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she_fell ([info]she_fell) wrote in [info]lost_world,
@ 2013-04-23 20:47:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:!status: complete, anna milton, castiel

Diverging Paths (Anna/Cas, Flashback)
After Castiel had saved her life, Anna went on the run. She felt that her connection with Heaven had been severed and slowly her Grace started to fade. She was becoming human. It was a fitting punishment, given that she'd wanted to be human enough to disobey and fall. She didn't feel sorry for herself, didn't lament the loss of powers. There was a small part of her that missed the waning abilities, but for the most part she welcomed it.

She didn't stay in one place for too long. At first, she simply ran and hid. It took months before she realized that Heaven had better things to do than track down a disobedient angel.

She had no family now. Her human parents were dead and she'd forsaken her angelic brothers and sisters. She needed a purpose. It helped that she had nothing to lose. That was how many came to hunting, from what she understood. She had knowledge that would be useful in that line of work and she needed to do something to help.

Maybe it was her own way of doing penance for the mistakes that she'd made, she wasn't sure.

When one such hunt led to her crossing paths with the Winchesters and Castiel, she seized on the opportunity to help those whom she had tried to wipe from existence. She didn't expect that to make it right. She just needed to do it.

The hunt was down now and they were all a little bruised and beaten. Anna wasn't sure whether she should just move on or whether she should wait to see if she was needed again. For now, she'd taken a motel room just down the hall from the brothers and Castiel. She'd returned to her room to clean her wounds and rest. Tomorrow, perhaps, she would figure out where to go next.


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[info]celestialintent
2013-04-24 03:32 am UTC (link)
The past several hours had been...eventful. For one, he'd never expected to see Anna again, much less in the context that he had. Like him, she'd taken up the only way of life that was feasible for one of their kind, but she seemed to excel at it in ways he could not. Or that could simply have been due to his own self-image in regard to hunting. He didn't regret his decision to remain on Earth, nor did he have any desire to check on Heaven, but it had been difficult...and now he was sore, superficially bleeding, and he knew Anna was in much of the same state.

Fighting the hellhounds beside her had been...exhilarating. Fulfilling, despite the fact that one mistake could have ended it for either of them. And when she'd smiled at him, it had caused...something within him. It was as if he wished to please her once again, as he had always tried to in Heaven when she'd been his superior. It was a feeling that had persisted throughout the evening.

As he knocked on her door, he adjusted the bag over his shoulder. His possessions were few, but what he'd acquired, he'd packed carefully. He was eager to be on the move again, but...there was something he needed to do first. Something he wished to be certain of.

"Anna, it's Cas," he called out roughly. "I would like to speak with you."

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[info]she_fell
2013-04-24 03:42 am UTC (link)
Attraction wasn't something that angels were supposed to feel. Anna had been spent centuries in Heaven and had never looked at Castiel in quite the way she'd looked at him today. She didn't know what it was-perhaps that she was more human than angel now, or that he'd saved her life. It was odd, considering the history between the two of them.

But the feelings were there. Not that she was expecting them to amount to anything. She was surprised when she heard the voice at her door, though the smile that formed on her face proved that it was a good surprise.

She opened the door and looked up at him.

"Castiel," she said, moving aside and gesturing into the room. "Of course. Come in."

It was strange to hear the shortened form of his name. She wasn't sure she could think of him as anything but Castiel. And to hear him using the name himself... that was stranger.

Her eyes swept over Castiel's injuries, silently cataloging them and reassuring herself that it could have been much worse. She'd already bandaged the worst of her wounds and her fingers itched to do the same for him.

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[info]celestialintent
2013-04-24 04:24 am UTC (link)
As she examined him, he did so to her in kind. She would survive, seeing as the hounds had only scratched them in places, but there could potentially be scars. That was yet another thing he'd found himself resigned to, seeing as he'd had no other choice. Yet she was alive. That was the important part. Whatever else he was feeling...he wasn't certain how to address that.

Entering the room, he looked around. Like their own, it was somewhat cluttered with equipment, though not to their extent. There was no roll-away cot. Cas had been informed that they would be playing rock-paper-scissors over who took the cot next, but...that always seemed to be the unfulfilled promise.

He was distracting himself.

Meeting Anna's eye, he steeled himself for the impending conversation, not knowing why he felt so ill at ease. "We will be leaving for the next town within the hour," he reported. "Dean has expressed a desire to get as far away from the prison as possible. Given what transpired, I can hardly blame him. Are you well?"

It felt important to ask. Despite how she looked, there could be some other injury that he was not sensing. "When that hound leaped at you...you landed hard. I was...concerned."

Suddenly, he felt the desire to avert his eyes, casting them towards the badly stained carpet. "...Yet it was an impressive fight."

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[info]she_fell
2013-04-24 04:46 am UTC (link)
Anna was silent as Castiel explained that they were leaving. There was a sense of disappointment, though she knew that they would part ways at some point.

She nodded.

"I'm fine, Castiel. And you? You're still bleeding."

She moved over to the bed and picked her first aid kit off the bed. She turned and crossed the room, stopping just in front of Castiel.

"Sit. If you're going to be leaving so soon, I'd like to at least take care of your injuries."

There was something in her tone that was reminiscent of her days as his superior. She wasn't asking. She wasn't ordering like in those days, but she wasn't going to let him walk out of this room without taking care of his wounds.

"It certainly was an impressive fight. It would seem that you are handling the loss of your abilities well."

She looked up and winced apologetically. It was most likely a sore subject, but she couldn't help bringing it up. She'd wondered how Castiel had coped with losing his connection to Heaven.

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[info]celestialintent
2013-04-24 05:14 am UTC (link)
He'd not been aware of that. He'd cut his hand and had tended to that as best he could, as well as the scratches on his lower ribs, but if his head was bleeding, Sam and Dean had neglected to inform him of that fact. When he sat down, he adhered to her tone of voice out of habit, sitting down purely because it was a request of his superior. Whether there were any orders or not, he was still conditioned to that particular tone of command.

"I...appreciate that sentiment," he replied awkwardly, setting the bag down beside him. "We were in something of a hurry. There are likely some that I overlooked."

That seemed to be the way of most of the pain he experienced. In the physical sense, at least. As an angel, he'd grown so used to not feeling things, that he rarely noticed he was injured until the battle was long over. Sam had equated it to combat high, but Cas was only vaguely familiar with the term. It made little sense to him.

"I'm...managing. Not as well as you," he conceded. "Of course, you were human for quite some time. I imagine the adjustment was somewhat less arduous."

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[info]she_fell
2013-04-24 08:41 pm UTC (link)
Anna took out a cleansing wipe and started to dab at the cut on Castiel's forehead. It wasn't deep, but she still hated seeing his blood spilled like this. Her touch was gentle as she cleaned the cut.

"Being human is very rarely easy, but it was what I chose when I fell."

She stopped dabbling and met Castiel's eyes. Her face had gotten closer to his as she'd leaned in to inspect the wound. If she leaned forward just a few inches, her forehead would rest against his. It was tempting to get closer, but she refrained for now.

"Free will is a double edged sword. You chose it when you helped the Winchesters stop the apocalypse. Given the chance to do it over again, would you still make the same choices?"

She was honestly curious. There was a small hint of regret in Anna's features. She was proud of the choices Castiel had made, but she was sorry that he had taken the path that almost guaranteed some measure of pain.

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[info]celestialintent
2013-04-25 12:59 am UTC (link)
It took him a moment to think. Ideally, he would have been able to stay on Earth and maintain his Grace, but he'd known better than that. And while he would have preferred to remain an angel, he was of the opinion that Heaven had very little to offer him in the way of peace. From what he could tell, it was in as much turmoil as it had been when he'd rebelled. As for Dean...it seemed wrong to leave him, after having just lost Sam. It wasn't simply a matter of wanting to assist in resurrecting Sam from Hell so much as he'd felt it was right.

"I don't know," he answered honestly, meeting her eyes. "But that it is likely that I would have. There were too many things here that required my attention. And had I returned to Heaven, I would have gone down a very different path. One that did not include Sam or Dean. Or you."

While it was true he'd only hunted with her for one day, he doubted they would have crossed paths again had he returned to Heaven. Unless of course he'd been assigned to hunt her down and kill her again, which would have been a very real possibility. She'd failed and as he knew well, Heaven did not look upon failure with mercy.

"Actually, that is what I came here to talk with you about."

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[info]she_fell
2013-04-25 01:53 am UTC (link)
Anna straightened up and looked at Castiel, eyebrows raised. His answer was the best she could ask for. She was glad that he didn't regret taking this path, even if it had meant giving up Heaven.

She was also glad that she'd had the chance to fight at his side again. She preferred it to being on opposite sides, to Castiel being the one to hunt her down for her disobedience. Perhaps it was selfish to be glad that he'd essentially fallen as well, but she was all the same.

"What do you mean? What did you come to talk to me about?" she asked, not quite following the segueway.

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[info]celestialintent
2013-04-25 02:17 am UTC (link)
Cas took a deep breath, forcing himself to look her in the eye. In the past, it would have been easier to pace the room and perhaps look through the nearest book. It had always been a means of sorts, at least when it came to conversation. He'd never understood why it'd always made him so uncomfortable, but he supposed it was just because he'd never been very good at it.

"Since Sam's been returned to us, I've been thinking," he began. "The boys are a team. In battle, they rarely need assistance, save from one another. And while the research moves much faster, it is not as if Sam is incapable of doing so on his own. If there's further information they require, that is why they generally call Bobby Singer. While I don't feel as if they don't want me...I don't feel as if they need me. At least, not anymore."

He'd stayed because Dean would need someone to hold Sam's place while he was in the Pit. Without someone to guide him, Dean could very easily have become dangerous to himself in his efforts to recover his brother and despite his sarcasm and general bad attitude, Cas had been willing to fill that space. But now Sam was there and Cas was no longer an angel. It may have been different when he'd had powers, but now, he was simply another gun or a blade. Or at least someone to go and acquire pie and coffee. Or booze. And Cas had had quite enough of that.

"I enjoyed hunting with you today," he said softly. "For the first time in a long time, I felt as if I were doing something right. So if you will have me...then I would like to continue hunting with you."

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[info]she_fell
2013-04-25 04:06 am UTC (link)
Anna just stared for a minute. After all of the history between the two of them, she supposed it made a strange sort of sense that he would offer to come hunting with her. There was a part of her that worried that he might be falling into old habits, but there was a much larger part of her that wanted to take him up on his offer. Having someone to hunt with, having Castiel to hunt with... there was something that seemed just right about that.

All the same, she hesitated. She was almost afraid to say yes, to get her hopes up.

"With me? Are you sure that's what you want, Castiel?"

She reached out and briefly covered his hand with hers, a small gesture that might have communicated that she would be happy to have him if this was truly what he wanted.

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[info]celestialintent
2013-04-25 04:36 am UTC (link)
His hands took hers back as a reflex, though this time it was not to pull away. He remembered the last time. He'd likely misinterpreted her intentions the last time, in that shack. And what he'd said to her had been cruel. He would have apologized for it, but this did not seem to be the time. Her hands were warm...and strangely, that was more than just acceptable.

"Yes," he replied promptly, nodding. "It's what I want. Sam and Dean are capable hunters. And I only promised to stay with them for so long as I was needed."

She was...very close. She had been during their confrontation with the hellhounds, though that had been out of necessity. Spreading out would only have gotten them killed and this was different. Instead they were face to face. There was something exceedingly intimate about it.

"Would you...i-is that all right?" he asked, tilting his head slightly.

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[info]she_fell
2013-04-25 04:45 am UTC (link)
This was certainly not the time for apologies. They both had apologies that could be made, but those could be made later. Or it could be assumed that this was a new beginning. Things were different now for both of them. As far as Anna was considered, the things that had transpired before-in their previous life, as it were-didn't matter anymore. It was water under the bridge.

Her fingers tightened around Castiel's and she became aware of just how close they still were. On impulse, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. It was a thank you, an acceptance of his offer, and a culmination of the flirting that they'd done while planning out this hunt all rolled into one.

If she had given herself time to think, she might have talked herself out of this. There was still a part of her that remembered being his commander and that worried about misusing her influence on him. There was an even smaller part of her that worried that her decision to disobey had somehow contributed to his decision. That she was responsible for the struggles he would have now that he was more human than angel.

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[info]celestialintent
2013-04-25 05:19 am UTC (link)
It was...unexpected. More so than any other contact they'd had, but not unwelcome. Once he got over the initial shock, his lips parted for hers slightly of their own accord. Often, his vessel took over him, the muscle memory causing him to do things he was only relatively conscious of.

But it was good - he'd seen these things. Before, with the pizza man, but somehow...somehow he doubted Anna would appreciate the treatment of the babysitter by the pizza man.

Yet, he still deepened it, one hand coming to cup the side of her face delicately. He understood that it was more than simple acceptance. There had been something between them. To find it was this, was...a definite revelation.

By the time it was over, Cas found himself staring back at her, somewhat wide-eyed, but only out of hope that he'd not disappointed her. "That...that was a yes?" he asked, hoping he'd not misinterpreted her actions. "If it was, I would like to do that again."

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[info]she_fell
2013-04-25 07:56 pm UTC (link)
Anna was a little breathless when the kiss ended. She laughed softly. Not at Castiel, but out of relief and a little bit of amusement that he would even wonder whether or not she wanted to kiss him again after that kiss.

"That was a yes," she confirmed. "Under one condition. We do this as equals. I no longer want to be the one giving the orders any more than I believe that you want to be taking them."

The condition was voiced for both of their sake. It could be easy to fall into the old pattern that they'd been in since the beginning of everything, the pattern that had only been broken when she fell. Twenty years was but a drop in the bucket when faced with eons and old habits were hard to break. She wanted a new beginning for both of them. A partnership.

Anna rested her forehead against Castiel's and grinned.

"And yes, we can do that again. That's just one of the many upsides to being human."

Being human was messy and imperfect, but there were moments of bliss in the confusion of life and Anna lived for those moments. All of the negative was worth it for moments like this. And while it wasn't her first kiss, there was a feeling of something... right about kissing Castiel that she'd never experienced before.

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[info]celestialintent
2013-04-25 11:19 pm UTC (link)
For a moment, Cas wondered if her laughter was from a place of ridicule, but then thought better of it. This was Anna. Her smile had never misled him. Either it was one of rueful sadness or it was one of delight. This...this seemed to be of the latter if his questionable interpretation of human emotion could be trusted. "No more orders," he agreed. "I will do my best to honor such an agreement."

He was aware that he would need to tell Dean and say goodbye to the brothers, but he nodded. What she was asking of him was not difficult, despite the fact that he felt it would take time. He would be mindful of his actions, but he felt it would be easier. Given the apparent change in the nature of the relationship. The change itself was somewhat terrifying for him, but not something he wished to shy away from. Now that he'd experienced his first kiss, he could understand why humans found the act so appealing.

Returning her smile with a very faint one of his own, he met her eyes. She'd looked different to him since the moment they'd crossed paths once again. While he'd always considered her beautiful in her true form, it was as if he was seeing her differently. It was not something he was about to explain. "Then I trust you'll show me some of the others. In due time," he said.

He'd missed her, but to simply say that felt as if it were an understatement. And he'd long since learned that it was best to convey such feeling with actions rather than words.

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[info]she_fell
2013-04-25 11:33 pm UTC (link)
Anna had wrongly assumed that Castiel had settled into his new humanity and that he might have sought out those experiences that she would share with him on his own. Especially given the company he was keeping. She'd just assumed that Dean had taken Castiel out for more than a few nights on the town, but she was starting to realize now that the assumption was incorrect.

Or perhaps the first half of the assumption was correct, but she wondered if he had simply continued on as he always had without taking the time to explore the changes that he was experiencing.

She reached out and ran a hand down the side of his face in a tender caress.

"I would be honored to. In time."

Human lives didn't last forever, but they also didn't have to rush things. There were already a lot of changes that they would have to work their way through. Anna found that the idea of having Castiel at her side brought her a great deal of peace. All the same, she did wonder about how the Winchesters would fare without him. And he without them. She took her hand back and gave him a little bit of space.

"Have you talked to Dean and Sam yet?" she asked, unsure if he would have made the offer first or told the Winchesters first.

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[info]celestialintent
2013-04-26 02:09 am UTC (link)
"No," he admitted, moving to stand. "I will need to do so now. I'm confident they will understand. And if I know Dean at all, he will simply have to accept it."

Somewhat reluctant to let her go, Cas decided it would be best to find Dean before he came looking. He was far from ashamed, but he had the feeling it would likely be best to speak with Dean apart from Anna to avoid bringing down any unwanted accusations. It was not something Anna had put into his head. It was something he felt he needed to do, regardless of whether he and Anna became chosen mates or not. Otherwise, he felt his adjustment to being human would be compromised.

With Anna, he at least felt he had both a friend and a guide. Perhaps more than that, but if being among humans had taught him anything, it was best to assume as little as possible.

"Do you mind waiting?"

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[info]she_fell
2013-04-26 03:22 am UTC (link)
Anna felt a little bit of trepidation at the conversation that Castiel would have. From what she knew of Dean, he struggled with letting people go. Not that she could blame him, but she had a feeling that it might not go well.

She nodded.

"Of course I will wait, Castiel. And if you still feel the same after you talk to Dean and Sam, we can decide where to go next."

There was no pressure in her statement. She simply wasn't going to predict the outcome of Castiel's conversation with the Winchester. She wasn't going to get her hopes up. He needed to make this decision on his own, and if they convinced him to stay, she wouldn't begrudge him that.

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[info]celestialintent
2013-04-26 04:08 am UTC (link)
"I will," he replied bluntly. "This is not a decision I've abruptly come to, Anna. I simply feel it is...the right time."

There was an urge to reach out and take her hands once again, but not knowing what would be acceptable now, he chose not to. It would be something for them to discuss later, seeing as he had several questions. He only hoped she could answer most of them. Beyond that, they had much to talk about to begin with. Their next job. How it would be handled. Honestly, if he was feeling anything, it was a sense of excitement.

He adjusted his jacket and moved for the door, turning to look back at her. "I will be back shortly."

Closing the door, he vaguely realized that he was smiling. Perhaps for the first time since becoming human and he knew he owed it to her. No one else made him feel the way he did. It was a feeling he'd been aware of since their time in Heaven, but now he had a clearer understanding of it. He only hoped he would not displease her.

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