” he groaned, dragging his hand down. You blinked at him, genuinely confused.
“But he asked,” you said, like it was the most sensible thing in the world. “And it felt relevant to include–”
“It wasn’t,” he cut in, mortified that you were trying to argue your case. “It was not relevant.”
“But the distinction between the senses is–”
“Okay!” Dean clapped his hands once, loud enough to cut you off again. “Conversation over. Done. We’re done here.” Dean’s ears had turned pink, and when you glanced back at Sam, his eyebrows were halfway up his forehead.
“I think I’m gonna need something stronger than coffee,” Sam mused aloud, lifting the mug to take another sip and nearly spilling it down his front. “Good to know you two, uh… worked things out.”
“Oh yes. Dean was very attentive during the process.”
Dean made a strangled noise somewhere behind you quickly followed by a very audible thud as he smacked his head against the doorway. Sam lost it, and you could hear his laughter echo down the hallway as he promptly removed himself from the situation before you could regale him with any more sensory details. Dean lingered just long enough to level you with a look that was equal parts fond and long-suffering before grabbing himself a cup of coffee and disappearing after Sam, muttering something about “never living this down.”
You had just finished sliding a desk from one of the bunker’s many, unused rooms to replace the splintered remains of yours when Dean darkened your doorway, jacket slung over his shoulders and keys jingling in his hand.
“C’mon, Feathers. Field trip.” You looked over at him, wiping away sweat that had beaded along your brow.
“We have a case?” Dean huffed a quiet laugh.
“Nope.” You hesitated, glancing around at the half-repaired room then back to him.
“I should finish up in here.”
“It’ll still be here when we get back. Besides, haven’t you been cooped up in here long enough? Some fresh air will be good for you.” The way he said it made you pause. There was an undercurrent of tension in his voice that suggested that this was important. Your eyes flicked to the Impala keys dangling from his fingers.
“Alright,” you agreed, wiping your hands on your jeans. “Perhaps I should change first.
“You’re fine,” Dean insisted, already turning. “You look good.”
The Impala waited in the garage, gleaming underneath the fluorescent lights. You instinctively reached for the back door but stopped short when Dean shook his head and jutted his thumb towards the passenger seat. You slid onto the bench, settling into the worn leather with surprising familiarity. Dean turned the engine over, and it rumbled through you like a second heartbeat.
The world outside of the bunker came into view as gravel crunched beneath the Impala’s tires as Dean pulled onto the winding road, the car’s engine purring contentedly as it settled into a comfortable speed. The sky stretched wide overhead, painted in soft golds and blues as the sun began its slow descent. You realized in that moment, that it was the kind of sky that you had only ever observed and never really sat beneath and experienced.
Dean had rolled his window down partway and urged you to do the same, letting the cool evening air rush through the cabin. You closed your eyes and breathed deeply, feeling the way the wind caressed your face and filled your lungs. Everything about it was a stark contrast from the still air of the bunker. Dean’s fingers drummed against the steering wheel, keeping time with the classic rock music drifting from the speakers. You glanced at him, watching the way the sun caught his profile and highlighted the stubble along his jaw.
“Dean?”
“Yeah?”
“Where are we going?” He grinned, eyes flicking to you for half a second before returning to the road.
“Nowhere.” You frowned.
“That’s not a destination.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t understand. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Sure it does,” he said with a shrug, a casual rise and fall of his shoulder that suggested that his response was obvious. “We’re driving.”
“Yes, but… for what purpose?” Dean chuckled, shaking his head.
“There it is.”
“There what is?”
“That thing you do.” He gestured vaguely, like he could just pluck the concept right out of thin air. “Everything’s gotta mean something. Everything’s gotta lead somewhere.” You tilted your head slightly.
“... does it not?”
“No,” he said simply, glancing over at you again. “Not always.”
The Impala ate up the road beneath you, miles slowly rolling over on the odometer. The scenery outside the windows changed gradually, shifting from the familiar forest to large, rolling stretches of green. Trees came and went, some of them clustering closer to the road and casting long shadows across the asphalt. You watched them pass.
“If there isn’t a purpose, then why are we doing this?” Dean exhaled through his nose slowly, trying to find the words for something that had never needed to be explained before.
“Because we can.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does if you don’t think about it too hard.” He tapped the steering wheel lightly. “You’re not used to just experiencing something.”
“In Heaven,” you began slowly, “everything had purpose. Every movement. Every assignment. Every–”
“Yeah, yeah,” he cut in gently. “Orders, missions, big cosmic to-do lists galore. There’s always something to do. Something to be, right?” You didn’t answer. He had hit the nail on the head. “But here’s the thing,” Dean continued, his voice softening as he guided the Impala around a curve in the road. “Sometimes the point is to just be. To exist without having a reason to justify it.”
You looked out at the passing landscape again, trying to understand his meaning. The golden light of the sunset cast everything in warm hues, making everything seem just a little more magical. A hawk circled lazily overhead, a dark silhouette against the sky. A small herd of deer grazed in a distant field. None of them seemed the least bit concerned with purpose or meaning. They simply were.
“I don’t know how to do that,” you admitted quietly.
“That’s why we’re out here.” Dean reached over, his hand finding yours. “I’m showing you how.”
It was a simple gesture, but it sent a ripple of warmth through you. You looked down at your joined hands, studying the way his thumb traced small circles against the back of your hand. “You don’t need a reason to exist, Feathers. You just do.” The rough edges of his voice had been smoothed down by the intimacy of the moment. “You don’t need Heaven’s approval. You’re enough, just as you are.”
The words hung in the air between you, heavy with implications as they settled into the cabin of the car. You turned them over in your head, examining them from every possible angle, trying to find the proper way to categorize them when they didn’t fit neatly into any box you’d constructed for yourself. You went quiet, struggling with the way the words felt like freedom.
There was a long stretch of road where neither of you said anything. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but you had the sneaking suspicion that Dean was giving you all the time you needed to let your thoughts run through your head.
“What if they’re suffering without me?” The ghost of your former self refused to be banished completely. Dean’s fingers tightened around yours, his grip steadying and grounding.
“What if who’s suffering?” he asked.
“My siblings. The angels who might need guidance.” You stared out at the golden sunset, watching as the light cast the landscape in increasingly dramatic strokes. “What if I’m abandoning them to chaos?”
“You can’t save everyone, Feathers.” The tone in his voice suggested that he was speaking from experience rather than offering simple platitudes. “That’s not your job.” You heaved a heavy sigh, expression going solemn.
“But what if it was? What if that’s what I was created for?”
Dean guided the Impala to the side of the road, the car jostling slightly as it switched to gravel as he pulled over onto a scenic outlook. He killed the engine but left the keys in the ignition, letting the car fall into a gentle silence except for the wind whistling through the open windows.
“Look at me,” he said, and when you turned to him, you found his eyes locked onto yours with an intensity that made your breath catch. “Heaven made you, sure. But they don’t get to decide who you become.” The sun bathed his face in amber light, catching the green of his eyes. You could see every line, every crease, every mark that life had left on him. He wore each one like a battle scar, a testament to every hardship he had endured and conquered to get to this point. “You’re more than whatever purpose they gave you,” he continued. “You’ve become something they never planned for.”
You swallowed hard, feeling the weight of centuries of purpose slipping away from you. It wasn’t entirely comfortable, and a very large part of you instinctively wanted to reach for it and hold onto it. Because it was all you had ever known. It was a skin you’d worn for so long that it had become intrinsic to your very being. But as it slowly sloughed away, there was a strange relief that came after it.
“I know what it means to be defined by something you didn’t choose. To have someone else write your story before you ever got a say in it.” He reached for your other hand, holding both of them between you as he shifted in his seat to face you better. “I’ve spent my whole life being what other people needed. For Dad. For Sam. For the world. And I’ve watched too many people I care about get swallowed up by who they kept trying to be. I’m not going to let that happen to you, Feathers.”
You took a shuddering breath.
“What if I’m making a mistake, Dean?” He let go of one of your hands, his thumb brushing across your cheek and eyes going impossibly soft.
“Then you’ll learn from it. Because that’s what humans do.”
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Summary: Cast down from Heaven with your Grace locked away and your memories fractured, you wake up alone and very much human – until you cross paths with the Winchesters. As the three of you search for answers that Heaven doesn’t seem to want to give, you’re forced to navigate the world without your divinity and face the fact that some truths may have been buried to protect you. Or others.
Tags/Warnings: Mystery, Canon-divergent, strangers-to-friends-to-lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, eventual romance, angel learning human shenanigans, hurt/comfort, canon-typical violence, no use of Y/N, no beta we die like men
A/N: Three parts in and I may have already added another chapter to this thing. Fun fact, I was so excited to start posting this thing but I didn't want to let myself start until I had a good head start so I wouldn't be stressed about this. Here I am currently working on chapter 8. I dare say I've got a good leeway on it lol 💜💜💜
Ashes of Grace Masterlist
Consciousness came to you in waves, each one pulling you further and further away from the dark shores of sleep and back into the harsh light of awareness. Every sense suddenly ignited at once. The weight of the blanket pressing against your limbs. The scratch of unfamiliar fabric on your skin. The distant hum of the bunker through the concrete walls.
Your body felt wrong. Heavy. Confined. Like wearing armor that was too small. You tried to shift, and a sharp ache radiated through your muscles, joints protesting movement in ways that were new from the day before. The pain wasn’t intense, but its persistence was bewildering. Was this what humans endured every morning? This slow, grinding reassembly of their consciousness?
You sensed his presence before you saw him. Dean was leaning against the door frame, door thrown wide open and coffee mug in hand, watching you with an expression that was caught between wariness and something else you couldn’t identify. His eyes tracked your every movement, assessing and cataloguing with the practiced vigilance of someone who was used to identifying danger. You briefly wondered how long he had been standing there, silently observing your vulnerability. In that moment, you decided that you didn’t like sleep.
“Morning,” he said, voice deliberately casual. It gave you the impression that he had been standing there longer than you would’ve liked. The mug in his hand steamed, the rich aroma of coffee cutting through the stale air of the bedroom. “Thought you might sleep through the day. You’ve been out for fourteen hours.” You blinked the sleep from your eyes, your brow furrowing.
“Fourteen hours,” you repeated, testing the concept. Fourteen hours felt both impossibly long and like barely a moment, as if your body and mind couldn’t agree on how time flowed. “That’s… a long time.”
“For a human.”
You pushed yourself up onto your elbows, wincing as your back muscles spasmed in protest. The simple act of sitting up shouldn’t have been this difficult.
“Do humans always ache when they first wake up?” you asked. The faintest hint of a smile flickered across his face.
“Well, when you crash land on earth without your wings? Yeah, that’ll do it.” Dean pushed himself off the door frame and entered the room, setting the coffee mug on the nightstand beside you. There was a glass of water sitting there already. “Sore muscles, stiff joints, and general crankiness. That’s the human condition.” The smell of coffee grew stronger. It smelled like comfort. Your nose wrinkled involuntarily at the intensity, another strange automatic response from this body.
“Is this normal?” You gestured vaguely at yourself, at the heaviness in your limbs and the ever-present ache that radiated out from your core. Dean gave you a one-shouldered shrug.
“Sam would probably have a better explanation,” Dean replied, “but yeah, it’s normal. Human bodies need maintenance. Sleep helps, but it’s not a miracle cure.”
You reached for the mug, your fingers wrapping around the warm ceramic. The heat seeped into your skin, a small comfort against every other unfamiliar sensation assaulting your mind. You brought it to your lips and took a small sip. The liquid inside was bitter and hot, burning your tongue as it passed over it. You recoiled slightly, nearly dropping the mug and spilling coffee over yourself. You set the mug back down on the nightstand with more force than necessary.
“Careful there,” Dean warned, watching your reaction with a hint of amusement in his eyes. “It’s hot.”
“I noticed,” you replied flatly, your voice still rough with sleep. Your tongue felt scorched, the sensation both painful and fascinating. It hurt in a way that was different from the rest of you hurt. How many different ways could a human experience pain? As if to answer your unvoiced question, a sharp pang hit your stomach. A familiar, hollow twisting sensation that you recognized from the day before. Hunger. “Is this a warning or a punishment?” you asked, pressing your palm to your abdomen. Dean’s eyebrows lifted at your question.
“Hunger? It’s neither. It’s just your body telling you it needs fuel.” He moved to the doorway and gestured for you to follow. “Come on. Sam’s got breakfast going, and you look like you could use it.”
You swung your legs over the side of the bed, pushing through the stiffness that seemed to have settled into every joint overnight. Standing was a challenge, your muscles protesting every little movement you asked of them. You trailed several steps behind Dean down the hallway, and it occurred to you just how different your movements were from his. Where he strode with practiced confidence, you stumbled along, each step a negotiation between your will and this body’s limitations.
The kitchen was surprisingly homey compared to the rest of the bunker’s utilitarian design. Sam moved around with unexpected grace for someone his size. The smell of bacon and eggs filled the air, making your stomach clench painfully with want.
“You’re up,” Sam said, glancing over his shoulder with a smile that seemed more genuine than any expression Dean had offered you. “How did you sleep?”
“I… laid in bed and closed my eyes,” you replied, uncertain. Did people sleep in different ways? Maybe you would be better at a different method. Dean snorted from behind you, moving past to grab a mug from the cabinet.
“That’s generally how it works,” Sam said, his smile widening slightly. “Hungry?”
Your stomach answered for you, growling loudly and audibly. You covered it with your hand, as though you could somehow silence it. Dean had said it was just a signal, but it definitely felt like a punishment.
Sam placed a plate of food at the table and gestured for you to sit. You approached the food cautiously, remembering how the coffee had burned your tongue. The fork felt strange between your fingers. All the patrons in the diner the day prior had been eating their food with their hands, so you had simply followed suit. But Dean had picked up his utensil and dug right in, and you figured he probably expected the same of you.
When you stabbed the eggs, half of them fell off before reaching your mouth. Dean watched you from across the table with poorly concealed amusement as you tried again, your second attempt proving to be more successful than the first.
The food filled your mouth with flavor. This body, this human form, responded to it with enthusiasm that seemed entirely separate from your conscious desires. You savored each bite as the warmth spread through you and the gnawing ache in your stomach ebbed. The sensation was comforting in a way that nothing else had been since you woke up on earth.
“You need to slow down,” Sam cautioned as food disappeared from your plate faster than you expected. “You can choke if you eat too fast.” You paused mid-bite, lowering your fork and looking up at him.
“Choke?”
“Yeah, when food goes down the wrong pipe,” Dean explained, demonstrating by tapping his throat. “Not a fun way to go.”
You nodded seriously, carefully measuring your next bite and chewing thoroughly before swallowing. Every new piece of information felt vital, like instructions for operating dangerous machinery. Which, you supposed, wasn’t far from the truth. This body was a machine you didn’t have a manual for, and these two brothers were your only sources of instruction.
“Everything about being human seems dangerous,” you observed, taking another careful bite.
“Yeah, turns out humans are fragile,” Dean said, his lips quirking up into a half-smile that seemed less guarded than before.
“Pain and discomfort are normal,” Sam explained, leaning against the counter with his own mug of coffee. “They’re how your body communicates. Hunger tells you to eat, thirst tells you to drink, and pain tells you that something’s wrong.”
“So humans just… exist in constant awareness of their own needs?” The concept seemed exhausting. How did they focus on anything else? Was their entire existence just moving from one need to another? Tending to each one like it was a meter that needed to be kept full?
“Pretty much,” Dean replied, snagging a slice of bacon from the plate in the center of the table. “Welcome to being mortal. It’s a non-stop carnival of bodily functions.”
You considered his words as you continued to eat. The constant awareness of this physical form was tiring, like every system that had once functioned on its own now required you to manually regulate it. How did humans manage to think of anything beyond their immediate survival? The brothers seemed to function reasonably well, despite those limitations. You wondered if perhaps it became easier with time. If the constant noise of physical needs eventually faded to background static.
“It gets easier,” Sam said, as if he had read your thoughts. “Your mind and body are adjusting to everything. That’s why you’re feeling everything so intensely right now.”
You nodded, grateful for the explanation. The food was gone from your plate, and the hollow feeling in your stomach had been replaced with a strange heaviness that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. You shifted in your seat, trying to get comfortable with the new sensation.
“Thank you,” you said, the words still feeling slightly awkward on your tongue but less so than the previous day.
“So,” Dean started, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “Now that you’ve had some rest and food, maybe you can tell us more about what happened to you.” You frowned, searching through your memories again. Some part of you had hoped that sleep might’ve jarred something loose, but the same fragments remained. Falling, darkness, and a voice calling out. Still nothing solid enough to form a coherent narrative.
“Still just the same pieces as before.” Sam took a seat across from you on the stool next to Dean.
“Let’s try a different approach,” he suggested. “Let’s try focusing on what you remember about yourself. Do you remember what you were in Heaven?”
The question hung in the air, and you furrowed your brows trying to find the proper human words to answer him. An entity of pure celestial intent. A wavelength of angelic energy. A soldier in the armies of Heaven. Was there a word in the human language to encompass that?
“I was… a guardian,” you finally said. “My purpose was to watch. To observe.” Your grip on the fork tightened as though you could hold onto the memories that felt like they were still drifting. “I wasn’t on the front lines like some of my siblings. I could fight, but my main purpose was to bear witness.” Dean cocked his head to the side slightly.
“Bear witness to what?”
“Creation,” you replied simply. “The unfolding of existence. The patterns of life and death.” You gestured vaguely around you, trying to convey something that had been as natural as breathing was to humans. “I observed humanity, among other things.”
“So you were like… what? Some kind of angelic surveillance camera?” You briefly considered his comparison.
“In a way, I suppose. Though, I had more purpose. To witness is to validate existence. To remember.”
“Did you maybe see something that would lead to you being cast down?” Sam asked, leaning forward with curiosity written across his expression. You shook your head.
“I don’t recall that.”
A strange feeling bloomed in your chest. It wasn’t quite pain but rather a sort of hollowness that seemed to expand with each breath you took. You had never considered yourself a failure before, – angels didn’t typically frame their existence in terms of success or inadequacy – but now, with your memories fragmented and your purpose unclear, the sensation of coming up short settled over you uncomfortably. Your expression must’ve changed, because Sam reached out and set his hand over top of yours.
“Hey,” he said, his voice gentler than before. “It’s okay. Memory loss is normal after trauma.” You nodded, though you weren’t quite sure that you believed that any of this was okay at all. How could it be when you couldn’t fully piece together what had happened to you?
“So you were a celestial observer,” Dean said, redirecting the conversation. “Maybe you did something and pissed off the wrong angel upstairs?” The question sparked something in you. A flash of a memory that was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. Someone speaking your name with concern. A warning, maybe? Any further detail remained just out of reach.
“I don’t think so…” you said, setting your fork down and pressing your fingers to your temples where a dull ache was beginning to form. “Angels observe, but we rarely interfere. That’s not our purpose.” Dean scoffed, his foot tapping irritably against the ground.
“Yeah, we’ve seen how you angels like to ‘observe.’” His tone was venomous, and you cocked your head to the side, unsure of where this animosity was stemming from. He regarded you with a look that suggested he was waiting for your clueless act to drop and for you to get to the real reason you were here. You were silent. “Well, something happened,” Dean said, standing from the table. “And we need to figure out what it was before whatever did this to you decides to pay us a visit.”
The thought sent a jolt through you. If something was powerful enough to strip your Grace and cast you to Earth, what might it do to these humans who had taken you in? The responsibility of potentially putting them in danger added another weight to the growing pressure on your shoulders.
“What if I can’t remember?” you asked, finally giving a voice to the fear that had been lurking just beneath the surface since you were pulled back into consciousness. “What if I can’t ever remember what happened to me?”
“Then we work with what we’ve got,” Sam replied with a certainty that seemed to come naturally to him. “We’ve dealt with less information before.”
“In the meantime, we need to figure out what to do with you. Can’t exactly let you wander off in your condition,” Dean chimed in, collecting your plate.
“My condition?” The phrase seemed odd, like it implied that you were ill rather than transformed.
“Yeah.” Dean set the plate in the sink with a clatter that made you flinch. “Human with an angel’s mentality and no idea how to function. You’d be dead within a week out there.” The bluntness of his assessment should’ve offended you, but there was a strange sort of comfort in his honesty. You could understand that his words weren’t coming from a place of cruelty. He was being logical. Practical. And you could appreciate that, even if the truth of it stung.
“That makes sense,” you said, nodding. “I’m not… equipped for survival on my own.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Sam assured you. “In the meantime, the bunker’s a safe place for you. You can stay here while we work on this.”
The offer of sanctuary loosened a knot in your chest. You hadn’t realized how much the uncertainty of your situation had been weighing on you until part of it was lifted.
“Thank you.” The words were beginning to feel more natural now. Though maybe that was because of how often you had used them. “I’ll try not to be a burden.” Dean snorted. The look he gave you suggested that he was still weighing your potential value against the risk you posed.
“You’re already a burden,” Dean said with a shrug. Sam shot his brother a look before turning back to you. “But I guess we’re used to that around here.”
“You’re not a burden,” Sam assured you. “Come on. Let me show you around.”
You followed him out of the kitchen, acutely aware of how your feet seemed to drag with each step. The stiffness in your muscles was beginning to fade, but there was a deeper weariness that remained, settling further into your bones like it belonged there. This body was everything your former existence wasn’t. Heavy. Limited. Fleeting. You ached, but it wasn’t physical.
Sam led you through corridors you hadn’t seen the night before, pointing out rooms as you passed them.
“That’s the archive room,” he said, gesturing to a heavy-looking door with strange markings etched into its frame. “Most of the physical records are kept there. Books are in the library, but anything deemed too sensitive or dangerous got locked away in there.” The tour continued through the labyrinth of hallways, each one branching into rooms that served a variety of purposes. The bunker stretched endlessly before you, filled to the brim with knowledge and secrets that would’ve fascinated you before. Now, it just felt overwhelming.
“You already know this, but here’s the library. It’s connected to the war room.” Your gaze drifted to the bookshelves lining the walls. You had seen several interesting titles the previous night, but now, without the pressure of being interrogated by the brothers, you could appreciate the value of the collection.
“These books…” you mused aloud, running your fingers along the spines. “Some of these are older than several human civilizations.” How many of these volumes had you witnessed being written from your celestial vantage point?
“Yeah, the Men of Letters collected knowledge from all over the world,” Sam replied, watching your reaction with interest. “Some of it is accurate, some isn’t. We haven’t had a chance to go through very much of it.” You pulled a book from the shelf, its leather binding cracked with age. The symbols on its cover caused something to stir in your memory. Not quite with recognition but something akin to familiarity.
“This is written in proto-Sumerian,” you observed, carefully flipping the book open and skimming the pages. “It’s about celestial alignments.” Sam’s eyebrows rose.
“You can read that?”
“I…” you hesitated for a moment, surprised by your own knowledge. “Yes. I can understand this.” The realization was comforting. It was nice to finally find something that you hadn’t lost. Your celestial knowledge was still intact. Sam brightened with intrigue.
“That could be really useful. I could barely put a dent in translating one of these texts. Having someone who just knows this stuff…” He trailed off meaningfully, already considering possibilities.
You carefully returned the book to the spot where you found it, a strange sensation rising in your chest. There was a sense of feeling lighter. Being useful, even in this limited way, gave you something to hold onto. A purpose, however small it might’ve been.
“I’d be happy to help,” you said, the words smoother now. Less rote. “Perhaps it is a fair exchange for your hospitality?” Sam nodded, seemingly pleased with this new found arrangement.
“I’m sure we can find plenty of ways you can help.” He smiled, and it seemed to ease some of the tension that had been building in the bunker’s air. “Having someone who can read ancient languages without spending hours with reference books will be handy.”
You followed him through another doorway, this one leading to a room filled with weapons. Blades of various sizes and materials hung on the walls alongside guns, crossbows, and items you couldn’t immediately identify. It was an impressive arsenal.
“This is the armory,” Sam explained. “We keep most of our weapons here, though Dean has a habit of stashing extras all over.”
Your eyes were drawn to a silver blade mounted in a glass case. It wasn’t an angel blade, but it had similar properties. You could sense it even without your Grace. The metal seemed to hum with a quiet power that resonated with the empty void within you. You stepped towards it, drawn in by an inexplicable familiarity. “That’s a Babylonian sacrificial knife. Supposedly blessed by priests of Marduk.”
“It contains celestial metal,” you said softly, eyes trailing across the surface of the weapon. “It’s mixed with earth elements, but the core is… similar to what angel blades are forged from.”
“And you can tell just by looking at it?” Sam glanced at you with renewed interest. You nodded at him, confident even though you weren’t entirely sure how the knowledge persisted even when your memories didn’t. It was like muscle memory surviving the loss of the muscle itself.
“Certain celestial materials resonate with each other. Even without my Grace, I can still sense it. Like… like an echo,” you tried to explain, resting your fingers on the glass. “Like it’s calling to what I was.”
You pulled your hand back, the revelation cutting through you and leaving you feeling vulnerable. Connections remained even without your powers. Threads tying you to what you once were. You weren’t sure if it was more comforting or painful.
As Sam continued the tour, you noticed how the bunker’s design seemed both protective and isolating. Thick walls that kept the world at bay while also keeping you contained. After all the overwhelming sensations of your first day on Earth, there was a comfort in the bunker’s solidarity. In its permanence.
“Shooting range,” Sam explained as he pushed open a heavy door. The room beyond was long and narrow with paper targets hanging at the far end. You stepped inside, attention immediately drawn to the collection of guns mounted on the wall. You reached up to brush your fingers along the barrel of one of the guns but stopped short, thinking better of it last minute. “Do you know how to use these?”
“I don’t think so,” you answered, pulling your hand back to yourself. “I understand the concept of weapons, but this body doesn’t have the muscle memory for them.” Sam nodded in understanding.
“That makes sense. Angels probably don’t have a need for them, do they?”
“No. Our very existence is a weapon.” Somehow, it felt wrong speaking in the present-tense, like you were speaking a truth that belonged to someone else. Not yours. Not anymore. You flexed your fingers, remembering the feeling of a power that was no longer there. Sam seemed to sense your discomfort.
“We can teach you, if you want. Might be good to know how to defend yourself.” You looked at him curiously. He barely knew you but he was offering a weapon? Even you knew that most people would see that as a bad idea.
“You would trust me with that?”
“Trust is a work in progress,” Sam said carefully. “But everyone deserves to know how to protect themselves.”
You considered his words as the door to the range opened behind you. Dean walked in, his gaze flicking between you and Sam with momentary surprise before settling into the familiar guarded expression you were beginning to recognize. You watched as he moved and pulled one of the guns off the wall, checking the chamber and sights of the weapon like a ritual he had performed countless times before.
“You think it’s a good idea to give her a full-access pass to everything in here?"
“She’s not–” Sam started.
“I don’t need it,” you said quietly, cutting in before Sam could finish. Both of them looked at you. “I don’t need access to everything,” you clarified, meeting Dean’s gaze. “I can tuck myself somewhere I’m not in the way.” Dean paused, the gun still in his hands and his brow furrowed like that hadn’t been the answer he had expected. Something in you hoped that you might’ve earned a fragment of respect from him, though you couldn’t explain why his approval or acceptance mattered to you. Perhaps because your survival hinged on it.
“Well,” he muttered after a beat, snapping the chamber shut, “at least you’re not demanding the keys to the kingdom.” He turned his attention back to the gun in his hands. “You shouldn’t be wandering around alone anyway. Not until we know who we’ve got under our roof.”
“Dean,” Sam’s tone was exasperated, a hint of warning buried within it. “She’s been nothing but cooperative.”
“Yeah, and I’ve met plenty of things that were real polite right up until they weren’t,” Dean shot back. His gaze flicked back to you. “It’s not personal, feather-brains.” He checked the magazine of the gun before sliding it back into place with a decisive click.
Metal against metal. A clash of wills. Wings and Grace struggling against invisible bonds.
You pressed your palm to your forehead, grimacing as you caught a glimpse of a formless entity shrinking as you fell away from it. The mental image was fleeting, disappearing just as quickly as it had showed up, but it left a dull throbbing in its wake.
“You alright?” Sam asked, concern etched into every line of his face. His hand was on your shoulder, and he had bent down slightly to be more level with you.
“Yeah,” you said, letting your hand fall away from your face. “Just… remembering my fall. Or trying to.” You looked between the brothers again, noting the contrast in their expressions – Sam’s open worry versus Dean’s careful assessment. “Your concern is understandable,” you said, looking at Dean. “I don’t think I would trust me either if the roles were reversed.” Dean studied you for a long moment, his green eyes searching yours for... something. Hesitation. Deceit. A crack he could pry open and expose you with. You didn’t look away.
“Yeah, well.” His shoulders eased ever so slightly, the tension loosening in a way so subtle that you might’ve missed it if you hadn’t been watching him so closely. “I don’t trust you. But I don’t think you’re lying either.”
You nodded, an unexpected sense of relief settling in your chest. In the absence of your siblings’ voices, the constant communion of intent, these human interactions were your only tether to understanding. And there was a lot you had to learn. You were learning as you went, piecing meaning together from tone and intent and unspoken rules. And honesty, even when tinged with suspicion, was something you could understand. Something solid. Dean cleared his throat and returned the gun to its place on the wall.
“Just don’t touch anything in here,” Dean made a vague gesture referring to the bunker as a whole, “without one of us present, got it? Some of this stuff can kill you six ways before you hit the ground.”
“I understand,” you replied.
And you did.
Clear boundaries. Defined rules. Structure. They were familiar. Anchors in a world that felt increasingly more confusing the longer you remained in it.
For now, that was enough.
Lower divider by @/kodaswrld
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