She doesn't remember much after leaving Pete's uncle's house. Ella knows they got from Malibu to some dive diner not far from Grauman's theater. Vaguely, she is aware that Michael drove Baby and stalled her out at least once in Laurel Canyon, but somehow they're here, and she's shaking. There's a huge bowl of chicken noodle soup set out in front of her and a milkshake that has to be thirty ounces if not more and covered at the top with whipped cream. Somehow, she thinks the rainbow sprinkles aren't the norm and Ella has to laugh a little, no matter how broken it comes out.

It's insane that this is her life now: of broken bones and bloodied knuckles and an archangel-mostly-who has convinced the diner to add sprinkles to her drink in some misguided attempt to cheer her up.

Michael startles at her laugh. He's been devouring his second burger and is on a third orange soda, but his head snaps up and those wide, Bambi-like eyes of his are studying her closely. "Lopez? You okay?"

She laughs so hard and pulls her straw out, and flings a bit of whipped cream across the table and at the (former) Sword of God. "Whoops."

Michael's eyes flare gold, and then he reaches into his drink and flings a few ice cubes at her. "You don't want to start a war with a general, Scrappy Doo. You're outclassed."

Ella laughs again and then takes a few sprinkles and flicks them. A couple bright pink ones land in the nest of curls Michael tries and always fails to tame. "Maybe."

There is a breeze, and she has no idea how without wings he moves so fast, but suddenly Michael is beside her in the same side of the booth. He's got her milkshake cup and is holding it up high above her head. "Surrender, Lopez, or you're wearing it."

"Hey!" the waitress who is about twice as old as Ella's mom or at least looks it shouts. She starts to stalk over there. "You two chill or you can do whatever that is outside. I'm not scrubbing ice cream off the floor when my shift ends in twenty. I swear, you idiot influencers and your challenges."

Michael frowns and sets the cup down but doesn't go back to his side. Ella doesn't mind, but she's not sure if he's realized how close they're still sitting. She does. He's so freaking warm, it's like being next to a furnace.

"A what now?"

Ella groans. "God, you really are a grandpa, aren't you? She thinks it's a viral vid thing we're about to do for Wobble or something."

"Guzhundeit," he says. "What the Hell is a 'wobble?'"

"Social media?"

"Oh right that stuff that humans waste their lives on. I think I've seen something with a bird theme that guys at casinos or whoever fuck with between shuffles. Not me, gotta keep my head on the game."

She wants to ask what game they're actually playing here right now, but she bites her tongue. "Anyway, we're not filming the next great prank."

Michael grabs some napkins and mops at his hair. He gets all but one sprinkle, but Ella certainly isn't gonna tell him about it. It's too adorable. "Sorry, ma'am, we had a long day, but we're not going to film this shit."

"Don't know, don't care," the waitress bites back. She could give Michael a run in the surly department. Ella kind of loves her for it; the archangel deserves a taste of his own medicine every so often. "Just if you get milkshake everywhere, you're cleaning it. Trust me."

"Understood," Michael says, relaxing a little in the booth but still not leaving.

"So, uh, sorry, I kind of was out of it the last hour or so. You called an ambulance, right?"

"Yup, and we actually stuck around till it showed. I know you were...you had that thousand yard stare. When you didn't bitch me out and hit me with a shoe for the stall out, I knew you...I knew you were feeling badly."

"Not as bad as Pete."

Michael nods. "Are you okay with that? I mean, horse is out of the barn now, chica, but did it help?"

She breathes hard and wants to cry, but Michael really thought it would do her good. Hell, she did too. Ella's not sure yet, not until she actually has a chance to try and sleep, to see if her dreams are haunted by hothouses and lilies and needles. Fuck, she hopes they aren't.

She can't stand it.

"I hope so, but I need to know what you did exactly. I mean, he seemed pretty coherent when we left. The guy in the alley was screaming. Even the guards were trying to run away from fake clowns and the scorpions only they could see. Pete just seemed like Pete."

Michael considers that and reaches across the table to grab his drink. He takes a long sip before answering. "I tapped into what he feels about himself. I can't make other people do things, not like have them act on a third party's fears. So, I can't make people shun him."

"Okay?" she says, not sure that's cleared anything up.

"But I can warp his own inadequacy, his sense of paranoia that he doesn't matter and no one will ever really acknowledge him. That whole 'mommy never even noticed me' bullshit but writ large."

"And?"

"Once he wakes up in the hospital, to him, it will feel like no one is looking at him, no one is answering his questions. They are in reality, but to good old fucking Pete, he'll feel like no one can ever see him again. It's a trick of his perception and his phobias. But it'll last. It's essentially instant and permanent solitary confinement."

Ella whistles. She knows something about how loneliness can play on your mind, especially in the last couple months on the road and before she met Michael. He and she, honestly, can both talk. A lot. So they fill the silences on the road probably too easily but for a while it was her or her headphones or just so much quiet. She knows a narcissist like Pete, who wanted headlines enough to follow his own case...all of that lack of recognition will eat at him.

"Good," she says, but her voice wavers.

Michael sets his right hand over hers. It's the angle they're sitting at that dictated which hand was closest, but it surprises her, truly it does. She didn't expect him to offer that. He's so sensitive about his weak side.

"Are you sure you're all right?"

She sighs. "You had to pull me off him."

"Yeah, well, I was expecting that. Once the adrenaline gets going, it's hard to think ahead and strategize. The immediate gratification overrides the logical part of your brain. It's better for you to leave him like this. He gets a good fifty or sixty years to rot in some cell or even if his uncle buys him out, he'll be in solitary everywhere he fucking goes. Then, Hell. He's a prime candidate for the Lilim to work over repeatedly till the end of time."

"Can I...it's not about your dad or punishment or Jesus, so I can ask about how it all works, right?"

"Yeah, that's fair. I guess it was an abstract concept till you really watched the Great Judge do his job. What do you want to know?"

He eyes her earnestly, and his eyes are so beautiful and sincere, that at least she feels calmer, like she's not gonna start screaming and fall apart. At least not yet.

"You pulled me away because you didn't want me to-"

"Go further than you really wanted, yeah."

"Since when do you do euphemisms, Michael?"

"Since I wanted to spare you, Ella," he replies simply. "If you'd killed him, you'd have felt guilty forever, and guilt...it damns mortals. I could not let that happen to you. I couldn't let you go to Hell. You don't deserve it. You're basically the best human I know."

"Ooh, am I the monkey who tricycles the best?" Her tone is cool, but it's a fair rebuff. Michael's made it clear he basically tolerates his dad's ant farm, and that she's a special exception so far. It's not necessarily an ego booster, though she does believe he likes her. That they're friends. "Maybe I wear a little bow tie the cutest way and smoke cigarettes."

"You all make monkeys do that? That doesn't seem fair...then again in that Bedtime for Bonzo movie..."

"You really are old."

"I am fathomless, Lopez. I have a beginning, not too long after the Big Bang, though I'm not the oldest angel. Samael and I came after the First Born but pretty early in line, earlier than Rae Rae for sure. But I am ancient, yeah."

She quirks her head at him, and now, with a sprinkle in his messy hair and him sipping on a soda-no correction, it's down to the dregs so he's slurping loudly-Michael seems so very ordinary. But he's not. She was reminded tonight of how powerful he really is, and if this is what he's like maimed, lacking his wings and full divinity, she doesn't know if she can wrap her head around how strong a full archangel really is.

All she knows is that she's grateful Michael is on her side, and that she wasn't Pete tonight.

"What?"

"I...you really are him."

Michael stiffens and pulls his hand from hers; she misses the warmth instantly. "Michael the Archangel? Defend us in battle? Yeah, that's me. Or it was...what's left of the guy who kicked Satan to Hell, yadda yadda."

"You can't yadda yadda the Bible."

"I just did, and that book isn't really how it happened. More like a bad game of telephone."

"I just...you seem normal."

"I'm not, but I thought you were okay with that."

She sighs. "I thought I was. I just...you were like everything I thought an angel could be, minus the wings, I mean."

"I miss them. Mine had been a shit pair for eons and the right was bent and missing clumps of feathers, but they were mine, and I never should have been so petty and jealous. The others made fun of them and sneered at them. It's not my fault Sam twisted them. But now...I guess it is hard to remember I'm an angel."

"Well, you shoving leftovers in your ugly ass purse doesn't exactly speak Celestial power."

"It saves money!"

She laughs, and that vertigo hits again. Ella's not sure Michael understands it, how odd it is that he's mostly just the most exasperating guy she's ever met but that when the switch flips, he's so utterly foreign to everything she's ever known.

With his eyes gold and his voice shaking the walls, with him handing down Judgment, Michael is every bit the angel she imagined long ago as a novitiate.

"I don't deserve you," she says.

He laughs. He laughs and laughs till tears stream down his cheeks. "I'm banged up, and I am not as moral as I used to be. I don't deserve my card counting partner in crime either. I...Lopez, I'm just me. I know that doesn't make sense, maybe, but who I am right now? That's me. The Sword...I haven't really been that since before the Garden. It's just a story by now."

She sets her hand over his and squeezes gently. "I know, but you're so much more and maybe tonight I get why you see us as more like ants or monkeys or slugs."

"No, not slugs, those are slimy. Humans aren't usually slimy. I mean, yeah, I have helped break up some of Sam's orgies on very rare occasion but that's more sticky than anything else."

"Gross, dude." And like that, the memories are not faded but in context. Mostly, Michael is still Michael, and he's back to being a pain in her ass. "I...you never said you and the Devil were twins."

Michael says something guttural under his breath. She doesn't know the language, but she doesn't think it's Enochian either. It hardly sounds angelic, more like a curse. "I forgot you didn't know that or I guess I assumed you pieced that together when I told you I got Creation and he basically got Will, shaping everything I could create the raw matter for. The two-angel job of creation. Cause we're twins, and we were supposed to compliment each other." Michael snorts. "Didn't exactly take, that team spirit."

"But you look alike?"

"Not now," Michael says. He shakes his head and nods to his right side. "Honestly, not since the Rebellion both because of what happened to him in Hell and because my side's fucked. He might be red and ugly as sin underneath it all, but his right side? Totally fine. Wings too, the fucker. I'd trade. But now I don't even have half a set to trade for."

"So...what did you look like?"

Michael rolls his eyes. "I dunno, draw a mustache on me, call it close enough. I mean, I was taller than this but at least Dad didn't reinvent me as midget like you, Scraps."

"I hate you."

"You do not," he chirps. "Anyway before I had dark hair, too big a nose honestly but it is what it is, and a square jaw, but that's not really a thing now."

"I don't think I can really see it."

"I get it. I don't really see me in this body either. I wake up, go to the mirror in the morning, and it's a mind fuck every damn time. But honestly, it's not like Dad changed my appearance as far a skin color or height or even build a shit ton. Didn't go to bed looking like Sam and I usually do and wake up Rae Rae, so I guess it could be weirder. Maybe." He scowls, and it's clear to her that he's not convinced.

"If I woke up a guy, it would be really fucking weird."

"I know, right?" He grouses. "But I look like this now, wonderful, appalling scars and all."

"They're not bad!"

He sighs, stands, and gets to the other side of the booth. When he sits, Michael points to his face. "Only bad enough to get the attention of well meaning girls across the casino."

"You looked hurt. I wasn't really wrong."

"I know, but I...no Samael and I are no longer identical. Good on that. Tired of being his shadow. Whatever else I am, no one is going to see me and think of him."

"Sorry. I know how that is...not the shadow thing...just the brother you can't stand thing. Mostly. I hate Ricardo but if he were in trouble, I'd help. Jay might have to twist my arm first, but I would."

"Trust me, Sam can go fuck himself. I have no need to hurt him, but I wouldn't help him either. But it is what it is."

"Because he's the family criminal?"

"Maybe a few of us have gone bonkers lately. I doubt I can throw stones now," he says. "Anything else in the twenty questions tonight?"

"Whose name were you going to say tonight? You stopped yourself." She narrows her eyes at him.

The pieces are there, and they're fitting weird, jaggedly. She knows there are things Michael isn't saying, and he never promised her he would. Whatever his punishment is by now she knows something he tried to do against the Devil is part of it. He won't go stone silent on this Samael the way he does on Jesus or the Big Guy, but Satan has come up too much for part of Michael's current trials and tale of woe not to involve him too. And the name...it sounded so close to May...like Maze? But that would be nuts because Lucifer is a shitty actor though a dedicated one.

What the fuck would the devil be doing killing time in the LAPD?

It was loco and a total tonteria.

"You wouldn't know any demons, would you? If you do, then you're more impressive than I thought, Lopez."

"I'm serious. It sounded like you were gonna say 'Maze.'"

He arches an eyebrow at her. "Like a corn maze? A dumbass labyrinth. Help me out here."

She glares at him. "I thought you said you weren't gonna lie to me."

"Never said that much, but if you must know. Way I hear it, the head torture demon is," and he spits out a name in that same guttural language he was cursing in earlier. "You know her?"

Ella gapes at him. "Huh?"

He repeats the word. "Hell's head torturer. You know her? Seems like not in your league, Lopez."

"But you said-"

"That's her name. I guess you don't speak Lilim. One of the perks or side effects, whichever, of dating the Mother of Demons. I picked up their language. It has actual curse words in it and so so many creative ones. Enochian is sterile in comparison."

She grabs her wallet and pulls out her cash. "Whatever, dude. You're holding out and that sucks."

"I answered everything you asked. Yes, Samael and I were identical once. Now since I'm a chick, we're super not the same. The head torture demon is..." and he barks out those deep, resounding syllables she can barely follow. The Lilim. "And Pete is going to live and your soul and your cosmic tab are clear. I would never let you go anywhere but to heaven, and I promise you, no matter what favors I call in, when your time comes, I'll do it."

"Cause I'm your favorite monkey?"

Michael surprises her again by reaching across the booth and taking her hand in his. His nails really are ragged, bitten down, and they are going to have to fix that when they start going after high rollers. It's a clear giveaway he's not the high class "whale" he's gonna want to look like to get a seat at the poker tables.

"You're my favorite person. Trust me, the Host are shitty, but you're great."

She smiles at that and then sighs. The waitress comes by and flings their ticket very enthusiastically on the formica. Okay, so they definitely wore out their welcome. So sue them.

"Really?"

"Really. If more humans were like you, I bet all the angels would actually like you guys."

"You're such a snob."

He grins, steals her drink, and sips it. "I'm a realist, Scraps. Now, you'll cover me, right?"

"Oh for fuck's sake, grosero, you have fifteen grand in the bank. You go dutch."

"Ugh, maybe I'll let you settle in purgatory instead. Ingrate."

"Asshole."

He isn't sure how she cons him into these things. But it pretty much starts with those big, brown eyes of hers, which he is sure by now are angel kryptonite. He has a feeling not that he gives a good Dad damn about Sam but still a feeling that Samael couldn't refuse Ella much of anything either. However, Lopez's crafty begging merely starts with those eyes. It snowballs into the biting of her lower lip, the bouncing up and down like a poorly trained puppy, and then the way she squeals and smiles so wide when he relents.

It's addictive.

So that's how he said yes when upon leaving the diner she suggested they go to a club, some smallish place she knows in West Hollywood. He can't say no, and he finds he doesn't want to. They changed at the diner. It was the first thing they'd done before sitting down. Lopez's t-shirt was covered in blood and that as well as her hoodie zipped over it were a lost cause. But by now and as they approach the club, they're both presentable. And have scrubbed Pete's blood from their hands and everywhere else. Actually, once he agreed to go to a club, and the things Lopez talks him into, she went back to diner's bathroom to change all over again and is now in a dress that he is trying very hard not to stare at.

Or, more accurately, at the way it rides up her thighs.

It's bright red, sparkly and barely there, and Michael is sure of it. He's actually in Hell and this is one of his brother's more creative loops. Since this is not a gambling deal, and he doesn't have to wear a dress or those strapless bra torture devices, he's just in jeans and a halter top, though a regular bra (and he swears Dad is the worst) will suffice. It's plain, but it suits him. Since they're not hunting, he doesn't have to worry what some human male might think. Knowing what little he does of West Hollywood, it shouldn't be a risk that some incel asshole is drugging co-eds anyway.

A night off.

Novel thought.

However, he pulls up to the door of the Pink Elephant and waits for Scraps to get out. The name's cute enough, and he remembers a time when that really was an expression everyone used to say about getting to soused.

Lopez, who has done herself up on the drive over (everything in L.A. is at least an hour or more from everything else), blinks back at him with wide, coquettish eyes. It would steal his breath, if she weren't so pissed. "Just pay the valet, Michael. Don't hunt for a space you can't find."

"It's twenty bucks!"

"I swear, it's like going out to have fun with my father."

"Is your father a mostly all powerful archangel?"

"No."

"Then, I'm better."

"You'll never find parking!"

"Oh ye of little faith," he says, pulling off.

Thirty minutes later, he's walking to the club and knows that he is going to be eating crow. And she was right, but he did save 20 bucks even if he had to finally use his powers to get someone to vamoose out of a spot three blocks over. Michael does the same, just at low levels, to get the line to part for him. He smiles politely at the woman with the short hair, an honestly compelling shade of midnight blue, and is soon let into the club. He's even given that bouncer's number if he's up for more later.

He is not, but it's the first time he's not been propositioned just by some shark at last call. Michael didn't really think that was possible. But it puts a bounce in his step as he slides in. The atmosphere is light and everyone intermingling. He finds Ella in the center of the dance floor, and she's already working up a sweat. Not that he notices. Much. Okay, maybe a little where the drops go and never mind. She has a few women who dance up to her and at least one she ends up swaying up against, and jealousy flares hotly through him.

Which is stupid.

They are just friends, mostly. After how angry she was about his secrets-tough they're his to have-he's glad they're even that. But she's beautiful there, wild, and he saw that too this afternoon. Part of it worries him, because she's spiraling out. He knew confronting Pete would set her off. He knew, but she needed it too. He just hopes he can get her through the hangover of it all. Because that toad deserved it and more. Michael has confidence when the time comes Mazikeen will know all the best things to treat Pete down in Hell as well. But the angel's not dumb. He makes shitty plans, but he's sharp enough, and he can tell Lopez's sudden urge to wild child is gonna come with a crash.

She finishes dancing with the blonde and comes up to the bar.

Michael nods to her from his corner. She throws her arms around him and hugs him tight. While his belly is flush with warmth and wherever they end up tonight, it will be separate rooms and ice cold showers plural for him, he's actually glad for once that he's in this form. If he were an actual guy, she'd know too much about his feelings pressed up tight to him like this. He can smell the tequila on her breath and, yup, Lopez is really tying one on already.

"It took you forever, Mikey."

He shrugs. "I still have a free slot. I win."

"You can't win at parking."

"I think I did," he replies, helping her onto a bar stool both because she's tiny and her balance is crap right now. "Oh it's about fifteen minutes and threeish blocks away though, so you're hiking back there."

She glares at him, and she'd almost give his sister Remiel a run in the terrifying death stare department. Almost. "Um, do you see these?" She points to her feet and has strappy high-heels that he would veto on principle because they look uncomfortable as fuck and he's already close to six feet at least like this. But mostly the pain part.

"Do you see these?" She repeats.

"Yes, um, nice?"

"God, you're such a guy."

"Yup, still am, anyway those are nice right?"

"They are not walking shoes."

"Well what the fuck is point of shoes if you can't walk in them? You humans. Why did you ever get past the sandals stage? Those were comfortable!"

She rolls her eyes. "You'll get the car later. I'm gonna chill here till you come back at the end of the night."

He smirks at her and brings a hand to his chest. "Scraps, I'm hurt. You're gonna let me, your best good friend-"

"Yeah right."

"Your best good friend wander around the streets of Los Angeles alone like the vulnerable lamb I am."

"Some pendejo tries to hurt you and they're gonna be sorry till the day they die."

"Sure, but where's that camaraderie? The what is it chicks say? That sisters before misters spirit?"

"I can't walk in these!"

"That sounds like a you problem."

She huffs and places an order for another shot of tequila. He gets vodka, likes his liquor clear. Before it comes she throws her long, dark hair back over her shoulder and leans closer to him. He's painfully aware of how close she is, how even with the tequila on her breath, she also smells of citrus and other things. And, like clockwork, his clit is throbbing and he has no idea how human women survive such indignities. Then again, he wasn't usually around mortals enough for erections either, but he assumes all sexual attraction is distracting on principle.

No wonder Samael is a moron.

"Is it?" She leans closer and threads her fingers through his hair. "You'd get the car for me, right Michael?"

"I..."

She grins. "Yep, you will."

He figures she'll pull back now that both Lopez has kind of won their squabble and because their shots are here. Michael nods to the bartender that they're together so it'll go on Lopez's tab. This time, not even because he's cheap, but more because he doesn't want to deal with accounting right then and stop this moment between them.

Whatever it is.

"You okay, Ella?"

"I am. I...you're really pretty."

He sighs and wants to believe that, that he's not the gargoyle his family made fun of. The Quasimodo. The lesser, but he can't see past it.

"No, but I can tell you're definitely wasted, Scrappy."

She shakes her head and is practically leaning on him to stay up, to keep from falling off her stool. He can't say he hates her breasts pressed up against his own but this isn't...she's very drunk. He didn't think he was gone that long, maybe it was more like forty-five minutes. Still...

"You are though," Lopez pressed. "You never see it, but I do. The minute you walked in, every girl here turned and stared. They all want your number."

"I don't give it out."

She's so close now that her breath is on his cheek. And he wants...but it has never mattered what he wanted, not in eons, so why start now? "You know what I mean, even some of the guys looked. You have that statuesque Julie Newmar thing going on."

"I always preferred Eartha Kitt myself."

She giggles. "You know what I mean. You are a knock out and one who seems really steady tonight."

He nods. "The uh...between Pete and his guards I've feared enough people deeply to feel normal for a few days."

Michael looks away at that. It pains him what his father has remade him to be. It's not that he never used his powers before, but more that doing it as deeply as he has to when he really takes the edge off his phantom limb pains, to leave someone screaming in an alley or Pete mentally blocked for the rest of his life, that's more. It's cruel and debased and not like a true Host.

How acutely he knows it too.

It's not really what he was made for as an archangel, but it makes the pain stop. For the next night or two, his fearings will keep his posture normal and his bad side strong.

Except for the scar on his shoulder from Sandy and the one bisecting his face from his fucking twin, no one would know that Michael was wounded at all.

Ella sobers a little and moves her hand from his hair to his right shoulder. "You do what you have to do, Michael. We know that...you're not a bad person or a...a you know..."

"A 'fear vampire?'" He asks before downing his vodka in one go. "I think that's how you put it."

"I shouldn't have."

"It's a good analogy, but I'm f...satiated, and I have no regrets on Pete. I would never have any, trust me. That said, you're already pretty smashed, chica. Do you wanna stay? I can get us booked somewhere and you can sleep a rough day off."

She shakes her head and drinks her own shot almost as fast as he did his. It impresses him, and warmth flares again down his belly and between his legs. But that's not...any attraction is not what Ella needs right now.

"I want to dance."

"Oh, trust me, the entire Pink Elephant has seen you do that."

She shakes her head and her hair is all over the place tonight. "With you, St. Michael."

"Not a saint."

She giggles and leans to whisper in his ear. "I should fucking hope not." Then, she pulls away. "Ahora! Espere no mas. We're doing this."

"I..."

And he is still mostly, kind of, if you squint the Sword of God and there is no way a tiny mortal could pull him to the dance floor if he didn't want to. She's tough for a mortal, Scrappy like he's donned her, but she's not strong. Certainly no Celestial. But she has a pull on him anyway, and he can't help but let her yank him along.

He can't help but let her take him anywhere.

When they get to the center of the club, he's stiff but not because of pain this time. He has never really danced. It's not something to be done in the Silver City, and it did not serve Father. By the time humans were around, the Rebellion had happened, and he was too bent to even try. He doesn't know what to do, though the way most of the humans are grinding on each other the way they would have in his brother's club...he's not quite sure what Lopez expects of him.

She threads her arms up and behind his neck and looks up at him, even as she leans against him, and he's starting too...oh fuck, he will not think about anything happening south of his waist. Also, he will probably burn these jeans. And he stills then, hating his father and his punishment and maybe Lopez just a little. None of this feels quite real, but for the first time, to have someone he likes so much in his arms and actually staring at him like he hung the moon (which technically he did) and not like he's a monster...it feels like him.

Or like it should be.

Like if the form was all he needed to be liked, then he wished he'd been altered long ago.

Ella makes their usual height differences and her grip work. Her heels are high enough, and he's just in sneakers because they are comfortable damn it. It's enough to even out their heights so that she can hold him close without straining too much.

"Everyone is staring you know," Lopez says.

He gulps, keenly aware of their eyes. "Yeah, that's obvious, Scraps."

"They're jealous of me."

He laughs, relaxing for a minute and setting one hand on her shoulder and one on the small of her back. "They're jealous of me, chica. They see the little firecracker I've got here, and they all want their turn on the dance card."

"I never understood that expression."

"See, back in the day-"

She laughs and sets her had on his chest. And he's not...he's so cosmically screwed and not in the good way. "No, no boomer talk, abuelo. I'm here to have fun. Tell me about NYC back in the day later."

"It's not that long a story."

She smirks up at him and moves the hand on her back so that it's on her ass. "That's better."

Michael freezes again. "You've had a long day, and it was traumatic, and you're three sheets to the wind. You don't want this. I'd be taking so much advantage."

"I think we're both doing that for each other."

"I...Ella, you'll regret it in the morning," he croaks out, his voice even hoarser than usual.

He can't say they all do, but eventually Lily did. Changed the fucking locks to boot.

"I know what I'm doing, angel." She says that last word in Spanish, and it makes being a Celestial sound about ten times sexier than it actually is.

And he's an archangel, kind of, and immortal and a former general and yadda yadda, but he's weak, and he has wanted this for a while, even though he told himself he didn't.

He folds.

Stroking her cheek, he nods back at her. "Whatever you want, Ella. You can have it."

It feels like they dance for hours. Occasionally, they'll break apart for the fast ones, and he can enjoy how talented a dancer she is. She clearly has had some training and knows her way around the dance floor and it's entrancing to see her move, the sway of her hips and the way she smiles as she lets go. But normally, through the night, no matter the tempo, they dance on each other, slowly, every move full of promise.

He's never had fun like this, both because he doesn't hurt and because of how she looks at him, like maybe she could even actually love him.

It's reading too much into it, but for now, he has his arms full of badass vigilante, and he couldn't be happier.

This number comes to an end, and she'll call him a grandpa later, but these loud house music bass driven monstrosities are not music. Still, the noise technically stops thumping in the club for a few. Lopez is looking up at him and panting hard. He is too. It just seems like now...like she's moving closer to him. Michael closes his eyes, lowers his lips and-

An annoying, high pitched squeal makes his sensitive ears ring.

"The fuck?" he shouts, pulling away from Lopez's face.

"OMG, Ella where have you been!"

He freezes and lets Ella go like he's been scalded. It's been eons but he knows that voice. Turning, his heart falls to his throat and he's suddenly felt like a very large bucket of cold water has been thrown over him. Any fire in his belly or arousal truly dead. There are Maze and Eve, arm in arm, coming up to both of them.

Fuck.

He did know that the demon had fallen hard for the first, well second, human. But as far as he knew, Eve was out finding herself. She wasn't here in Los Angeles on Mazikeen's arm.

Double fuck.

And yet, as the two come up to them. Both are in outfits barely painted on, and he thought Lopez was showing off a lot and oh he's never gonna survive the night...But as the demon and the second woman sidle up to them, Maze does not take out her blades.

He frowns but says nothing next to Lopez.

Eve, however, is as effusive and somehow naive as he remembers her. She hugs Lopez hard and then him. "It's so great to see you again, Ella. Lucifer said you weren't in town anymore."

Lopez shoots him a panicked glance. "I'm not. I'm traveling, doing a lot of stuff, seen Reno and Tucson but felt like coming by for a weekend here. I'll be heading back out by Sunday though."

Michael says nothing but keeps Maze clear in his peripheral vision. There's no way with how they left it, how he kind of set her up, that the demon isn't going to be gunning for him.

"Ella, seriously, it's been months," Maze gruffs. She doesn't hug Lopez; of all beings, Mazikeen is not a hugger. Definitely got that from her mother. "Decker's going nuts trying to reach you. What's so great out there that you can't get it here?"

Lopez shoots him a panicked glance. "I...you know that police work got too much and I hadn't been out of California since I moved here and-"

"Exactly so Lopez felt like a change of pace, but she also wanted to show me the sites," Michael finally jumps in. He tries to down play the accent he uses, sound a bit less New York. He's not sure if it works or not. "I'm Michelle. Good to meet you guys. You know Lopez?"

The short latina in question shoots him a questioning look, but he ignores it. He hopes she'll assume he just has no interest in explaining that No, it really is Michael as his name tonight. It's happened before on the prowl, and he gets annoyed when drunk frat bros don't get it. It's an added hassle before he can crunch bone...though it makes the end result that much more satisfying.

Eve hugs him a second time. "Mostly! We hung out once and defused a bomb together."

He laughs, pretending he doesn't know that's something she's completely capable of. "That's so funny."

"I'm serious! She's like this science goddess. I wouldn't know how to defuse one."

"Well, it's harder than it looks but no one exploded so..." Lopez says, and she inches closer to him, taking his hand in hers. "So, Maze, glad Eve came back. You two must be having a good time."

"We are, but that's enough about us," Maze says. "You need to stay. Everyone's been worried about you. I mean, even Lucifer's been pouting about it. Anything that gets his attention through his banging Decker haze, then you know it's serious."

Michael rolls his eyes at how delicate Maze is not. "Well, it was just a weekend thing. We're heading out to Texas next and-"

"Yeah, still doing that see the country thing. I'm having a great time not in a lab!" Lopez says, but he can see the panic in her eyes and even if Eve misses it, neither he nor Maze do: that forced brightness in Lopez's voice.

"Right."

"Hey, Ella, let me go get the car. I'll be back soon enough," Michael supplies.

She's going to crash. This is too much between Pete and Mazikeen, too many reminders of a life Lopez is running from. He know she's gonna sink.

"That's great, Mi...chelle," Lopez replies, catching herself at the last moment. She kisses his cheek as he heads off, and it's not at all the kiss he'd hoped for, but it's better this way. She's sobering up fast and so is he. Though he was only ever drunk on her. "Thanks."

"Oh, you know they have valet, right?" Eve asks.

"Rip off," he chirps before hurrying out to the streets.

Michael doesn't know what he even hopes as he hurries to the car. He keeps to human speeds but almost jogs there. He's not sure which he's more scared of: that Ella will crumble and have a breakdown right there with the pressure to stay or that she'll gladly want to and their strange trip will end before it's really gotten started. He knows it's better for her if she's here, if her actual friends can look after her. Everyone does better off without him. It'll ache when she decides to go back to Eve and Maze's and reclaim her life, but she's slain her dragon with that asshole Pete and it's for the best.

It has to be.

He gets to the car and is about to put the key in the door to get Baby open when he's thrown hard against the stucco wall of a flower shop next to the lot he'd found. Michael gasps from the force of it and is not shocked to find Maze pushing him up against the wall. What does confuse him is the lack of recognition even now in her eyes.

How could she not know?

She's Hell's best tracker too, and her senses are excellent. He assumes that's what makes her so dangerous and intense on a bounty too. But she's studying him as if trying to figure a puzzle out, but that isn't quite Maze's skillset. She's smash and grab, not the planner.

And he can see for whatever reason that he's that Michael isn't clicking.

"Um, hi?" He starts, playing that dumb bimbo routine again. It didn't fool Azrael but maybe here.

She shoves him harder against the wall and bits of it chip off beside him and fall like snow to the ground. "What are you?"

He blinks.

Now Maze should damn well know that answer. She knows what angels are. Is thick as thieves with Sam and Menny. And Sam for all his protests, is still mostly an angel at his core. Yes, from what he's seen and studied, Samael is also sometimes an overcooked lasagna with hideous wings, but mostly an angel. Maze knows their scent and the way they feel, the way it pings her sixth sense the same way the utter wrongness of something Infernal pings his. Would set off any angel.

What with being natural enemies and all.

So this game is pointless. She has to know him.

"I'm sorry and are you psycho much?" He replies, still trying to go for very confused club goer.

"You're not human. I...which pantheon are you from?"

He guffaws, honestly shocked. Maze isn't a big picture person. Demons by their very nature aren't, and it's probably why his twin the hedonist fit in so well with them to begin with.

"Are you high?" Michael demands.

"Drop the act. If you were mortal, I'd have crushed your throat. You just can't feel it much but a human would be dead. So, I repeat, what are you and what do you want with Ellen?"

"Ella," he corrects.

"You know what I mean. So which? Egyptian or Sumerian or what Greek? Haven't seen Greek in a while."

He is confused. Is she toying with him? Is this some cat and mouse thrill. "I don't understand."

"You're a goddess, so where are you from and why the fuck do you want to hurt my friend?"

Yup, now he's beyond confused. Of course, he's not a fucking goddess. He's a fraction of an angel. He's not...what in the world?

"I'm not...I mean a goddess. Demigod," he answers, which is sort of true if one thinks about how Mom and Dad made them. Mostly. "And Lopez and I are friends. She likes Black Jack, and I like poker and that's about it. We've been road tripping."

Michael sticks mostly to the truth, since that makes lies most workable, keeps him from tripping up much. But mostly, he's too stunned by Maze's confusion to say much more than that. Outside of his insufferable little sister, Remi, Mazikeen is the best tracker he's ever met. She knows him. To put a fine point on it, she had her tongue down his throat. She should know what he is easily.

And it's not a goddess.

She pulls out a blade and brings it to his throat. "Ella is human."

"I'm aware."

"She doesn't need some random supernatural bullshit fucking with her."

"Oh, like a Lilim or Eve the first woman?" he drawls, now just annoyed by Maze's big sister act. "You're hardly one to talk, demon."

The blade is flush against his neck then. "I mean it. I don't know what game you're playing with, but your road trip ends now. She's had a lot of bad shit from just other humans happen to her, and she's my friend."

"Yeah, you all seem to have very similar dispositions. I can totally see it," he adds.

"You leave her alone. If you're not out of her life in twenty-four hours, I'll come back, and you won't like it." Maze presses the blade closer to his skin and blood wells, dropping to the ground in a small splatter.

"We're friends," he argues back, the desperation clear in his words. "I don't want to hurt her. I just want to keep her safe. She's the only friend I have."

And there is no lie in any of that, and it feels like being stripped raw to admit it.

"And most of the time nothing good comes from mixing it up like this. Leave her alone, let her come home, whoever you actually are." Maze loosens her grip and lets him stumble back to his car. "Twenty-four hours, Michelle, or I come hunting."

She's gone before he can argue. Michael curses to himself and has to rein in his strength to keep from ripping Baby's door off its hinges. He manages-barely-and slides into the seat. He doesn't shut the door, just breathes hard and sets his head on the steering wheel. For a while, the only sound is that of his ragged breathing.

Then something else catches his attention.

A constant ribbit ribbit, which makes fuck all sense in L.A.

Michael looks down and finds a blue poison dart frog croaking up at him. (He'd know, as he'd kept on track with all of Dad's requests for making life since one of them had to do inventory and it was never gonna be Sam.) It's lumpy and inherently wrong and only has one back leg.

"Where the fuck did you come from?"

The frog croaks once more before hopping pathetically and unevenly off.

Michael can relate.

Sighing, he shuts the car door and heads back to the Pink Elephant and to collect Lopez. He won't force her to leave California if she wants to stay with her friends. Truly, he won't. It'll gut him, but he wants whatever Ella wants. Whatever helps her most. But, selfishly, he hopes she'll want to get out of dodge. If she says yes, he'll drive all night to anywhere and any state Mazikeen isn't in.

And he will not think about this weird encounter or her confusion over whatever he is. She should know better, and his life is just confusing.

That's all.

In the distance, even ensconced in the Impala, Michael can still hear the malformed frog croaking.