Michael picks up another shred of Adam's grace on their way through the strange lands. The void, the in between world has passed but they are not yet home, and will not be home for a long time. He senses that Adam's soul is scattered, through so many worlds and lands that it would be impossible to piece them all together. Michael intended to try. If his mate dies, then he fades with him.

Slowly, they journey towards the Earthly planes. They pass through the void through a small crack in it's walls, into a strange, grey world. The skies here is a monotonous gray, and the landscape is endless fields of uncannily similar trees and rocks. It reminded them of the cage, except it was not the cage. The cage is too quite and completely empty except for them. Here, the hustle of leaves against wind and feet against rocks pierce the emptiness. They are not alone here.

Michael almost got jumped by a vampire, a large bite mark on the side of his arm reminding Sam that the creatures he used to hunt lives here, too. Michael smites the vampire, muttering something darkly about 'Purgatory' and hauls Lucifer up, slinging the younger Archangel's arm across the back of his neck and carries him, despite Lucifer's protest.

"It's dangerous here," Michael whispers later to his brother under the shade of a particularly large tree. "The creatures, they can sense your grace fading."

"That just makes me a liability, then," Lucifer hisses to Michael. "I should leave. It's dangerous for all of us." He looks to Sam, asleep after the exhaustion from running away from the creatures of Purgatory.

"No." Michael says sharply. "You will not leave."

"I will fade, brother. Sooner or later. It's better if I leave now." Lucifer knows that fading will be a long, painful, and slow process. Dying by the hands of the creatures of Purgatory is a much more merciful way for him to go.

"You will not fade." Michael tells him stubbornly. Michael has always been stubborn. In his loyalty to their father, his devotion to Heaven and his love for the human he occupies. It's impossible, Lucifer thinks, for Michael to piece Adam together again from the scraps Michael managed to salvage.

Lucifer does not comment on it. It gives Michael enough hope to stay alive, and not decay away like Lucifer. Michael was obsessed, but that obsession sustains him in this land of lost, monstrous souls. Lucifer turns to look at Sam instead. The one human that he does not despise, for all that he has done, the Demon blood and the last seal, Sam's soul is still bright and perfect and whole and it hurts to see him like this. Pathetic, Lucifer thinks, berating himself. This is pathetic. He should just accept that his other half, his soulmate would have nothing to do with him, will reject him at every turn. Too bad that Lucifer is not one that deals well with such rejection.

They trudge through the dreary landscape of Purgatory,

Michael up front and Lucifer at the back. Sam feels slightly guilty for wanting to stop and rest and eat and sleep. He is far away from home, with only two Archangels for company. Wanting to sleep is him clinging onto familiarity. He misses Adam, the little brother he never knew of. Another innocent Sam pulled into this mess. At least, if he was here, Sam would have another human for company.

Lucifer stays away from Sam, opting to follow Michael wherever he goes, and, despite how much Sam wants to protest it, Sam wants Lucifer close again. If only to feel the cold grace thrum beneath the borrowed skin Michael made for him.

Michael again, Sam scowls, feeling his resentment well up at the older Archangel. Lucifer was his, Sam thought vehemently, and stops dead in his tracks, desperately tracing his train of thought to see how he ended up here. Was it when he saw Lucifer's darkest memories exposed to light? Or when he heard him sing in tangent with Michael? Or was it- Sam shakes his head and catches up, almost laughing at himself at the ridiculousness of all this.

He has a honest to God crush. Feelings. For Lucifer, of all people. When he gets out, Sam decided. He will see a shrink. Preferably one that caters to hunters-turned law students turned vessel for the Devil himself that has a crush on said Devil.

Adam wakes up from the searing pain of Michael unknowingly burning him into oblivion in a garden. Except it was not a garden. It's beauty, Adam thinks, beauty and life and creation in it's purest forms and it is slightly overwhelming. Is there life after a soul has been destroyed?

There is a man standing in the middle of this garden, a man in a dirty bathrobe with his hands held behind his back, grinning at Adam and kicking the empty beer bottles away.

"Are you God?" Adam asks, eyes wide. Who else could this be, in a place like this?

The man smiles nervously, scratching his beard.

"Actually, it's, uh, Chuck."

"Chuck?"

"I'm, kinda, God's...vessel, you would say. God's vessel on Earth." He laughs again, still kicking the beer bottles.

"God needs a vessel?" Adam walks up to him- Chuck, helping him to kick the bottles somewhere behind a bush(this is a garden, after all). Chuck shrugs.

"Beats me. I kinda passed out when he showed up."

"What does God look like?" Adam's curiosity got to him.

"Like me. I mean-" Chuck shifts from foot to foot. "He, uh, appeared to me as me. Not to be arrogant, or anything."

"Nah." Adam shrugs.

"Hey, I'll introduce you to a friend!" Chuck pats Adam's back, a bottle of Jack Daniel's appearing in his hand. "Nick! Nicky!" He shouts, bathrobe shaking in the wind. Adam wonders how the hell this man ended up as God's vessel.

"Don't call me that!" A familiar voice shouted out from behind a tree. Adam gawks a little at what appears to be Lucifer stepping out to face him.

"Not Lucifer, kiddo." The man sighs. "Lucifer's former temporary vessel, current burnt out soul living-" He waves a hand around. "Here."

"Oh." Adam says. "Uh, Michael's former temporary vessel, also a burnt out soul?" Nick shakes his hand.

Chuck drinks the alcohol and summons another bottle.

Adam tries not to let how surreal this all is get to him.