The Other Side Of Purgatory

Chapter One

It was awkward and tense and he wasn't giving in. I didn't expect him to but was thankful just the same that he'd decided not to kill me. I hadn't worked with anyone since I'd set foot here and the unnamed man was giving a 'fuck off' vibe strong enough to rival the unnerving draw of his invitational thrumming heat. Like a signal, a beacon, calling out a siren song to the deepest instinct in every monster here. "Come and get me," thump thump thump thump. "I am warm and delicious."

He had a few inches on me and plenty of muscle but that didn't matter; what he lacked in bulk, this man, he made up for in ferocity and skill. 

A pack of three came from the woods to our left. Without a thought, he'd beheaded the first and was cornering the second while a third was coming up behind him. I took that one down; a shapeshifter. I could hear the man demanding "where's the angel?" and I knew without looking he had a blade to a throat and fire behind his eyes. The monster didn't make a sound before it was in pieces on the ground. Simple as that. He wiped the blade on the thigh of his jeans and looked over, checking my progress, and I didn't know if he was impressed or not but he gave a little head jerk and said "You coming?" Then turned before I could answer.

Didn't have to ask me twice.

We'd been quiet. We'd covered ground but it mostly looked the same. Navigation was something I'd never thought about before. Never had a reason to. We were picking our way through clusters of trees that looked identical to the last cluster of trees we'd just passed. Just to see his reaction, I asked "So, how'd you manage to find your way into Purgatory, buddy?"

"Don't call me 'buddy'." Was his flat response. It almost made me chuckle because I know he thought that was the end of the conversation.

"What should I call you?"

"Nothing. I'm not here to make friends."

"I'm not trying to make friends; we're gonna be spending some time together. It might be nice to know something about each other."

"Yeah, no. We are not 'spending time together' and I don't want to know a single thing about a dental apocalypse like you." He swung his blade into the nearest tree, anchoring it in there in the bark and turned on me. I nodded my understanding. 

He huffed, pulled the blade from the tree, turned and continued walking.

__________

Word had gotten around about my travel companion. We started meeting monsters who knew him by name. Came at us sneering "Winchester". There wasn't time to chat but I was interested to know if those monsters remembered him from adventures on the other side or if they were hearing rumor down here and felt man enough to take him on. The rogue human, killing his way through Purgatory. Aside from that daunting question "Where's the angel?" He hardly broke stride. He could stroll through and destroy everything in Purgatory without a thought.

"How do they know you?" I ventured after one fight that left five dead in our wake.

"Hell if I know." He wouldn't look me in the eyes. 

"You know you're drawing them to us?"

He eyed me with suspicion, and his lips curled into a daunting smile. "And just how am I doing that?"

I suddenly didn't have the heart to tell him that just by breathing he's hand lettering invitations to everything around us so, instead, I said, "It's the humanity in you." 

It's a joke, in a way, and I'm grinning at the ground while I say it. When I looked up, he was staring hard into me. There's this moment where the air's heavy around us and the tension is thick. I'm reminded of how I don't want to fight this man and aware of how I may need to anyway. His gears are working, I can see him weighing just killing me now. But he finally said "Fuck you," before he turned and walked away.

__________

He acted like he'd rather be on his own, maybe like he'd been alone all along, but the way he fought let me know he was used to having someone around. It was a thing of beauty, really, if you can call hacking a monster apart 'beautiful'. There was no hesitation in the way he moved. I'd been fighting down here, only God knows how long, and I doubt He's cared about me in a while, so fighting was nearing my first nature. This man, he was human, and moved so natural swinging that blade into flesh and meat like he'd been doing it since his first breath. We silently settled into a method. When they came, we took out everyone except one he can pin down and question. As we fought our way deeper into the forest, he started grabbing the first monster he reached and "Where's the angel?" I knew it wasn't anything but no one trusted me in here and this is clearly trust. 

This man. I told him the first rule of Purgatory and he throws it back at me. Of course, I killed everything coming at him. Of course I protected him. Of course I did. When his inquisition didn't pan out, and it never did, he was on his feet surveying the damage I'd done.

He grunted, a non committal sound of acknowledgement. "Let's go."

Slowly, I'd closed the gap between us. I walked a little closer behind him after each fight until I could nearly reach out and run my hand down the length of his jacket.