Yay next chapter! Sorry this one took so long. I've had a really busy August, full of last-minute summer activities before moving in to college. Now that I'm all settled in to my dorm though I've had more time to write than I expected. We'll see how long that lasts once my classes get in to full swing. I have adopted a story to beta for another writer though so I wouldn't hold up too much hope for more frequent updates. Sorry. I promise to update as frequently as possible but unfortunately I cannot spend my entire life writing. Believe me, if I could I would. Throw money my way for writing fanfiction and original content and I'll gladly do this in between every class. Would save me the headache of needing to find a part-time job.

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Chapter 9

Lucifer was observing the rush of Boston from the roof of a skyscraper somewhere in the heart of it when he felt it. It was difficult to place at first, as he had not felt disturbances in the fabric of reality for quite some time, but it was there. Something was ripping. Something was being tainted. It weighed on him, made him shift uncomfortably. Something pure was being used for impurity. And it was something familiar.

He felt his Grace stirring beneath his vessel, sending him a warning. One of his brothers was in danger.

Castiel.

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The soldier gritted his teeth and tried again. Center yourself. Pool your energy. Feel it take form. Then expand it to do your bidding. Training seemed so long ago. By many's standards it had been; four thousand years seemed like such a long time to mortals. But it was not for angels. Time was supposed to be irrelevant to angels. Up until the rise of man, none of them had need to keep track of it. Their progress and evolution was faster than any other their Father had created. It required a certain shift in their mentality as well. But unlike humans, they were not allowed to fall victim to its effects. Their training was to be with them forever; any diminishment of skill would result in demotion. There was nothing more humiliating, except perhaps to be made mortal. Angels were not supposed to have a concept of humiliation either, but they all knew it. They all feared the same scorn Lucifer and his followers had received for feeling. So if they did experience it they smothered it until it disappeared.

Let the tension build. Fuel the energy until it is all but spilling out of you. Contain it. Control it. Then manipulate it.

He expelled the raw force of his Grace into the air around him. The air ignited in heat and light. Some of the dead leaves at his feet caught fire, quickly burning out. Scrambling for some sort of hold, he expanded his Grace until he tired and had to retract it again. In a few minutes he would try again. And if he failed he would recharge and try again. And again. And again. Until he achieved results. Or until his Grace went out. Whichever came first.

Lucifer was almost set ablaze by the explosion of Grace all around him when he entered the field Castiel had taken as his home for the past eleven months. Focused energy, powered by rage and sorrow, consumed the air, purifying all it touched. Wilting leaves and flowers sprang to life; anything dead caught flame and was destroyed. The pain giving each blast its intensity made his own Grace ache. The focus of each burst, however, was what concerned Lucifer the most.

When the energy receded, Castiel looked weak. Lucifer bounded to his side and caught him as his vessel's knees gave out. Castiel stiffened, but did not fight against him. He took the opportunity to focus solely on recharging instead of bothering to pick himself up. Lucifer supported him a moment more before leaning him back on his heels. "Castiel, stop. Don't."

"I am out of options."

"We agreed this wasn't one."

"I lied. Surely the Father of Lies could have detected dishonesty."

The Morningstar groaned internally. "I'm not the Father of Lies. The humans called me the Bringer of Enlightenment. Loki is the Father of Lies. And you know those polytheistic inbreds are not to even be held in the same regard as us. They are below even the Cupids."

"Do you insult our brothers?"

"I insult those who dare think they can share our Father's name."

"They came first."

"Wrong. They were worshipped first. Our Father made them. They just do not remember it. But he made the Leviathan first. Together they decided to lock them away, and Purgatory was made. Soon after Hell was as well. They decided that anything impure would be cast into either Hell or Purgatory, wherever they felt suited it best. Each of them had their own definition of what was impure though. But they agreed on one thing: the Leviathan had to go. Purgatory combines the strengths of God and all of the Pagans. You'll never open it from this end, Castiel. You'll kill yourself first."

"So be it," the younger huffed, "I will die knowing I did everything I could."

"You can live knowing that too," the Devil interjected, bewildered. Unless it was the will of God, angels were never meant to be martyrs. Self-preservation and the preservation of their brothers was ingrained as top priority; the conservation and protection of Heaven and its servants. In all of his years, he had never heard of a suicidal angel. Too close. He's gotten too close to the humans. Now they've got him thinking like them.

"Castiel," he could not hide the concern in his voice, "Purgatory is not meant to be accessed by anyone, especially not someone pure like you in fear of you accidentally getting trapped in a place created by evil energy. You will die before you open that portal. Not might, there is no chance of it. It will consume your Grace before it lets you open it. You're an angel. You're supposed to fear Purgatory more than Hell."

"Rather poor excuse for an angel," Castiel spat, "and I do fear Purgatory, but not for the reasons our Father intended. I fear what it is doing to Dean Winchester, or if a rescue is even possible at this point. But I will never forgive myself for this if I do not get him out. I cannot let him rot in there. I cannot. If I am an angel, then I am supposed to protect our Father's creations. Instead I got him sent to Purgatory. He should not be there. I should be."

Lucifer stared at him. "There it is."

"What."

"Do you think you belong in Purgatory, little brother, is that it?"

"I need to do penance. I deserve punishment."

"Wrong." Lucifer took his shoulders and refused to let go when he struggled. "Our Father has ingrained in all of you the idea that even turns of events that are beyond one's control still merit punishment. It was an accident, Castiel; you misjudged a distance, and as a result the Winchester was caught in the blast. You could not have prevented that. At one point our Father was capable of forgiveness. He has stopped doing that. That does not mean that you deserve to be sent to the land of eternal carnage for a mistake. Dean is a survivor and a fighter, with a strong soul. I don't think Purgatory could crush him even if the air itself wanted to."

The former soldier searched his elder's face. "It's my fault, Lucifer," he said, voice heavy with defeat.

"When you make a mistake, you do what you can to correct it if you can. And you learn from it. But you do not kill yourself trying to fix it."

"I don't know what to do, brother. Please tell me what to do."

The Morningstar's lips parted in shock. Castiel just referred to him as brother. And he was looking to him for guidance. Chest stirring, he pulled his younger brother into a tight embrace, resting his head against his shoulder. He felt hesitant arms wrap around him - loosely at first, then with an almost desperate grip.

"You remember him," The Morningstar finally responded, resting his chin on the younger's head, "You remember him and honor him. And if opportunity presents itself, you try to get him back. But you do not put yourself in harm's way to give him a chance. It's not selfishness, it's survival. You need to live on because otherwise he is gone for good."

He could feel the former soldier stifling the sobs that threatened to shatter his composure. Angels did not show emotion, had no necessity for venting. But their human vessels knew nothing else. After his banishment, Lucifer saw no reason to continue repressing emotional responses. He would show Castiel how to manage them.

Expanding his Grace to Castiel, Lucifer called for his wings to manifest and wrapped them around his younger brother. Appendages of the purest white encircled the falling angel, feathers tipped silver at the ends. Crimson tainted the axillars and bones beneath the powerful muscles, making them visible under the translucent coverlets. The sight of them after nearly four thousand years without their immense beauty was almost painful to Castiel. Exposure to Hell had impossibly managed to make Lucifer's wings more gorgeous than they had been previously. His chest ached as his own wings manifested without his permission again, Grace desperate to meld with that of the Morningstar. The archangel lifted his wings a bit to allow the smaller, coal black ones now sprouting beautifully from his brother's back to stretch and settle so he could encompass them as well.

They stood like that, unaware of the passing of time, or even its existence, until the air began to stir.

The universe was shifting. The two servants of Heaven could feel the disturbance in their feathers, stronger now that they were exposed, and getting increasingly more difficult to ignore. They picked their heads up simultaneously. The air felt wrong. Lucifer recognized the phenomenon, as it was one he had both witnessed and personally experienced more than once.

The walls of this plane of existence were ripping open, connecting two realms that were never meant to touch.

A blue hue settled over the forest around them, dim at first as the doorway rippled. Soon the night was illuminated by blue light, the ripples now violent thrashes tearing through the walls separating this world from another. Lucifer stared with his mouth agape. While the discomfort caused by the portal no longer bothered him, as he was so accustomed to a world of eternal damnation, he could tell it still unsettled the younger. Castiel's weight was shifting further from the doorway instinctually; he almost felt scared.

"Is that-"

"The human portal," Lucifer confirmed, "through there is Purgatory."

"I do not sense any hikers."

"It's a one-way street, remember? Don't want random nature-freaks accidentally stumbling into a carnal war-zone. It's responding to a human in Purgatory. He's close to the location of the door on that end."

"Dean," Castiel breathed.

Untangling himself from the archangel, Castiel bolted for the wall of light.

"Castiel!" Lucifer called sharply, voice shrill in alarm.

For the first time since his return, Castiel was capable of ignoring him. The portal responded negatively to him, as if trying to shove him away, but he pushed forward. The energy tore at him, burning and scratching and stabbing, but he ignored that too, and stepped through.

Aesthetically, Purgatory appeared no different to him than God's kingdom. But the air was different; tasted differently, settled differently, stirred differently, behaved differently, responded differently. It was wrong. Castiel could not think of any better description than that; just wrong. The colors were washed out, drained of any life, the entire place appearing devoid of any meaning besides death and re-death. Time wasn't just irrelevant, it did not exist. The walls of Purgatory were too strong for even time to pierce them. But it did not feel weightless or timeless because of it; quite the opposite. Castiel felt exhausted and heavy, his own eternity weighing on him even heavier in this consistent, changeless realm.

"Dean!" He shouted as loudly as he could manage. "Dean!" Scanning the lifelessly thriving forest, his eyes finally found a humanoid form stalking in the forest at the base of the cliff. Portal still trying to force him out, the angel screamed as he stepped forward into the carnal world and ran to direct his friend towards the portal before it closed.

"Dean!" he called again.

The man turned round to face him, weapon clutched securely and stance prepared and willing to attack. Dean Winchester's expression softened at the familiar sight of the vessel he associated with his angel friend, but did not dare relax his body. "Cas?" He called in disbelief.

"Dean, we have to go now," Cas halted in front of him, "I'm not sure how long the portal will remain active. You have to leave now."

"How the Hell did you even get here?" Dean demanded, fingers unclenching and then re-gripping his makeshift weapon.

"I will explain once you are free of this place but we must go," Cas pleaded.

Dean stared at him pensively, eyes cold and calculating. Castiel reminded himself that Purgatory had likely shattered his mental state. It was highly likely he thought Castiel a hallucination, the result of trickery from the world he had resided in for the past year. He prayed Dean would trust him long enough to follow him.

"Go where?" Dean inquired, not loosening his hold on his knife.

Castiel gestured behind him above the rocks. "There is a portal that leads through back to Earth. God made a door for humans to escape should one ever find himself trapped here. But I do not know how long it will last so please, go now!"

Dean tightened his jaw. "You first."

Not wasting any more time, Castiel immediately made for the doorway, checking over his shoulder only once to make sure that his friend was following. Dean climbed swiftly, accustomed now to a life of base survival instinct. Hesitating just for a moment, Dean finally stepped up in to the glowing portal with one foot, then the other. He held out his hand in offering to the angel, who remained in place.

"It's a human portal Dean, it's not made for angels," he explained. "Just go."

"I ain't leavin' without you man," Dean insisted.

"I can't leave. Purgatory is meant to keep powerful creatures in. Just go Dean. You don't belong here. You never did."

"Cas you're being ridiculous," Dean stepped forward. Fueled by his own self-loathing and guilt, Castiel roughly pushed him further through the portal. Dean fought against the pull of the doorway attempting to spit him out.

Bright light. Fire. Ice. Power and electricity. And then the human and the angel were suspended in space, being pulled towards the most crisp and secure air.

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Please leave any comments or constructive criticism! If I feel like there's an audience it definitely motivates me to work more on this instead of on any little drabbles that I do when I feel like I've got nothing worth sitting down and committing to. Next chapter already has a page and a half written since I couldn't wait on it before posting this one. Until next time everyone.