Wax On, Wax Off
When Ella wakes that morning, she has the weirdest feeling that the Big Guy is actually testing her at least as much as He is Michael. It sure felels ike an endurance test, that's all she was saying. The sun creeps into their, uh, motel through the moth-eaten and bleached out gingham curtains. She blinks in the light and rolls over. Opening her eyes, Ella catches Michael changing into some sweats for the day. He is turned with his back to her as he slips off his sleep shirt and reaches for a tank top instead, but the long arch of his back and the cascade of long, dark hair are tempting. Damn it. Ella swallows and slams her eyes shut, both wanting to preserve her friend's privacy and also to stop making an idiot out of herself.
Again, that is the last thing Michael needed.
Sighing, she turns back on her bed and pulls her duvet over her head. A few minutes later, several lumpy pillows land on her. She mumbles, "Five more minutes."
"Come on, Lopez. I let you sleep in all the way to eight a.m. Time to get your inner bad ass on," Michael replies.
She sits up and glares at him, and it might have worked better if even fresh out of bed and, she'll be honest, in a slightly mismatched thrift store special set of clothes, Michael didn't look gorgeous. Yup, definitely. God is testing her, and she's going to fail so fucking hard.
Emphasis on the fucking.
She groans again and shoves a pillow over her face. "You're insane. We don't even have to check out until noon."
"Gotta tell ya, you'd have wiped out already in the Silver City. Lopez, you really wanna fight at high noon in the fucking desert? Nope, come on, get moving. We get you tested out a bit, and then we can be to L.A. by the afternoon. Pete's nose won't break itself along with as many other bones as you'd like."
She sighs and sits up, and Michael's gleeful bragging about violence, while appreciated, is also like a cold splash of water to her face. Pete has it coming, but six months ago, she wouldn't have been this person. Then again. six months ago, she hadn't almost been strangled to death either. "I...I know."
Michael stills and quirks his head at her with those huge. Bambi-like eyes of his. For not the first time, Ella wonders what he's supposed to look like or at least what he did before his father got so angry. She figures he was dark-haired even then with the prominent nose but also the scars he's so acutely aware of. What she can't quite picture is the rest of him, and he's never offered. She figures if she asks-since it falls under rule two about no punishment talk-he'll clam up and make her walk to L.A. And yet, she can't quite shove the curiosity away later. If God can stay mad at Michael for millennia or Ice Ages or so so long, then Ella guesses she'll never really know.
"You sure you're okay? You spaced out, chica."
"Yeah, I'm...I'm fine. I just...we'll figure out how many bones we break when we get there."
Michael nods. "I can both do this on my own and never lay a finger on him. Honestly, with what I can do..." he says, giving a bone weary sigh. "...I can do more to him than I did to that ass in the alley. Petey-boy will wish I'd touched him instead, promise."
Ella shakes her head and hops up and toward the bathroom. "No, this is a together thing. I have to do this. I won't sleep really till I do."
"Great, fine, then move your ass, get readied, and meet me by the picnic tables in ten." He tosses his ponytail over his good shoulder, and, to be fair, he is getting somewhat better with at least scrunchies though even this early in the morning his curls are mostly a rat's nest.
Somehow, Ella gets her brain working again and scurries into the bathroom for a very, very cold shower.
**
Ella decides not a half hour later that the cold shower was useless. They are standing together in a clump of sand and a some scrubs by the so called eating area of the motel, which is really just two picnic tables, one of which has wood so rotten, Ella doesn't dare sit on it and the other has been tagged by spray paint more than once. Charming. However, they've just started going through stretches and two things occur to her. One, Michael apparently doesn't get that bras are an always thing even if it's comfy clothes or he really hoped she wouldn't notice (yeah right) and, somehow, angels or at least this one tend to sweat, and that is seriously not helping her focus.
Eventually, even the former archangel in question notices Ella basically thinking with not her upstairs brain and scowls at her. "You know, Scraps, if you take a picture, it'll last longer."
"What are you? Twelve?" she asks, gaining enough composure to look away and and work on stretching her arm and shoulder over her head.
"No, but if I were, that would make me about eight years or so more mature than Samael."
"Ouch, right, all that twin animosity, check."
"Understatement, but you don't have to...to stare. I get it, scars and slope shoulder and you can probably see the one in my shoulder a little where Sandy got the better of me."
She blinks at him, confused. "Wait, I'm lost. You threw the Devil out, right?"
Michael nods and, for a second, looks devastated. It's only there a minute before his more usual, embittered look is on his face. "I did. I did as Father asked. Honestly, until about eight or so months ago, that was all I ever did. I...you don't know who Sandy is. My bad."
"So not a Devil nickname like 'Samael' is?"
"Hardly," Michael says, tretching or trying to, his bad arm over his head as well. It doesnt give as much as his left side had, but he manages to have it arc over his head. "Sandaphalon was on Sam's side, but I think more because he was an asshole and just wanted everything to burn. I don't...he Fell with Sam but as far as I know or all my siblings heard, he died shortly after arriving in Hell. Hasn't been seen in eons but I...after I shoved Sam out and my wing was already wrenched, well, Sandy never let a moment to weasel in go to waste. Michael turns and now that his hair is up high, she spies the angry, red lines and twisted skin snaking out from behind his right scapula and near where the straps of his tank tried and mostly cover his shoulder. "Souvenirs, I got tons."
Ella's face falls, and she sobers a lot. "I'm-"
"Don't be sorry," he barks. "You didn't do it, and it doens't fix anything. Just get your head in the game."
He takes a stance in front of her and beckons to her with his good hand. "I wanna see what you can do. You have those brass knuckles? Feel free to use them."
Her eyes go wide at the suggestion. "I couldn't! What if I hurt you."
He snorts and his ponytail bobs. "Are your brass knuckles made of demon steel or blessed by some other pantheon deity like Zeus?"
"Shit. He's real?"
Michael pinches the bridge of his nose as if she asked him something annoying yet mundane like about his tax returns. "We are never gonna get anywhere if you ask me about everything. Look, except for zombies and vampires-because dead stays dead trust me-it's all probably real. Just shove that in a trunk for a bit and show me what you got."
"But if I hurt you..."
Michael rolls his eyes, walks over to a car a few yards over. It's rusted out and sitting on blocks, clearly no one is coming back to claim it. Reaching down with his right hand, he grabs the bumper and lifts the car up high, up to his chin and far higher than any jack could. "Yeah, no, I'm good. I don't run His legion anymore, and I'm not what I was, but you can't hurt me. Trust a guy. So, let's have at it, okay?"
She blinks and as often happens with him her mind circles around to the utter cheapskate and prickly ass she's road tripping with really is an angel of the Lord. Mostly. It's hard to remember, but yeah, okay, there's no way she's going to be able to hurt him. Point made. Soon enough, Michael's taken position again and is beckoning for her. She charges forward and tries, at first, to punch him in the jaw. It's not exactly a great height match to start, despite his changes, and she doesn't have the reach she's hoping for. Michael doesn't give her the chance, just snatches her right wrist out of the air, yanks it hard behind her back, and she's eating sand before she can really process what happened.
"Chingado angel," she spits.
He pulls her arm tighter to her back, not tight enough for anything to snap, but she has the sneaking suspicion they're only a couple inches off from that happening. "Oh the mouth on you, Lopez."
"I thought you didn't speak Spanish," she coughs out.
"I can do context clues." He releases her and she can breathe, mostly, as she gets to her feet. Glaring at him, she brushes the dust and sand off herself and takes her stance again. Michael nods. "You wanna rush me again or want some tips. Your rodeo, Scrappy."
She narrows her eyes at the nickname but nods. "I got this."
Michael considers her and gets into a half-crouch, clearly waiting for her next move. "Okay, you keep showing me what you got. I'm immortal, so I got all day."
She rolls her eyes and charges again, this time trying to slide low at the last minute like a runner into home plate in softball, she dives late enough to surprise Michael, and she hits him at an angle that sends him falling ass over tea kettle onto the ground. He is heavier than he looks and topples onto her. Ella lets out a sharp breath at the force of it.
Okay, so not the smartest idea...
She tries to wriggle out from under him but he has the size, the strength, and the fucking reach and Ella soon finds herself pinned and not in a fun way. He's got both arms around her neck, even the bad one, and is restraining her head like a damn vice. "Hey!"
Michael chuckles. "That was different. I mean, not a great idea, but you tried. You get a little gold star or some shit. I mean, you all invented participation trophies, right? I saw a few that somehow even at two months little Chucky already had."
She twists against him but has zero luck getting dislodged. "Um, i'm sure he earned them."
"How? Drooling the most?"
"Okay, point, but can you let me up?"
The pressure around her neck is released immediately and Michael surprises her by extending his hand and helping her up. "Sure, my pleasure. You want tips now or do you just really like eating sand?"
"You know, I did fine for months without you."
He smirks at her, and despite how annoyed she is, Ella's belly flip flops. "I saved your ass, Scraps. You know it. So, do you want tips from you know the Defender of the Church...well once. I guess I need new business card."
She shakes herself off and gets in a stance once more. "I can do this."
He nods and beckons a third time. "Okay, hit me."
She rushes forward but neither tries to over reach nor dive low. However, she does think on all the dirty tricks Ricardo taught her home in Detroit and twists around Michael and aims an uppercut at his bad shoulder. He's fast though-impossibly so-and he grabs her wrist and deflects the blow. Then, he grabs her under the arm pits and holds her high above the ground. She expects him to bitch her out, but he's grinning.
That shocks her.
"Better. Smart to go for my weakness right away." He sets her down and she takes a breath.
"I...I thought you'd be pissed. Or, I dunno, disappointed, like I was cheating."
He rolls his eyes and gestures to the scar bisecting his face. "First, have you met me? Seriously, what's fair didn't bother Sam worth a Dad-damn, and I have other siblings who've cut corners as well. I...I suppose any fondness or nostalgia for honor in a fight died out in my time with Lily. She didn't squabble but her kids did."
"She was a singer right so uh they were like in the mob?"
Michael's eyes take on a distant, far off look, and she assumes for a moment that he's back in New York in the 50s. Eventually, he nods himself back to coherence and offers her a small, brittle smile. "No. Lily like Lilith, Mother of Demons. Maybe you forgot that part. We've covered a lot of ground. So the kids she allowed to come visit and, uh, play were violent and brutal. Honestly, it was good to learn to fight that way."
"Was it?"
"You were about to go for my most injured area, so you tell me? That's all the scrapping in Detroit right?"
She nodded. "I...yeah, that's what Ricardo, my brother, always said do. It seems crappy."
Michael nods and sets his good hand on her shoulder gently. "It's not. You know a street fight basically only happens when fight or flight has kicked in and it's all gone to shit. These aren't supposed to last long or be to show off. If you get in one, you get in, you fuck the other guy or girl up, you get the fuck out. You take any advantage and, yeah, with me that's my bad side, especially my shoulder. It was smart, Lopez. Expedient. That's what we're going for."
"I am sorry-"
He drops his hand. "Don't be sorry. Be brutal, and we'll call it even. Now again."
**
They spend a couple hours going round and round with each other. Michael isn't impressed by her skills. She'd be sloppy even by human standards. He is, however, intrigued and pleased by her tenacity. The nickname started as a joke and because he can be petty too (and he might technically kind of be a fear vampire, but Lopez didn't have to put a fine point on it). But she is inherently scrappy, a fighter, and that figures cause even with little sis's divine intervention, Lopez would be dead without her being resilient too.
They take a break for breakfast and water before it's time to pack up in Baby and hit the road back to Sam's crappy corner of the earth, though Michael plans a deliberate strike of get in, get out, and leave double time. He has lost nothing in the City of Angels, and he has zero interest in staying any longer than it takes to ruin Pete's life and mind. But for now, she's catching her breath, still panting a bit, and he watches her out of the corner of his eyes. She's a mess, covered in sand and dust, and she'll wanna shower again before they leave. Hell, he will too. Her hair is in her face, and she's flushed, but there's something beautiful there, something if not brutal then at least not completely tame. He never would have guessed at it when he was impersonating his twin. Then again, it was just a week.
Yet, he doubts Sam or Decker or any of them have really seen all that Lopez is or maybe they saw glimpses but it didn't fit their mold enough. Humans are exceptional at ignoring reality. Then again, Celestials share that trait too.
Michael has sipped some of his water, but he's barely tired. His right side is sore-because that's just his life now-but he's not dehydrated, not how angels work even such as he is. Grinning proudly at his protege, he offers her the rest of his bottle. "You want the rest?"
She arches an eyebrow skeptically at him, and damn it, he's getting tired of feeling flustered and hot and other things. Father certainly has gone all out in the punishment department, and Michael shifts subtly to try and dampen the heat in his belly.
"Did you spit in that?" Lopez asks.
"Well, I mean no more backwash than just drinking, no. You're out and I don't pass out from lack of water so do you need it?"
She nods and takes the water bottle. "Yeah, it's really hot here, which desert I get it, but I bet it'll be over a hundred today."
"Then best to get a move on."
"Yeah sure, get that cattle train a rustling," she chirps.
"You laugh but Westerns were all the rage when I was here in the 50s and 60s. Looked fun. Maybe not the filthy cows part, but the 'howdy partner' and possibly all the brothels in every small town..."
She chuckles and tosses part of a tumbleweed at him. She must have been picking at its scraggly ends as she ate. He deflects it easily and sticks out his tongue.
Lopez huffs a little, probably disappointed, but he's not certain. "You're such a dude. Gross. Of course, you want that whorehouse with the harlot with a heart of gold in it."
He snickers. "I am a guy, thanks for noticing. Also, I wasn't here then, never had business around any part of the earth in the 1800s. Missed it, but come on. I mean you get a neat hat."
"Sure, abuelito, really smoking hot there. Yeesh, we still have to keep catching you up on things made in the, you know, last seventy years."
"I have an appreciation for the classics," he defends, thinking fondly on how many noir movies he used to watch and yeah westerns by the bucket load.
"Also known as way old and way out of date."
"I can mop the floor with you again, Scrappy, just ask for it directly."
She hops up and sticks her tongue out at him; this time bringing her hands to the sides of her heads to mime maybe horns or antlers. He's not sure. Humans things are always confusing, no matter how many times he visits or how much he learns. "Well, then tough because we have to get on the road. I'll kick your ass another time."
He laughs long and hard. "The day you actually beat me, chica, is the day I just give it all up and find a cave and never come out. I'm not a mortal. Give a guy some credit."
Michael stands, albeit a bit clumsily, and is about to rag her more when a voice interrupts them both.
"I wouldn't mind if you lovely ladies beat me up for a bit. I can pay extra."
Michael narrows his eyes and barely keeps them from glowing gold at the insult. He gets it-fuck does he get it-it's both his curse and at least his bait to help his situation. He doesn't have to like it, and he absolutely loathes the toad-like little man before them with the skin picked over into dozens of scabs and the bright, wild gleam in his eyes.
"We're not hookers, you moron," Michael snaps. He has zero time for this.
Ella side steps over to him and takes his bad hand in hers. He thinks she's doing it for her own reassurance. There's no way she's what? Offering to protect him? It's a funny thought if so, and eventually Lopez has to get it into her head that he's hurt but far from defenseless.
She's even more terse than he'd been when she speaks. "Neither of us are for sale."
The man licks his lips, and stares hard at Michael. "Are you sure. I really like the tall drink of water over there."
Michael is about five seconds from dropping his walls and rendering the man catatonic for the forseeable ever, when Lopez steps forward and holds her hands up, palms flat.
"Mira, viejo, we just want to get back to our room. Honestly? This place, sooner or later you'll get a professional who will want to work with you. Fine, but we're not actually for you know rent."
He licks his lips again and Michael stifles the urge to just rip them off. Can't hurt humans, yadda, yadda yadda. He's already a mess. No need to tempt Dad to render him a slug or who knows what.
The man shakes his head. "I'll take whoever."
For someone as clearly high as he is, the man moves fairly quickly. MIchael wants to just knock him out and be done with it, but that's not really what's needed. He crosses his arms over his chest, and nods to Lopez. "Scrappy, your call."
She flashes a grin quickly at him, and is on the man quickly. Lopez is fast and efficient, like he showed her, and she wastes no time shoving her palm hard into the man's nose until Michael hears it snap. Hell, he bet the humans heard it crack loud too. Then, she twists around as the man waves his arms angrily, eyes tearing up from the break (probably) to his nose. She weaves around him and eventually back in front of him and brings one knee up hard and true to his groin. The man screams and collapses to the ground.
Lopez glares down at him and, yeah, enough training and she'd do his sisters proud in the avenging angel category. "We said no, pendejo."
Michael wraps his good arm around her shoulder and pulls her toward his room before there's any chance-slim as it may be-that management finds them in the melee and kicks them out sans showers. He's very much not interested in that and the stench back to L.A. As they walk by the asshole, Michael drops his walls enough to read a fairly common fear of snakes off him. Easy enough. It's the Californian desert and rattlers abound, just not that the dozen or so the man sees now and will be dealing with for the next few hours are far from real.
At least for everyone else concerned.
As they head into their room, Michael drops his arm and points to the bathroom. "To the victor goes the spoils. Get showered first, Lopez."
She nods and then bites her lower lip, clearly hesitating before ducking into the bathroom. "I did good, huh?"
"You were fun. I mean, it's not exactly like you were fighting demons, but you know, good on you. You did me proud."
She beams at that. "Cool, I have a pretty good teacher."
He brings a hand to his chest in mock affront. "Lopez, I'm hurt. You know I'm the best, right? Well...once I was. Every archangel wanted my job. Fucking Gabriel is still bitter about it."
She chuckles and grabs a towel from the floor. "Yeah, sure, the head of the Legion and all that mierda. Great at training, maybe not so sharp on dress codes."
He frowns at her. "Huh?"
"Sports bra, Mike. You needed one."
She doesn't say anything else, just heads into the bathroom, leaving him blinking back at where she'd been.
"Huh, well damn."