It is not uncommon for angels to go millennia without knowing that another of their brothers has come to be. When an angel comes to be, it fits so perfectly into the host, into the entirely of heaven, that all an angel senses is another voice joining the others perfectly, indistinguishable as an individual.
But this was not so for Castiel.
When Castiel came to be, all of heaven knew it. All were touched by wave after wave of awe, wonder, joy, and love for the Father.
None in the Host knew what to make of it. This new angel who was so—so different. Reminiscent of humans in a way that no other angel ever way. They looked on, saw this angel as the anomaly it was, watched it with their ever present calm. They were not disturbed or happy or any other emotion. For the only angel that could feel any of those things was the angel they all watched with detached interest.
But even he could not hold the Host's interest for long. After the initial brought on by the littlest angel's arrival, most go back to their duties without another thought.
Anael is the most interested in their newly made brother. He is strange and that draws her in. He is like the humans she watches when the wonders of the Host lose her interest, but he is better because he is here with her and she can watch every play of those emotions and they use the angel as their vessel. It becomes a game. Anael is not certain how many emotions humans truly have, she thinks perhaps her Father might be the only one who knows, but dragging them all out of Castiel—each new and interesting—is an amusement she never tires from.
Castiel desires her attention, that much is certain (and isn't it odd? Anael thinks abstractly, that an angel would desire anything at all?), and Anael allows him that. He stares at her with an awe that is so foreign to Anael, that says she is different than other angel, that says he sees her as an individual, a concept that captivates Anael in its wrongness. She is no different than any other in the Host.
"Uriel says I should never raise my grace in praise with the Host, it would be—" Castiel gets that face he always does when saying words directly from another angel's mouth, " 'a disgrace to the father and to his love'"
Anael smiled, thinking of Castiel's grace and how it so resembles a human soul that it is neither one nor the other, "perhaps he is right."
Castiel's lips turn down and his eye glaze over with something Castiel has yet to show her, and thus she has yet to recognize, those were obviously not the words Castiel had wanted to hear (there that wanting was again. Anael wondered without emotion if Castiel would be better suited for hell). A flash of what passes for amusement for angels passes through her grace.
Castiel because something of a drug for Anael. The constant thread of feelings that he displays is addicting. He has gotten better at hiding them as time on earth passes, but emotion still spills over his mask. It is by no means the face of a true angel.
She has begun to desire to share grace with him more and more, to feel the swell and turmoil against her own serene being. To see how different he truly is from her. After a while, (millennia, moments, time means little to her) she begins to think that God should have given them to her. Surely she would do better, contain them better, use them better. She is the better angel.
The moment comes when Castiel does not want to share grace, when his need for assurance and a glimmer of love is outweighed by his shame at having these needs in the first place. (Anael identifies the feelings that cause Castiel to act as such, and lets her grace shine with a pale shade of pride at her knowledge, although it does not entirely stop her flicker of annoyance at his resistance to her wishes)
"It is shameful to not share yourself with your brother, Castiel"
"Is it not shameful to share these—these" he looks around himself, as if physically looking for the word (another thing about him that mirrors the humans more than angels, separates him from them just a little more), "these?"
"That is true." Anael's smile is the default smile of heaven, "you are a shame to Our Father either way, it would seem."
Anael can see it. She has been watching Castiel for long enough, observing him with the critical eye of an angel, and she knows that Castiel desires the assurances of the others of the Host. He wishes for some form of approval, striving harder and harder, vying for it. No other angel sees his need like Anael does. No other angel has had such a fascination with him as she. She sees him push his grace further and further, wishing to be helpful, needed, or wanted.
No angel gives him what he desires, for the concept of acknowledging what should be done is not something that exists in Heaven. The needs that Castiel expresses, that come off him, wrapped both in hope and shame, are still so foreign to the others that they dismiss them without thought.
Anael sees them and knows them for what they are, but she does not offer comfort to the littlest angel. She has observed humans for so long, never interfering, that the thought of doing so for Castiel is pushed away without guilt or hesitation. If Anael finds herself reveling in his yearning, in the emotions that he cannot contain due to their strength, she does not dwell on it
Anael never identifies that emotion that makes her decide to fall—yes, emotion. She spent so much time with Castiel, seen all those emotions that he had experiences, and yet the one that bubbles within her own grace, tainting her, making her less, is one that Castiel had never experienced.
All she knows for certain is that it should have been her that was given the burden of emotion. She would have been able to handle them, control them and beat them down in a way that Castiel could never manage. It was her knowledge of her aptitude, her ability to do better, that lead her to the edges of heaven, to look down on Earth.
And then she was falling. Ready for the emotions of a human, prepared. The Host would see, it was not emotions that made Humans (and Castiel, the corners of her mind whispered) inferior—mudd monkeys—but the way in which they were wielded, without the absolute and perfect control of a perfect angel.
"No, you're not sorry." Anna—Anael—Angel, spits back at the visage of the angel beneath her, "you don't know the feeling"
And Anna—Anael now, truly—feels the grace flow through her body. She shouts to her humans (for surely they are hers) to close their eyes, less she burn them out with her magnificence. And they must obey because there are no screams.
And then she's opened her eyes, and see's the littlest angel look at her with the awe he always had, seeing a perfect angel, the angel he would never be. And she remembers, remembers how he is the one with those things, he is the one who seduced her, who poisoned her grace with these thoughts of humanity, of its wonders.
She looks at the angel before her now, and sees on both his human shell and true face a blank slate, the epitome of angelic indifference. But under that he is the same. That swirl of intoxication, sending off bursts like solar flares, it's a wonder the humans haven't died from it.
She can see it all, his dread to have failed, tugging his grace down, mixing with his feelings of joy that such an angel as herself is not gone from existence. The feeling of wonder he always got when seeing her, wings spread, is back, bringing with it a sharp pang of loss and misery. Guilt at her fall, knowing it was in part his fault, love for all the things their Father has created. But overwhelming all of that is the feeling she had never before seen the extent of, never known how deeply engrained it was, now clear as the heavens are to her again: need. Need for approval, need for absolution, need for love. Need for all the things no angel would ever be able to give him.
And Anael is still human enough to want to hurt him for it. She smiles at him, watches his grace grow brighter, before sending the last of her human feelings towards him: want for his suffering, to make him know that he will never be a true angel, fury at him for making her fall, anger at making her human, hate for taking it away.
She waits just long enough for the crack she sees in his grace, for the sorrow to start encompassing his being, his true self turn into itself, becoming smaller, knowing all she says is true and that he is at fault—for what, neither of them know, but Anael suspects it's existing—before her smile grows wider and she flies away without a backwards glance.
She does not feel guilt, for she is not human.
...I never really liked Anna/Anael... and it's not entirely based upon the fact that she slept with Dean, I think more so on the fact that she says she fell because of her want for emotions, and then blames Castiel for not having them when we know he does. blargh. anyway this is one of my many ideas as to what heaven was like for Cas, and through the eyes of another angel no less.
hate it? detest it? wish for its early demise? do let me know!