Scott blinked his eyes open, heart thudding, and tried to fight against his instinct to scream. He could feel something solid and wet underneath his back, and he was staring into an endlessly gray sky.

Fuck.

He couldn't even try to guess where he was, and the only clue he had was that Mitch had something to do with his sudden transportation from the steps leading to the school. Slowly, as his head was throbbing with a dull ache, he lifted his head and peered curiously around.

From this action he could tell he was lying in the middle of a cracked, old road surrounded by an endless green sea of grass, his upper body alarmingly close to a gigantic puddle. The puddle's smooth surface was occasionally marred by raindrops, which Scott could also feel on his bare arms and face. He craned his neck, and saw Mitch and his huge mottled wings pacing furiously a few yards away, his wings flapping in agitation.

"Mitch?" he said weakly, pushing himself up onto his elbows and trying not to reveal how relieved he was to see Mitch. Which had nothing to do with the angel himself, he just didn't want to be here alone. Yeah. "Where are we?"

Mitch's head had perked up at the sound of his voice, and now he was walking towards Scott, the expression on his face nowhere near holy. "You are here only because you fucking grabbed my arm when I told you not to," Mitch hissed through gritted teeth.

"You cursed," Scott said in wonder, completely disregarding Mitch's words because there was no way in Hell this was his fault. "You blasphemed. An angel blasphemed."

He tried not to snicker as this fact dawned on Mitch.

"Whatever!" Mitch told him, a blush still faint on his cheeks. "What matters is that because you didn't let go, and now I've brought a fucking demon into Heaven!"

Scott felt the blood drain from his face, and he quickly leapt to his feet, his tail whipping anxiously behind him. "Heaven?" he mustered.

Mitch looked like he was ready to punch Scott's nose in. "Yes."

"This isn't how I imagined Heaven would look."

"It's my, well; it's my own little slice of Heaven." At Scott's confused look, Mitch continued. "Each angel has a little piece of Heaven to themselves, kind of like a bedroom. I'm sure demons have their little torture chamber down there or whatever. It virtually takes up no space, and it reflects whatever I'm feeling. It looks different depending on my mood."

Scott looked around. It was now pouring rain, flattening his hair to his skull, and thunder rumbled up ahead. Mitch was annoyingly dry. It was clear that Mitch wasn't happy with him or the situation.

Scott thought briefly about apologizing, but he decided to instead say, "We don't have personalized torture chambers in Hell—" He was cut off by a loud rumble, shaking the Earth and nearly knocking him off his feet. "Geez, Mitch," he started. "I know you're upset, but you—"

"That wasn't my thunder," Mitch said in a small voice. As if on cue, a bright light with a man's silhouette in the center suddenly appeared, and Mitch reached out and tapped Scott on the forehead.

Scott was standing in an open valley, green grass tickling his bare feet and flowers dotting the hills. "What the f—"

"We're in an empty piece of Heaven," Mitch explained, cutting Scott's blasphemy short. "It's most likely being prepared for a new fledgling."

Scott just nodded, gazing around. This was more like how Scott pictured Heaven: disgustingly bright, warm, and beautiful. "What was that light?" he asked after a moment.

"The Archangel Michael," Mitch said gravely. "He's one of five Archangels, and they're more powerful than the rest of us. They don't leave Heaven; they consider themselves above Earth and its sins. He must have sensed your… evilness in the fifteen minutes you were here."

"I can't be all that evil," Scott joked. Of course he was evil; he was a demon, for fuck's sake.

Mitch mustered up a grin, although small. "Yeah, you are. But I like it."

The last three words struck a chord within Scott: he suddenly felt like he could ride a rainbow onto the rooftops and sing to his heart's content, which naturally made him want to rip his own eyeballs out, because he could not possibly feel that good about an angel. He really wanted to say 'I like you too' but when he opened his mouth, he said, "An angel liking evil and admitting it in the middle of Heaven? What has the world come to?"

Mitch's grin fell off of his face, and Scott mentally kicked himself, because he was an absolute idiot.

"I guess the only solution to get him off of our trail – because he will find us – is to get rid of you, which would require me to—"

Scott didn't know why, how, or when; all he knew was that his lips were suddenly on Mitch's and it felt fantastic. He felt Mitch freeze briefly in shock before slowly starting to kiss him back, and Scott was in bliss, endless bliss, until Mitch quickly pulled away and looked him in the eyes. He only said four words, four simple words, and Scott blew it.

"Do you mean it?"

'Yes.' "N-no!"

After the word forced itself from his lips, Scott was immediately stuttering to take it back: of course he meant it, he didn't mean to say that, he wasn't thinking, it was his first reaction to this new, exciting thing – but Mitch was gone before Scott could tell him to wait.

The sound of Mitch's wings flapping was still in Scott's ears when thunder started to rumble above him, rain just starting to sprinkle over the vibrant grass.

"Mitch!" Scott called, ignoring the now-heavy rain soaking his hair and the lightning streaking through the gray sky. "Mitch, get your feathery-ass down here!" He'd gotten the nickname from Dean; it was fun to say. "I take it back! I take it back! I meant every fucking moment!"

Scott was searching the field for a pair of large wings or the blue jacket Mitch had been wearing earlier, and he spotted a pair of large, dark wings.

Unfortunately, they weren't Mitch's.

They were huge and a beautiful silvery gray, and there were six of them. They belonged to a tall man with combed back, business man-style black hair and startlingly blue eyes. Unlike Mr. Novak's, they held no kindness when looking at him.

It hit Scott at once: he was a demon, he was in Heaven, and this was Michael, the archangel that happened to be second in command up here in paradise. This would not end well.

"And by the hand of God," Michael said, his face expressionless and voice calm despite the storm of anger Scott could see behind blue eyes, "I shall smite the wicked."

Later on, Scott would look back on this at laugh at the sheer cheesy the line was. In the moment, though, he was fucking terrified.

"I'm not as bad as some demons," Scott laughed nervously, taking a step back. Michael stepped forward and continued walking until he was nose-to-nose with Scott. His eyes had an other-worldly glow about them, and he narrowed them, his dark eyebrows pulling together until his face was the perfect picture of holy wrath.

"You are a demon from Hell," Michael told him.

"Well, duh," Scott said snarkily. That was about the moment Michael placed his palm flat on Scott's forehead, a blindingly white glow shining underneath. Scott squeezed his eyes shut, a searing pain shooting through Scott's every nerve.

'This must be what they call 'smiting',' Scott thought, grimacing.

He felt Michael's other hand grip his bicep and he felt themselves lift into the air and the archangel's six wings beating through air echoed through his ears. He mustered up the courage to open his eyes just as Michael flung him back towards Earth, which looked like a tiny speck from where they were.

Scott fell back to the third planet, the stairway to Heaven (yes, the song happened to get stuck in Scott's head as he fell to his inevitable death (Robert Plant can go to Hell)) rushing past him in graceful spirals and Heavenly glow, and he fainted about halfway down.

Scott blinked his eyes open, the fuzzy world around him focused until clear again. He was in a bed, and when he turned his head, he discovered he was on a bed in the middle of a row of beds, some occupied, some not. The walls were painted a cream color, pictures hanging on them, and a bright white tile held the furniture.

"What the he—"

"Infirmary," interrupted a voice from beside him.

"Huh?" Scott said intelligently, turning to find Avi sitting beside him. The human raised an eyebrow.

"You're in the school infirmary. A couple of angels coming from the art school found you lying in the courtyard and took you in here. You've got a nasty burn."

"You?" Scott asked. He was on a role.

"And possible brain damage," Avi added, his eyebrows shooting upwards. "Kirstie visited a couple of times, but she has class right now. Kevin doesn't want to visit, and Mitch is MIA. So here I am, in charge of the task of waiting for you to wake up and creepily watching you sleep. You drool in your sleep, by the – whoa!"

Scott had shot up at the news of Mitch, and it definitely took effort for Avi to push him back down onto the bed. Yeah, he worked out, and he was proud. Deal with it.

"I wasn't kidding about the brain damage! The nurse has to check you before you stand and possibly make it worse!"

"Mitch – I'm ninety-nine percent sure he's in trouble!" Scott made an attempt to sit back up, but Avi was surprisingly strong.

"Settle down hot-shot. First, you're going to tell me what happened. Then, you're going to admit that you're completely whipped for that goddamned angel. Afterwards, you can go and heroically rescue Mitch or whatever you thought was going to happen."

Scott decided he was going to ignore the 'whipped for Mitch' comment and focus on the first step to get the hell out of here. He was either going to tell the long version or the short version – take a guess at what he chose.

"I accidentally went to Heaven, Mitch freaked, Michael chased us, we went to paradise, we kissed, Mitch ran away, Michael caught me, fucking smote me, and hurled me down to good ol' Earth. Can I go now?"

Avi shoved him back down. "You kissed?"

Scott blushed and muttered, "Yeah, but I jacked it up – which is none of your business, by the way."

Avi frowned at him and said, "I'm going to guess that Mitch is probably still in Heaven if not here, and you can't get there on your own."

"Well, I guess we'll have to find an angel stupid enough to get me there," Scott said.

Avi perked up at this. "I think I know just the guy."

"You have to take me to Heaven," Scott ordered Kevin as soon as they had pulled him to the side of the hallway, where they had seen him walking.

Avi shot him a look that said, calm down, but Scott ignored it and continued to stare urgently at Kevin, waiting for his answer.

Kevin stared right back at him, his expression bewildered. "What? No!"

"You have to, or Mitch's blood will be on your hands."

Avi stepped into the conversation, holding up a hand in a signal for Scott to shut up and let him talk instead. "Hold on, drama queen," he chuckled. "What he means is: because of Scott's pig-headedness, Mitch is stuck in Heaven and very likely in trouble because of reasons Scott would like to avoid explaining. He needs you to fly him up to Heaven, drop him in Heaven's prison or whatever you have, and leave. He'll figure out the rest."

Kevin's frown slowly grew more and more severe as Avi rattled on, and there was a tense silence afterwards in which Scott had to physically bite his tongue to keep from blurting out something stupid.

"Alright," Kevin said slowly, hesitation coloring his voice. Scott knew not to say anything to make the angel jump off the bandwagon. "I'll meet you guys in the courtyard in a couple of hours; I have a class that I need to get to."

Before Scott could ask any more questions, the four-winged angel had disappeared into one of the classrooms lining the hall.

The two hours waiting for Kevin were the two longest hours of Scott's life.

He paced the courtyard, his tail whipping frantically behind him and effectively tearing a bush or two to shreds – to the amusement of Avi, who was sat in the grass a few feet away, nose buried in a textbook – and he nearly burst into tears of relief when he spotted Kevin walking into the green grass towards him. Don't judge – by now he was worried as fuck.

As soon as Kevin was in earshot, Scott said, "Take me to Heaven. Now."

"Easy there, tiger," Kevin said, the corners of his lips twitching up. He glanced at Avi and his textbook. "Don't you guys have classes to be in?"

Avi looked up from the page. "Oh, yeah."

Frankly, Scott's classes had completely slipped his mind, due to the drama of Mitch and Heaven and kissing and all that crap. "Whatever. Beam me up, Scotty."

Kevin frowned and placed his palm on Scott's forehead, eerily similar to the way Michael had done the same. He tried not to stiffen up.

"I'm going to send you up without going myself," Kevin explained, noticing Scott's confused and slightly horrified expression. "It's a thing only Seraphim and Archangels can do; luckily, I'm a Seraph. I can't risk being caught with you up there. Be careful, and no more Star Trek references."

Before he could come up with a witty comeback, Scott felt himself shoot upwards, saw a blur of color, and found himself standing in a blaringly white hallway with what seemed like hundreds of doors along the walls. Heaven's prison.

Scott didn't take the time to stare in wonder. He immediately set down the hallway instead, confronted with a time-consuming task: find Mitch's cell.

That is, if Mitch was even in the prison.