It was hours before Dean opened his eyes.

The sun was low in the sky, bathing the room in a blood red glow. Dean laid on his back, looking up at the uneven plaster of the ceiling. It was the hallmark of a cheap motel room, the uneven, rough ceiling. His face felt dry but he could smell the tinge of the paper thin cake of soap the Archangels had probably found in the bathroom, strong enough he knew that the spot between his lip and nose had been cleaned. Vaguely he remembered blood streaming from his mouth and nose--and his eyes. His eyes had been bleeding. His eyes widened as he remembered the bright light and the blood and Jo--

Jo--

His body shot upwards on its own accord, eyes moving quickly around the room until they landed on the other occupant. Apparently the angelic power did not extend to clothing. The figure standing silhouetted in the ruby red light wore low leather pants but instead of the cover of the black tank top, almost all of her back was exposed, only the narrow strap of bra she wore revealed she wore anything on top. Dean blinked as he looked at her. Something was different, something flickered across her skin. He had seen it before, when he killed a particularly powerful demon and it clung to the life that it possessed even as it died. The glow, the flicker, it reminded Dean of flames. More than any demon that he had seen. Even as it danced across her skin, he could see a constant burn. Something deep inside her--even if it was not really her at all. Humans did not glow, that much he was certain of. Angels on the other hand--

"Where is she?" Dean demanded, his voice hoarse to his own ears.

"Do not move," Michael's voice made his leg pause, "you can barely sit up. Moving would be foolish, even for you."

"Damn it, what did you do with her?" Dean repeated, stubbornly moving his leg over the other side of the bed.

"Relax," the Archangel said, keeping his back to the Hunter, "she's fine. I arrived in time to make sure of that. Now lay down."

Dean stood up.

Michael made a sound of either amusement or disdain as the Hunter fought to keep his balance. It was pride that kept him on his feet, pride and stubbornness because the moment he got to his feet his legs buckled. But even so the Archangel did not turn around, keeping his back to the younger Hunter. With jerky steps, Dean made his way over to where the Archangel stood. Michael made no move to look at him even when Dean all but collapsed against the wall next to the window. The front was just as bad as the back, there was so much pale skin with only the very little black fabric of the bra to keep it from being entirely indecent. Not that that made him feel any better about the situation they found themselves in. The flicker of the Angelic power was enough to make him sure that it was Michael who was standing there half naked and not Jo.

Even so, somewhere, someway Dean was sure Ellen was planning to kick his ass.

Frowning, Dean realized that Michael was looking at something. Pushing thoughts of kicking Angelic ass aside, Dean glanced out the window. He'd driven them to the motel, he knew that there wasn't anything out there butt trees and, well, trees. And asphalt. And a highway. But nothing that required the kind of watching that Michael was doing. At the same moment that he looked over something was thrown violently against the wall before it was ripped away. The two figures tumbled furiously into view. Gabriel and Amitiel. Dean's eyes widened. The flicker he saw was for them as well. For Gabriel it was constant, rolling, like waves. For Amitiel, it was a steady burn not flickering but not as powerful as the two Archangels he saw. As Gabriel fought, the power seamlessly went to where he struck or defended, redirecting to where it was needed. It was the same for Amitiel but on a smaller scale. Despite the moderate amount of good that the Archangel's had done, Dean couldn't help but feel a twist of joy when she lashed her foot out and round-housed the Archangel in the face.

"They have been at this for hours," Michael said, not moving from his position even as the two moved away from the windows, "and it will be hours before they exhaust themselves."

"So how long were they together?" Dean asked. Michael raised an eyebrow, "I've seen that look before. And I stopped dating Hunter chicks after--" he nodded towards the scene outside the window.

"Amitiel is not a 'Hunter chick'," Michael said, "she is an Angel."

"Yeah, about that, I thought you Angels were genderless."

"We are," Michael said, "but we do have inclinations. I am inclined to choose a male vessel, as is Gabriel, Raphael--Selaphiel. Amitiel inclines towards the female. But exceptions can be made," the Archangel continued.

"So they were--"

"Together? In a way," Michael said.

"Aren't you all siblings?"

"We are Angels," Michael said icily, "your rules, your thoughts--none of it applies to us. Not in the way that you are thinking."

"So he's not banging his sister?"

"That is disgusting," the Archangel said, looking at Dean.

Dean reeled backwards, instinct overruling thought. His body rebelled, struggling to put as much distance between him and the Archangel as he possibly could. Michael's gaze had never been one that could be confused with Jo's, the two were more different than Dean would have thought possible. Now though, his gaze could not even be considered human. The light in Michael's eyes was enough to make every dark corner of his psyche howl in agony. It was pure, it was fire, it was going to kill him if he kept looking at it and yet he found that he could not look away. The instinct said to run and his body tried to follow but it was not able to. Before he could hit the ground, Michael's hand streaked out, easily seizing the Hunter by the collar of his shirt and pulling him up. The Archangel closed his eyes and turned his head away, keeping a firm grip on Dean as the young Hunter's heart threatened to beat right out of his chest.

"I told you to stay on the bed!" the Archangel snapped, pulling the hunter onto the bed before turning back around, bracing his hands against the window sill.

"What the hell was that?" Dean demanded. Michael's fingers tightened on the sill, "damn it--"

"You saw my true form," Michael said, "or a glimpse of it," the Archangel shook his head, "it was a foolish mistake on my part but Joanna was not going to be able to hold on much longer," the Archangel took a breath, "it took almost all of Gabriel's considerable power to keep your senses from imploding."

"Is that why you're all glowing?" Dean questioned as his heart continued to pound.

"Yes," Michael said, "you are going to clearly see Angels, Demons, all of it," he let out another angry breath, "I do not know how long your sensitivity to us will last."

"Sensitivity?" Dean struggled to his feet once more, "is that what you call that? That wasn't fucking sensitivity! That was--damn it I don't know what that was but I--"

"You would have thrown yourself off a cliff to get away from me," the Archangel finished for him, "you have good and evil in you, it is part of being a human. But your sensitivity to my presence, what you saw there, it makes the evil in you react strongly. And it is not helped by our closeness."

"Closeness?" Dean repeated.

"I cannot leave this room," Michael said, "not while my connection is so strong and my power is going to the Vessel. I would attract the attention of every demon nearby," he raised his head up and looked out the window as Dean saw another flicker of power, "and we are not ready for that."

"And Romeo and Juliet out there aren't going to do that?"

"No," he said, "I left Amitiel clear instructions to ward around the parking lot. Now sit down, your heart is dangerously elevated and more Angelic power at this point may very well cause it to explode."

Wisely, Dean sat on the bed.

He had looked on an Angel's form and not had his eyes burned out, so that was something good. And Jo was alright, which was also good. In his head he recited the positive things, focusing on them as he tried to get his heart to slow down. Deep breaths, positive things--it was one of the few things he could remember his mother telling him after he had a nightmare. In and out, he wasn't dead, Sam wasn't dead, Zachariah wasn't giving them stomach cancer to try and get them to say yes. And Gabriel was outside getting his ass kicked by an Angel that Dean remembered as looking cute and small enough to hold off with one hand. He forced his hands to relax on the denim of his jeans as he raised his eyes to look at Michael's back before realizing his mistake. It was Michael, he knew that it was the Archangel, but there was so much smooth, pale skin in the view of his eye and somehow the fact that he was sitting in a hotel room breathing hard with Jo Harvelle dressed in leather pants and a black bra became the true impossibility.

He'd never really spared much thought to the fact that the blonde hunter was wearing shorter hair and lots of leather, but as he looked at her he realized that it looked wrong.

Not the hair, the leather.

Jo Harvelle was a jeans-and-t-shirt kind of girl. Dean might've considered it a requirement that hot girls wore low, tight, leather pants and bras with nothing else. But on her, he realized, it didn't look right. No, Jo Harvelle belonged in jeans. Not the sexually charged outfit that she wore at the moment. He'd left all his shit in the car when he'd carried her into the room but he knew that he had a change of cloths in there somewhere. Hunting was a messy business. If you showed up somewhere in cloths that were torn, bloody and covered in demon gunk people tended to ask questions that you didn't want to answer.

"Does it make you uncomfortable?" Michael asked before Dean realized he'd voiced the shirt in the car fact without realizing.

"No," he snapped, "yes," he glared at the floor, "look, its complicated. Would you just get the shirt on?" he demanded with a glare.

"You said that you did not date Hunter chicks," Michael said and Dean could practically see the confused look on his face.

"I don't," Dean said, "we didn't--" he let out a frustrated breath, still focusing on keeping his heart rate down.

"Close your eyes," Michael ordered. Dean opened his mouth, "or you can continue to watch and have your eyes burned out of your skull," Dean closed his eyes. Even so there was a flash of brightness that made his eyes ache and water, "you may open them now."

How he'd found the grey shirt, Dean had no idea but he recognized the item instantly and suddenly he found himself half wishing for her to be topless again. The sight of her in the low slung leather pants, donning his oversized t-shirt sent a whole new set of feelings tumbling through him. If there had been any doubt that Ellen Harvelle was somewhere planning his demise, they were gone. The woman was somewhere not only planning his demise but making it slow, painful and overall as messy as possible for the thoughts going through his head. The worst part was, it wasn't even her. Michael was the room's other occupant, not Joanna Harvelle. Not in any way that mattered. What was happening was his body reacting to another body in the room. A hot, female body that contained the essence of one of the biggest douchebags Dean Winchester had ever met. Stubbornly Dean clung to that fact, with every bone in his body, and not on how Jo's voice had sounded when she told him that he smelled like her favorite place in the world.

"So what are we supposed to do now?" Dean asked, "just wait here until I can look at you without my eyes burning?"

"Yes," Michael said.

"But--"

"Yes," the Archangel repeated harshly, "we will wait here. And while we are doing so, I will tell you how we are going to put Death back in his little box."

It was unnecessary to glance down at the address branded onto her hand.

Unnecessary but she did it anyway, just to make sure.

Her boots clicked against the uneven cobblestones of the street. It was deserted, as streets tended to be in small towns the Horesemen went through. Blood still spattered the plywood that was nailed hastily against the windows and she gave a snort of disgust. Humans. Pathetic little ants had known what was coming and, like bugs, they'd raced to either scatter or defend the anthill. Hadn't mattered a bit. They'd all died, the only difference was some had died running, some had died standing but in the end they'd been crushed all the same. Idly she spared a thought to wonder if that made a difference. If dying defending a hopeless cause made you somehow better than dying running to save your own hide. With a shrug she decided she didn't much care and it didn't much matter. Dead was dead and those souls were just new voices added to the endless chorus.

Glancing down at the manhole by her feet, she motioned sideways with her foot. The cover rose and skidded to the side, turning like a coin to roll down the deserted street. She listened to the sound in the emptiness before the cover lost its balance and clattered noisily to the ground. She waited until it had stilled, wondering if it had landed face up or down on the street. Heads or tails? She'd forgotten to call it. Peering down into the blackness below her feet, she raised one foot and stepped forward, dropping into the oblivion. For a moment she was weightless, dropping down into the nothing below. Then her feet hit the wet cement below, the sound echoing off the tunnel that she stood in. The only actual light came from the sky revealed by the manhole but the inky blackness was anything but a deterrent for her. With a careless shrug, she turned and slid easily into the darkness.

Smells were the first thing to reach her nose. Spices and incense blanketed the underlying tones of liquor, drugs and sex, all mingling to make a perfume that her vessel found to be utterly knee weakening. Her lips curved into a smirk as she thought that any person would think brimstone would be the scent in the air. But no, the smell here was all of pain and pleasure and the dark things that went bump in the night. It was unnecessary, as was the lack of light and the heat that seeped through her. Unnecessary, sure, but she'd be damned if it wasn't fun. And besides, necessity had always been for the decidedly lighter of the beings that roamed the earth. This was indulgence, not necessity. She slowly let her head roll back, the weight of her hair brushing the jacket that covered her bare skin as heat that had nothing to do with the physical warmth of the place pooled low in her stomach.

Her eyes fell on the dark, heavy velvet that blocked her from continuing further. To any but her, it would have been impossible to enter the place. For her it was as simple as parting the curtain and stepping into the room itself.

Red was the first thing that met her eyes. Red in the velvet that hung along the walls. The room was massive and there was enough velvet on the walls and ceiling to cloth an entire country. There was more red in the cushions piled on the floor, a thousand shades ranging from the brightest candy apple to the darkest of maroon. In spite of the room's massive size there were only three people inside the room. Her eyes went over first to the red haired woman who lay on the cushions wearing nothing but two scraps of sheer fabric, their presence designed only to enhance the body that lay beneath. She was gorgeous with a tumble of bright red curls that half hid smoldering eyes lined in ebony. Nearby a woman with jet black hair lounged. It did not matter that the woman was wearing marginally more clothing, every turn of her head, every flex of her finger, all of it dripped with sex. But her eyes went to the man sitting. He was not placed in any sort of position of importance, but she would not make the mistake of addressing anyone else. With slicked back jet black hair and a charcoal grey suite, everything about him was perfect and in place and yet she was sure that there was not a creature, demonic or angelic, who looked like they belong less in all the world.

"Well don't just stand there," he said, his voice oil smooth, "what do you want?"

"I was sent--"

"By Lucifer?" he snorted, "don't make me laugh. Lucifer doesn't send screw ups."

Her fingers itched to touch the scars she still bore. She'd been forbidden from taking off the meat suite she still wore. She'd been left for Death in Carthage, trapped in a vessel and lost in the agony of the burns she'd suffered being used as a fucking bridge by that prick of an Angel. Lucifer had forbid her from leaving, brushing his lips over her forehead and saying if she survived he'd see her in hell. Well she had no intention of not surviving. It'd hurt like a fucking bitch but she'd thrown herself back into the ring of flames. Death had enough to kill. Holy oil hurt like a mother fucker even for a Horsemen and he'd decided that one half-dead demon wasn't exactly worth it. Not when there was a whole world to play with just outside the shit town they'd been in. He'd left her, like Lucifer had, to die. And she'd been pretty damn sure that she would.

Until she woke up three days later, bruised, sore, scarred and very much alive.

She still didn't know how it'd be done, only that it hadn't been her and she hadn't had time to dwell on it. The scars were bad but it just look like she'd had her ass kicked and that was a hell of a lot better than being dead. It sucked that she had to traverse the world in a scarred meatsuit but it was the price she had to pay for being a fuck up. At least she still had her powers and some kind of favor with him. Lucifer had given her the address to come to if she'd survived, burning it into her palm and, like a good little solider, she had followed it. Slowly the man got to his feet and walked over to her faster than her eyes could follow. She stiffened on pure instinct, body going ram rod strait as she looked at him. Before her eyes he inhaled, like a lover smelling perfume before his features tightened in disgust.

"You stink of Angel," he said.

"Didn't have time to shower," she shot back.

"Pity," he said, "the world will be over before we get the stench out of this place."

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from and snapping back. Pissing him off was, at best, a bad idea. She'd survived this long, she wasn't going to just turn around and fuck herself over by talking back to Mammon. To either side she heard the two others chuckle with amusement at his mocking. She kept her eyes ahead, her hands by her sides as he circled her like a predator--though she thought she was anything but prey.

"See," he said, "you came here like a good, obedient solider. If you weren't a disgusting failure it would actually be commendable."

"I made--"

"A what? A mistake?" he made a sound in the back of his throat, "you had one pathetic failure of Angel to guard and you were so busy taunting him you didn't see him loosening a pipe!"

"Lucifer--"

That was all the warning she got before something white hot seared through her stomach.

"Lucifer sent you here to learn your lesson," Mammon whispered, tightening his fingers on the knife embedded in her stomach before he ripped it free, "and to test out a little theory of his."

Her legs buckled as she dropped to the ground, her hands clutching her stomach as blood poured from the wound. She looked down at her hands, watching as the red soaked them before she looked up at Mammon, her lips parting in wordless horror. Bile set her chest on fire as she stared up at him. Mammon looked down at her, distaste written all over his features as he dropped the knife to the ground, too far for her hands to make any sort of grab for it, though she knew it was useless to continue to hold her stomach. Mammon produced a black square of fabric from somewhere she could not see, wiping his hands smoothly as he crouched down in front of her.

"You see, you were supposed to die that day back in Missouri. Die for your failure. But you lived and it wasn't by the dealing of a demonic hand. No, Lucifer thinks this was far more angelic than that."

She choked on bodily fluid as she stared up at him.

"Did you know that when an Angel heals, a connection is made? Its fascinating, really. Even now that I am, well," he smiled at what he was, "this," he motioned to himself, "I can still tell you the name of every single one of those pathetic maggots. I can even tell you how they died, when they died--if they're deaths were caused by my absence."

He titled his head to the side, thoughtful for a moment before he discarded the black fabric and crossed his arms.

"I felt them die and, it was, to put it lightly, excruciating," he knelt down to her level, "the blood flowing out, the bile eating away at their organs, I felt it all and it felt like it was happening to me," he reached out but she turned her head away, "oh don't be like that," he said, "you're still serving your father. After all, these were his orders."

In a single, smooth motion, she turned to face him and spat blood into his face, making sure it splattered his suite.

"Go to Hell," she shot back viciously.

She blacked out just as the room burned white with angelic fire, too exhausted to be pissed.

But she was, because if there was one thing that Meg truly hated it was when an Angel, even a failed one, was right.

So how are they going to put Death in his box? Why would an Angel heal a Demon? Is Lucifer aware his brother's hanging out on earth now?

Tune in next time to find out!

Also just so you know, Amaranth has become a separate story. One thats separate and just based around Michael and Gabriel.

Don't forget to review! When you review it makes me want to update!

So please review!