[Public!]I'm writing a chapter fic!?
Title: She's Leaving Home - Chapter 1: Brightly Wound [1/5 or 6]
Author: purpletrance
Rating: G [2,229 words]
Genre: Fluff/implied-romance
Pairings: Anna/Castiel
Warnings: Ho-hum. I'm doing this chapter-ficlet revolving around Cas & Anna and their history that wasn't really delved into. Eventually it will lead up to events in Season 4, although let it be known that it goes a little AU toward the end, because I'm not going to follow the events of what happened between them in Season 5. This takes place in Heaven, therefore they're both quite young and still getting to the "history" we hear so much about.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and I'd actually be pretty terrified if I did, because I wouldn't want to displease fans. :x
Summary: Sometimes memories are all one has left. Castiel reflects on how Anna changed his existence.
The first day he came upon her, his existence was forever changed. Of course, he hadn’t known this at the time - she was a sister, like any other. It took him longer than he would have liked to realize that she was much, much more than that.
She lay on the floor beside the bed, her eyes shut. Castiel hadn’t had to shut them - she had been prepared for it; much more prepared than he could have ever been. His hunched figure shook slightly as he looked at her, his hand going to his mouth just in time to stop a small whimper. His other reached into his trench-coat and pulled out a small, white feather. He began to stroke the texture with his fingertips.
“Anna…” Saying her name was almost too much to bear. It echoed a life-time; an eternity of memories that flooded his mind, some of which were almost too painful to reflect upon.
“…Do you remember when we were young - so young that everything; including Earth, seemed new? I suppose humans aren’t the only beings who yearn for their youth again.” Unable to look at her stiffened form anymore, he closed his eyes and did the only thing that could be done - he remembered her.
He remembered Anna.
--
Heaven was a paradise. Safe and secure - it had everything Castiel needed, or could have wanted…until he came across Anna. She opened his eyes in a certain respect; and he was always unsure as to if this was a blessing or a curse.
White enveloped him as he walked, vaguely floating and allowing his wings to carry him lazily. He was…tired. Being a Soldier of the Lord was a tremendous honor, he felt, but the training at times could be…difficult, to say the least. Wishing to sit and contemplate this further, he began to fly - far.
Farther across the expanses of Heaven than most Angels would go to simply contemplate, but he had a special area in mind - a place, that as far as he knew, the other Angels were unaware of.
…Besides Anna, of course. She had shown him her “favorite part of Heaven” shortly after they had first met, and since, he couldn’t help but visit often. It was unlike anything he had seen.
Seeing the familiar ray of light bursting from a particular area of cloud, he settled down carefully close-by, taking a deep breath whilst feeling uncertain. He hadn’t been here without Anna before, and somehow, it felt like blasphemy when he was alone. Sighing, he tucked his wings together in an attempt to take off, but a strong yank to his right wing stopped that immediately.
“Ugh!” He fell backward onto a cloud, feeling a small, aching throb from the area that had been yanked backward. After rubbing his shoulder slightly, he glanced up and saw Anna standing above him, grinning, waving one of his feathers in his face.
“Got you!”
“That wasn’t very nice,” he grumbled, already feeling a pure sensation as the feather began to regenerate and the area healed itself.
“Nope, it sure wasn’t!” She sounded cheery despite the fact that she had just ripped off a piece of him, but…that was Anna. She was…strange. As she waved the feather against his nose, he felt an odd sensation - and then, he sneezed, causing her to grab her stomach as she giggled.
“Wasn’t…v-very…um…ahh,” he trailed off as he sneezed again, much to his annoyance. When he looked back up to meet Anna’s eyes, he saw that she was in the air already, her giggles piercing the wind as she got higher.
“Race you to our spot?” She challenged, and despite his tiredness of earlier, he found that he didn’t mind exerting himself just a little more.
“Strange, indeed,” he muttered to himself as he took himself up to her area, confirming the challenge.
--
The area that he had intended to visit in the first place was a respite area for them both. It wasn’t exactly expected for Angels to be so fascinated with Earth and its creations, but Anna sure was, and as a result, Castiel often found his curiosity piquing as well.
When he landed, he found that Anna had already beaten him there, and he huffed, a tad sullen.
“I suppose you’re just too good for me.” He shrugged, a tad embarrassed that an (in training) Soldier of God couldn’t have done better.
“Never! …Besides, I’ve got this,” she wagged the feather she had torn from him in his face, and he stared at her in surprise. Of course, her having his feather had nothing to do with anything as he had already healed, but he suspected she was attempting to soothe his ego.
She was undeniably strange. Angel’s didn’t go out of their way to make other Angels feel better about a failure…which caused him to think about Angels like Uriel and Zachariah - and what they would have said about his failure.
“...Castiel?” Her voice brought him back to reality, and he was grateful, as his thought-process wasn’t going anywhere good, that was for sure.
“Why do you still have that?” He motioned to the feather she was holding, truly curious.
“I like you. It’s not like Angels have possessions, so a piece of you was the next best thing. Better a feather than a different body part, right?” Her confidence was something else - having told him something so…odd, she simply stood and smiled, as if expecting him to approve.
Angels didn’t do things like that. They didn’t want things from other Angels to remind them of one another. What was the matter with her? As he studied her, he noticed that her hair was a tangle of…tangles. Assuming that it was because of their race, he felt slightly bad about that.
Reaching his hand out, he attempted to lock the random tangles behind her ears so that he could continue to view her face. The moment his hand touched her hair, however, he froze.
“Castiel?” She looked concerned, as she should have been, because his whole body had started trembling.
“This is wrong,” he dead-panned, although he didn’t move his hand from her hair.
“…Says who?” She challenged, and he flinched - it was always so hard for him when Anna started to challenge his beliefs. He nearly pulled his hand away when he felt hers wrap around it softly.
“What’s so wrong about warmth?” Closing her eyes, she snuggled into his hand until he pulled it away uncomfortably.
“D-don’t take it the wrong way, I just…uh…” He trailed off, unaccustomed to explaining himself emotionally.
“You’re like a lost puppy, Castiel.” She was smiling, almost sadly, and he had no idea why.
“…What’s a puppy?” He couldn’t help but blush when she started to laugh again.
“Enough talk! You came here to relax, right? Hard day at the office?” She seemed to be teasing him, although again, he had no idea what an “office” was, but he was rather used to Anna saying a lot of strange things that he couldn’t make any sense of.
“Um…” He sucked in a large breath when she crossed his boundary and grabbed his hand, pulling him over toward the ray of light that they had raced to.
“Come onnn, Castiel!” She yanked him over to the center, and they both plunged quickly into the clouds, peeking directly at the sun. Far, far below, lay a meadow on Earth. Castiel always felt safe here, away from his superiors - it was so far away from everything and everyone.
Except Anna.
It was a flurry of white and warmth as they both waded around through the misty engulfment of pure energy. They waded around for a while on their own, but eventually, he felt Anna by his side.
“This place is so…lovely.” He breathed, unable to find a better word.
“It…kind of makes me…very happy.” Surprised that she admitted aloud to an emotion, Castiel glanced over to where her voice was coming from. Through the misty white, he could only see her Grace, but it shone bright…red?
“Your Grace is red.” He stated it without really knowing what else to say - Grace shouldn’t change color; every Angel knew that. Really, it was always seen as a taboo; an Angel was meant to stay pure, and purity was white. Scared, suddenly, he glanced down at his own and was relieved to see that it stayed white.
“…You won’t tell anyone?” He noticed that her usual confident tone was cracked with a sort of plea, and he instantly knew that despite being told his entire existence that colored Grace might as well be a disease, he wouldn’t tell on her.
He found that this was too difficult to say aloud though, as again, he felt as though it bordered on blasphemy. His silence seemed to startle her, as she darted into a quick explanation.
“Grace tends to stay white as long as you keep your emotions, your curiosities, your feelings…in check. Mine has been red for a…long time.” She seemed sad, and he felt badly, although he couldn’t quite place…why.
“Does it hurt?” He was still eyeing her Grace warily as if it was going to infect him at any moment.
“Only when I’m alone, and it’s not because I’m “sick” before you ask. I told you - feelings, thoughts, emotions, they cause Grace to change color. When I’m with the others, I keep them in check, but when I’m alone, they spill out, and I feel…lonely.” He nodded, unable to fully understand as he hadn’t opened that doorway, and wasn’t sure if he ever could.
“…Why did you let it change color around me?” He was startled when her Grace got warmer - red, as fiery red as the hot-sun that they had been peeking at earlier. He resisted the urge to fly away. This was Anna. She couldn’t be sick, could she?
“I suppose…because you’re my friend. I let my guard down…a little. I’m…sorry if it bothered you.” He noticed her usual silly attitude mixed with a grand-scale of confidence was suddenly toned down, and he was still completely and utterly confused by the entire situation, especially her flare-up when all he did was simply ask why she revealed herself to him.
“’Friend,’ he mumbled uncertainly, and shook his head, adding, “You’re my sister, though. Just like all of my other sisters.”
Her Grace suddenly flared down from the red, turning white again, meaning she had somehow purged herself of emotion after what he had said. He wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad thing, and he was beginning to feel annoyance at his complete and utter lack of understanding in this situation.
As quick as the warmth had been there, it vanished as she had obviously pulled them both from the cloudy mist.
“I have to go,” Anna blurted this so suddenly that Castiel stiffened, thinking they were going to spend quite a bit more time together.
“I…I thought that…” Castiel shrugged his shoulders helplessly; unable to flat-out say that he had hoped they would have more time together. She surprised him by suddenly cupping his face with her hand - it was warm.
“You still have so much to learn, Castiel.” He wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but before he could ask, she shocked him by reaching back to her wings with her other hand and plucking out one of her own feathers. She gasped slightly and winced in pain before bringing her feather fore-front and held it out to him.
“No matter what happens in our existence, Castiel, I want you to always keep this, okay?” There seemed to be an underlying meaning behind her words that he couldn’t catch, so he simply nodded.
“Now you have a piece of me and I have a piece of you. We’ll never be apart. I promise.” Somehow, this was incredibly comforting to him, as she was, after all, slightly older than him and seemed to understand a lot more than he.
“I, uh…promise, too?” She giggled when his statement came out like a question, and she stroked his cheek a little more.
“You’re so young, Castiel. It should be a sin, really, to be so naïve…” His eyes widened when she mentioned ‘sin’ and she laughed, yet again, at his expense. Next thing he knew, her hand was away from his face and on her hips, and she was suddenly happy-go-lucky Anna again. She pointed at him in a child-like way.
“Now, remember! You’ve got that feather, and you need to keep it! Forever and ever, okay?”
“Forever and ever,” he echoed, nodding, his head looking like a bobblehead.
“Great!” She clapped her hands together and was suddenly above him - she was so fast.
“Don’t lose it, now! I’m not going to give you another!” She threw a backwards grin over her shoulder before she sped off into the distance.
Where or what she was doing, Castiel had no idea. He actually didn’t know much about Anna’s life in Heaven - he felt he knew her more from a “human” perspective, which echoed the ‘she’s very strange’ thought into his head.
Despite that, he found that she had hardly been gone a minute before he pulled out her feather and stroked it softly, feeling a slight warmth in his stomach that he had never felt before…and he did the unthinkable. He smiled.
Author: purpletrance
Rating: G [2,229 words]
Genre: Fluff/implied-romance
Pairings: Anna/Castiel
Warnings: Ho-hum. I'm doing this chapter-ficlet revolving around Cas & Anna and their history that wasn't really delved into. Eventually it will lead up to events in Season 4, although let it be known that it goes a little AU toward the end, because I'm not going to follow the events of what happened between them in Season 5. This takes place in Heaven, therefore they're both quite young and still getting to the "history" we hear so much about.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and I'd actually be pretty terrified if I did, because I wouldn't want to displease fans. :x
Summary: Sometimes memories are all one has left. Castiel reflects on how Anna changed his existence.
The first day he came upon her, his existence was forever changed. Of course, he hadn’t known this at the time - she was a sister, like any other. It took him longer than he would have liked to realize that she was much, much more than that.
She lay on the floor beside the bed, her eyes shut. Castiel hadn’t had to shut them - she had been prepared for it; much more prepared than he could have ever been. His hunched figure shook slightly as he looked at her, his hand going to his mouth just in time to stop a small whimper. His other reached into his trench-coat and pulled out a small, white feather. He began to stroke the texture with his fingertips.
“Anna…” Saying her name was almost too much to bear. It echoed a life-time; an eternity of memories that flooded his mind, some of which were almost too painful to reflect upon.
“…Do you remember when we were young - so young that everything; including Earth, seemed new? I suppose humans aren’t the only beings who yearn for their youth again.” Unable to look at her stiffened form anymore, he closed his eyes and did the only thing that could be done - he remembered her.
He remembered Anna.
--
Heaven was a paradise. Safe and secure - it had everything Castiel needed, or could have wanted…until he came across Anna. She opened his eyes in a certain respect; and he was always unsure as to if this was a blessing or a curse.
White enveloped him as he walked, vaguely floating and allowing his wings to carry him lazily. He was…tired. Being a Soldier of the Lord was a tremendous honor, he felt, but the training at times could be…difficult, to say the least. Wishing to sit and contemplate this further, he began to fly - far.
Farther across the expanses of Heaven than most Angels would go to simply contemplate, but he had a special area in mind - a place, that as far as he knew, the other Angels were unaware of.
…Besides Anna, of course. She had shown him her “favorite part of Heaven” shortly after they had first met, and since, he couldn’t help but visit often. It was unlike anything he had seen.
Seeing the familiar ray of light bursting from a particular area of cloud, he settled down carefully close-by, taking a deep breath whilst feeling uncertain. He hadn’t been here without Anna before, and somehow, it felt like blasphemy when he was alone. Sighing, he tucked his wings together in an attempt to take off, but a strong yank to his right wing stopped that immediately.
“Ugh!” He fell backward onto a cloud, feeling a small, aching throb from the area that had been yanked backward. After rubbing his shoulder slightly, he glanced up and saw Anna standing above him, grinning, waving one of his feathers in his face.
“Got you!”
“That wasn’t very nice,” he grumbled, already feeling a pure sensation as the feather began to regenerate and the area healed itself.
“Nope, it sure wasn’t!” She sounded cheery despite the fact that she had just ripped off a piece of him, but…that was Anna. She was…strange. As she waved the feather against his nose, he felt an odd sensation - and then, he sneezed, causing her to grab her stomach as she giggled.
“Wasn’t…v-very…um…ahh,” he trailed off as he sneezed again, much to his annoyance. When he looked back up to meet Anna’s eyes, he saw that she was in the air already, her giggles piercing the wind as she got higher.
“Race you to our spot?” She challenged, and despite his tiredness of earlier, he found that he didn’t mind exerting himself just a little more.
“Strange, indeed,” he muttered to himself as he took himself up to her area, confirming the challenge.
--
The area that he had intended to visit in the first place was a respite area for them both. It wasn’t exactly expected for Angels to be so fascinated with Earth and its creations, but Anna sure was, and as a result, Castiel often found his curiosity piquing as well.
When he landed, he found that Anna had already beaten him there, and he huffed, a tad sullen.
“I suppose you’re just too good for me.” He shrugged, a tad embarrassed that an (in training) Soldier of God couldn’t have done better.
“Never! …Besides, I’ve got this,” she wagged the feather she had torn from him in his face, and he stared at her in surprise. Of course, her having his feather had nothing to do with anything as he had already healed, but he suspected she was attempting to soothe his ego.
She was undeniably strange. Angel’s didn’t go out of their way to make other Angels feel better about a failure…which caused him to think about Angels like Uriel and Zachariah - and what they would have said about his failure.
“...Castiel?” Her voice brought him back to reality, and he was grateful, as his thought-process wasn’t going anywhere good, that was for sure.
“Why do you still have that?” He motioned to the feather she was holding, truly curious.
“I like you. It’s not like Angels have possessions, so a piece of you was the next best thing. Better a feather than a different body part, right?” Her confidence was something else - having told him something so…odd, she simply stood and smiled, as if expecting him to approve.
Angels didn’t do things like that. They didn’t want things from other Angels to remind them of one another. What was the matter with her? As he studied her, he noticed that her hair was a tangle of…tangles. Assuming that it was because of their race, he felt slightly bad about that.
Reaching his hand out, he attempted to lock the random tangles behind her ears so that he could continue to view her face. The moment his hand touched her hair, however, he froze.
“Castiel?” She looked concerned, as she should have been, because his whole body had started trembling.
“This is wrong,” he dead-panned, although he didn’t move his hand from her hair.
“…Says who?” She challenged, and he flinched - it was always so hard for him when Anna started to challenge his beliefs. He nearly pulled his hand away when he felt hers wrap around it softly.
“What’s so wrong about warmth?” Closing her eyes, she snuggled into his hand until he pulled it away uncomfortably.
“D-don’t take it the wrong way, I just…uh…” He trailed off, unaccustomed to explaining himself emotionally.
“You’re like a lost puppy, Castiel.” She was smiling, almost sadly, and he had no idea why.
“…What’s a puppy?” He couldn’t help but blush when she started to laugh again.
“Enough talk! You came here to relax, right? Hard day at the office?” She seemed to be teasing him, although again, he had no idea what an “office” was, but he was rather used to Anna saying a lot of strange things that he couldn’t make any sense of.
“Um…” He sucked in a large breath when she crossed his boundary and grabbed his hand, pulling him over toward the ray of light that they had raced to.
“Come onnn, Castiel!” She yanked him over to the center, and they both plunged quickly into the clouds, peeking directly at the sun. Far, far below, lay a meadow on Earth. Castiel always felt safe here, away from his superiors - it was so far away from everything and everyone.
Except Anna.
It was a flurry of white and warmth as they both waded around through the misty engulfment of pure energy. They waded around for a while on their own, but eventually, he felt Anna by his side.
“This place is so…lovely.” He breathed, unable to find a better word.
“It…kind of makes me…very happy.” Surprised that she admitted aloud to an emotion, Castiel glanced over to where her voice was coming from. Through the misty white, he could only see her Grace, but it shone bright…red?
“Your Grace is red.” He stated it without really knowing what else to say - Grace shouldn’t change color; every Angel knew that. Really, it was always seen as a taboo; an Angel was meant to stay pure, and purity was white. Scared, suddenly, he glanced down at his own and was relieved to see that it stayed white.
“…You won’t tell anyone?” He noticed that her usual confident tone was cracked with a sort of plea, and he instantly knew that despite being told his entire existence that colored Grace might as well be a disease, he wouldn’t tell on her.
He found that this was too difficult to say aloud though, as again, he felt as though it bordered on blasphemy. His silence seemed to startle her, as she darted into a quick explanation.
“Grace tends to stay white as long as you keep your emotions, your curiosities, your feelings…in check. Mine has been red for a…long time.” She seemed sad, and he felt badly, although he couldn’t quite place…why.
“Does it hurt?” He was still eyeing her Grace warily as if it was going to infect him at any moment.
“Only when I’m alone, and it’s not because I’m “sick” before you ask. I told you - feelings, thoughts, emotions, they cause Grace to change color. When I’m with the others, I keep them in check, but when I’m alone, they spill out, and I feel…lonely.” He nodded, unable to fully understand as he hadn’t opened that doorway, and wasn’t sure if he ever could.
“…Why did you let it change color around me?” He was startled when her Grace got warmer - red, as fiery red as the hot-sun that they had been peeking at earlier. He resisted the urge to fly away. This was Anna. She couldn’t be sick, could she?
“I suppose…because you’re my friend. I let my guard down…a little. I’m…sorry if it bothered you.” He noticed her usual silly attitude mixed with a grand-scale of confidence was suddenly toned down, and he was still completely and utterly confused by the entire situation, especially her flare-up when all he did was simply ask why she revealed herself to him.
“’Friend,’ he mumbled uncertainly, and shook his head, adding, “You’re my sister, though. Just like all of my other sisters.”
Her Grace suddenly flared down from the red, turning white again, meaning she had somehow purged herself of emotion after what he had said. He wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad thing, and he was beginning to feel annoyance at his complete and utter lack of understanding in this situation.
As quick as the warmth had been there, it vanished as she had obviously pulled them both from the cloudy mist.
“I have to go,” Anna blurted this so suddenly that Castiel stiffened, thinking they were going to spend quite a bit more time together.
“I…I thought that…” Castiel shrugged his shoulders helplessly; unable to flat-out say that he had hoped they would have more time together. She surprised him by suddenly cupping his face with her hand - it was warm.
“You still have so much to learn, Castiel.” He wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but before he could ask, she shocked him by reaching back to her wings with her other hand and plucking out one of her own feathers. She gasped slightly and winced in pain before bringing her feather fore-front and held it out to him.
“No matter what happens in our existence, Castiel, I want you to always keep this, okay?” There seemed to be an underlying meaning behind her words that he couldn’t catch, so he simply nodded.
“Now you have a piece of me and I have a piece of you. We’ll never be apart. I promise.” Somehow, this was incredibly comforting to him, as she was, after all, slightly older than him and seemed to understand a lot more than he.
“I, uh…promise, too?” She giggled when his statement came out like a question, and she stroked his cheek a little more.
“You’re so young, Castiel. It should be a sin, really, to be so naïve…” His eyes widened when she mentioned ‘sin’ and she laughed, yet again, at his expense. Next thing he knew, her hand was away from his face and on her hips, and she was suddenly happy-go-lucky Anna again. She pointed at him in a child-like way.
“Now, remember! You’ve got that feather, and you need to keep it! Forever and ever, okay?”
“Forever and ever,” he echoed, nodding, his head looking like a bobblehead.
“Great!” She clapped her hands together and was suddenly above him - she was so fast.
“Don’t lose it, now! I’m not going to give you another!” She threw a backwards grin over her shoulder before she sped off into the distance.
Where or what she was doing, Castiel had no idea. He actually didn’t know much about Anna’s life in Heaven - he felt he knew her more from a “human” perspective, which echoed the ‘she’s very strange’ thought into his head.
Despite that, he found that she had hardly been gone a minute before he pulled out her feather and stroked it softly, feeling a slight warmth in his stomach that he had never felt before…and he did the unthinkable. He smiled.