12

She lets Michael drive.

Ella's drunk as hell by the time he returns with Baby and by the time she talks Eve out of a hang out tomorrow. It's something that Ella has next to no interest in. She's back in L.A. for one reason, well, she was. Now, Pete is suffering, and she's supposed to start feeling better, and she has no interest in the City of Angels. Not yet. If she did, she wouldn't have stopped ignoring her voicemails, though the bubbles build up every day, telling her she has a couple dozen calls by now she hasn't bothered to listen to or delete. Maze is only kind of right. Chloe calls almost every day by now, worried, but Ella stopped checking. She knows the urgency in her friend's voice, knows she's too tempted to just come home and stay, to give up.

But as much as she loves science, as much as she loved her job, she can't go back to it. Pete took forensics from her, Ella knows that much. If any case ever again led her to a killer's door...she just can't bear it.

Besides, he was right, and it burns, fuck does it, but she is dark. Ella always knew it. Both between her hallucinations (that apparently never were, thanks Rae Rae) and her thoughts since she was eight about how people would die, as if she were some weird Rube Goldberg of death, Ella feels the darkness within her. Since Pete, it has gotten some release. She likes going out at night and stalking incels and would be rapists. It's a public service, and it gets her violence on. Someone should be the victim who isn't her.

It would shock most of her friends (except for Eve and Maze actually, who both are apparently deep in the bounty business) because back here she's just supposed to be goofy Ella. Lovable Ella. Ella who has no real problems and just cheers on her friends. The fact that Dan and Lucifer haven't called or emailed, as if it's a whole out of sight and out of mind problem has more than sealed that truth for her.

She is tired of being the bit part in someone else's stories.

All Ella wants is to write her own. And somehow, so far, that has involved gambling, bone breaking, and the world's surliest angel as her co-pilot. She's not sure where that all leads, but she has no ambition to stay in L.A., no desire for it, to borrow Lucifer's favorite word.

Michael takes zero convincing to just drive when she asks.

They pull into a tiny motel on the border between Arizona and California near three a.m. She's dozed most of that time, but has woken twice at least, both times because Michael stalled out the gears and grinded poor Baby. An hour away from their latest home away from home, he stalled it so badly that she had to get up and check the engine to make sure he hadn't ruined it. That settles it though. In the morning and after so much water, Advil, coffee, and greasy wake up food, she is going to teach him how to drive.

Almost sixty years ago in New York does not count, not at all.

The car finally stops and this time not a grind or clunking noise to be heard. Michael says nothing as he gets up and opens his door. He's been oddly silent for him-and yeah yeah, Ella's not one to throw stones on this at all-but he's barely said two words…except for that fight an hour back over the car and how it was "really okay, Lopez, I'm not a moron."

Debatable.

Still, something has shaken him too, and she worries it was the kiss that Eve interrupted. Maybe…she must have pressed too hard. Damn it. She'd promised herself that she wouldn't, that she'd respect that Michael's life is in freefall in a way that hers isn't. And that's saying a lot. But they click so well and he doesn't need her to be perky or happy or anything but herself. He can talk as much as she can and doesn't look down on her chatter. Despite his feelings on his father, he's almost amused by her theology questions and faith.

He's beautiful, and he has no idea that it's true, and she means mostly because of how he tries, how he's protected her.

But he doesn't want her, and the icy silence more or less between them has to be a sign of that.

Michael disappears to the motel's front office, and she lets him. Ella takes a few minutes for a breath, to try and slap herself mentally. She is not going to prey on Michael. She's not. He's clearly drawing lines, and, as intense as bumping into her friends was, it was a good thing. It stopped her from making a mistake, from pressuring her friend into giving more than he can.

Sighing and, okay, wiping tears from her cheeks, Ella sits up straight and flips open the visor. She's a mess already: eyes puffy, hair a bigger rat's nest than Michael's usually is, and her skin a bit pale for her. Ella takes in a few, deep breaths and tries to push her actual feelings away.

They're back on the road. She doesn't have to go back to being a person she just isn't anymore or to a job that almost killed her. It's just freedom and adventure and gambling with The Prince of Heaven (well former), and she's excited.

Mostly.

Or just relieved to no longer be in L.A. It suffocates her.

Michael is back soon, and he opens her door for her. Quirking his head at her, he speaks quietly. "I got us separate rooms. I know you had a hell of a day, Lopez, and maybe you need some space to deal with seeing Pete again, though I am proud of you. You gave him everything, and I enjoyed the show. You…he's gonna be suffering a while from things I didn't even do."

Her heart clenches, both because it hurts that he's clearly not going to talk about the bar at all and because even if an angel mostly signed off on what she did, Ella knows it was wrong. A part of her does care that it was, even if Pete's a monster. It's not who she was and not who she thinks she's supposed to be-this brutal, this desperate. But it's who she is becoming, and she's not yet sure how to live with that.

Michael smiles softly at her, and it pulls against his scar, but not nearly as badly as Ella figures he assumes it does. It just makes her hurt for him and over whatever his twin has done to him. "Hey, you're pretty tired. You want me to carry you first? Then I can grab your tons of luggage, Scraps."

"I don't travel with that much crap."

"I'm invulnerable and inhumanly strong, and that third trunk's still a killer," he says, voice very soft, especially for him. He reaches out his arms to her, and she shakes her head. "Or you'll pass, I see."

She swallows hard around a dry throat and, standing shakily, takes her first few steps towards the long sweep of rooms. But she's drunk, exhausted, and the adrenaline is well and truly gone. Ella stumbles a moment and finds herself in Michael's arms anyway.

"Yeah, you seem totally aces, chica. Look, I got it. You're tiny, like Azrael, and I carried her before, trust me. Won't even have to work around the wings," he says, holding her close to his chest.

Bad place to be.

Especially tonight and after everything.

Ella closes her eyes and just gives into exhaustion, even as Michael walks unevenly to her room. There's a bit of jumbling as he gets the key into his good hand and opens the door. He passes the threshold and, despite everything, cannot apparently keep his sarcasm to himself.

"See and you can cross that dumbass bridal carry off your list, Lopez. Seen it in movies before. Ta-da," he says, and though his tone is flippant, he sets her gently on the bed. "I grabbed one of your small bags. I can get the rest or tomorrow I can bring them now. Whatever you want, Scrappy."

She yawns. "I have some jammies in that one. I can make it."

"Good, and there's a shitty diner across the highway. In the morning, I'll go see if it is bound to give a humans food poisoning or not. If it has a 2/3rd or better chance of not poisoning you, I'll grab you something."

"What about the other third?" she mumbles, barely having the energy to curl up under the covers.

"You've had a good run, and I know St. Peter. I'll slip him a bribe for you."

She tosses a pillow at him, and he dodges it easily. "I know you. You'll bribe like five bucks!"

"And you'll be worth every penny," Michael says, winking at her. He hesitates then, and she's not sure what he wants to say or why he's not back to getting settled in his own space and away from her.

"Mike?"

"I…if you think you want to go home tomorrow, if you're done traveling, I'll get it, Ella. Maybe your friends Maze-weird name-and Eve are right. If you're missed…" he sighs. "How could you not be?"

She swallows hard, and this time her throat isn't so much dry as it feels like she's swallowed glass. "I…I'll think about it. Right now? Tengo sueño."

"Count all those sheep then," he offers lamely before being out the door.

She waits a few beats, just in case he comes back, but he doesn't. Then, confident she's alone, Ella bangs her head against her pillow. "Perfect, Lopez, just perfect."
**

Michael was wrong in his assumptions back at the Pink Elephant. Okay, so he is still probably just burning the jeans. Not worth it, and there's a thrift shop or Good Will in every town. However, he doesn't need many cold showers. Hell, he doesn't need one. Eve and Maze's appearance were like unleashing Niagra fucking Falls on him. He's not hot and bothered.

Just bothered.

Maze will track them, and she will be excellent at it. Even if they have a twenty-four hour head start, and it's less than that because Lopez is drunk as a skunk, and they'll lose at least ten hours just letting her sleep it off, but even if they had a day's lead time, Maze will track them and fast.

He has to…what exactly?

In all likelihood, tomorrow, Michael will bring Ella a takeout stack of pancakes and omelets, and she'll be sober and ready to go back to Los Angeles. He knows it's be better for her. He's not Sam, which is, in short, the story of his immortal life. He can't…he can't give her the family or the security or the wealth of friends that his twin has surrounded himself with. He can't even come close. Ella deserves more than an old car on Route 66 and every dive motel and club alleyway they come across. She damn well deserves the world, and that's always been the domain of desire (and the wealthy angel for that matter) and not of fear.

He half expects this will all end tomorrow. It would explain why she's so quiet. Also, that it's 3 a.m., and it was a lot of tequila, but she's just subdued in a way she wasn't all night before, and he bets it's because Eve's warm invite back to L.A. has Lopez wanting more.

A return to normalcy.

Which, surely, he is not.

Michael sighs and strips quickly. He wastes no time getting into his sweats for the night. He always changes as fast as he can, usually in the dark. He doesn't want to know or feel the differences; it still throws him every time. For a while, he can almost forget somehow all the differences, and then he'll cross his arms just so or get annoyed by a sleaze somewhere hitting on him and realize he doesn't have the height he used to, that decking the ass will be a tad more difficult.

He'll remember he's been remade wrong. No matter how sometimes he can forget for a bit, like tonight, and how desperately he…

He just wanted.

Always wants.

But he gets changed and sits on his bed, worrying over Mazikeen's threats. He's confused by her inability to place him. Maybe her love bird haze has taken the edge off her. He's many things: a washed up general, a jealous brother, and a semi-fallen angel to name just a few, but he's hardly a goddess. The very idea of it is absurd.

So, he will not think about it or the weird, lumpy South American frog from nowhere.

Nope.

The Lilim on his trail is big enough trouble for now.

Granted, the incantation he was taught long ago from Azrael helped today, but it only lasts a few hours at a time. Besides, no matter what impresses Lopez, mortal that she is, he has no real facility for magic. And yet, that might be his best bet till he finds something better. He has a lead on someone in Atlanta who might be helpful, and they can loop through there around to Atlantic City anyway. But he'll need more help between there and currently Nowhere, Arizona, to keep Maze off them.

Bringing his palms flat together, making sure they're steepled, more for the ceremony of it than the actual need, Michael gets ready to pray. Closing his eyes, he speaks out loud, "Azrael, I need you."

He opens his eyes again, and it's a big risk that she'll even come. They're in a good place, and Rae Rae is researching for him, but little sis is always busy, always rushed. She could hear him but not be able to stop by for days or weeks from now. Death is, as always, a booming business.

Twenty minutes pass, and he figures that's his answer, that he'll have to make other plans to avoid Maze. Somehow.

Then, as he's turning on the television and reluctantly realizing his choices range between an infomercial for a miracle wrinkle cream or a telenovela he cannot begin to understand, the Angel of Death pops into the room. She shunts her wings away quickly, and he appreciates that. It hurts. To see wings, and that has been true since the Rebellion. But it hurts so much worse now because Father's ire has taken his completely, and Michael has learned too late that without their wings, or at least in his case, Celestials will unravel.

Maybe desire is just easier to keep in control than fear.

He doesn't know, but he's slowly finding out.

Rae Rae sits on the bed and curls up against him. He appreciates it. He must look worse from a hell of a night than he thought. "Hey, I found something, kind of and…dude, are you cut?"

Michael rolls his eyes. "It's nothing. Mazikeen got aggressive, which, you know, happens on days that end in y."

Rae Rae sits up and her eyes are so comically wide behind her glasses. He has no idea why she's wearing them, unless she stopped in first with Ella, and it's just an old habit. Either way, he's not exactly a fashion expert. Costs too much, and he will not be fleeced.

"Mike," she starts, "when did you two bump into Maze?"

"L.A. We went to pay that piece of shit Pete a visit-"

"Michael!"

"He's alive. More than he deserves, but I wasn't gonna let Lopez get her hands dirty."

"Good!"

"And I am done making Dad pissed off at me. But Petey Boy's gonna be in traction a while."

She shakes her head and cleans her glasses. "This is not the best use of Celestial powers, and you said you knew that."

"Oh, I made him a mess, believe me, but it's all psychological. Lopez packs a punch. You should have seen her." Despite the shitty way the night ended, he's grinning as he talks about her. "Give her time and more of my training, and, for a human, she'd make you or Remi almost look tame."

His sister studies him, and he hunches in at her scrutiny. "You're in love with her."

She states it plainly, like a fact, like water being wet. Michael didn't realize till then he was that fucking transparent.

"Of course not…I…" He starts to hedge.

But he is tired. Between all that temptation at the club, Maze's threats, and now this uncertain sense of a cold shoulder between him and Lopez…he is more exhausted than he's been since Raphael tried to heal what was left of him after Sam's Fall. And, for once, he cannot lie to himself. Cannot deny and pretend he's not affected because he is, and Lopez's going to want to go home to Los Angeles soon, and it will crush him.

"Yes."

He barely whispers it, but neither of them have merely mortal hearing.

Michael expects his little sister to lecture him, to say he's stupid or that he's making a mistake or that Ella needs better. Of course, she does. Every option is better than him. But, surprisingly since little sis is a chatterbox too, Azrael remains quiet for a while. Then, her response at first isn't even a word. Instead, she hugs his side and sets her head on his good shoulder.

"Oh, wow."

"Good wow or bad wow?" he asks, voice low.

"A 'I'm not sure' wow. I mean, Ella?"

"You're the one who…she is like sunshine but she's not just that and no one-not Sam and not his little superfriends-none of them see the rest. They don't know that there's so much more hurt and need and strength there. And they didn't care to learn. I just…yeah, laugh away. I gave Amenadiel such shit for having a defective nephil with a human, but here I am and Lopez has me on a short leash; she just doesn't know it yet."

Then again, considering how easily she got him to agree early to bring the car around at the Pink Elephant and spare her feet, then maybe she does. A low whisper and a brush of arms and Michael will definitely agree to anything short of mass murdering for her.

Rae Rae slaps his hand. "Charlie's not so bad! Besides, Remi thinks-"

"There's your mistake, squirt. Remiel never thinks. She's good at orders, which helps in its way, but she's not a thinker."

"Ugh, you two. Anyway, she swears Charlie's a Celestial somewhere in there. She's the best tracker we got so it has to be true. Dad says not but…"

"He's been slipping a long time, yeah I know," Michael replies. "I…it's pointless anyway."

"Why?" Azrael asks, and it's nice to be encouraged for once, and maybe he's a bit more than a substitute for Samael with her after all.

"Because I'm not even really me right now or maybe ever again. Because she should go back to her job because she's so good at it."

"You said she had a talent for vigilante stuff."

"She does, actually, but it's not a 9-5."

"Well, maybe she can find a way for it to be." Rae Rae frowns and considers it. "Did you tell her how you feel?"

He snorts. "'Oh, hi, I'm your local barely-an-angel, and I think you're just swell. You wanna go steady while I fucking fall apart and suffer bouts of crippling pain so bad that if you grab me at the wrong time, I might melt your brain with fear.' Right, that's gonna go over great."

"She's still here."

"For now. I am pretty sure that bumping into Eve and Maze…we were at a smallish club far from Sam's in West Hollywood-"

"Oh, I see, but Ella doesn't like you? Right, suuure."

He glares at her, eyes going gold. "Anyway, squirt, I'm sure now that Eve has put that brain worm in Lopez's ear about coming home that she's going to want to return to L.A. for good soon. Besides, I don't know if I can keep Los Angeles away from her, even if somehow Scrappy is still game for our plan."

"I don't understand."

"Maze knew what I was…kind of."

Azrael frowns deeper. "Kind of?"

"I don't look like Samael, but I should feel like an angel."

"Huh? Way so lost," she say, taking her glasses off again and cleaning them on her robes.

"I…she asked which pantheon I was from."

"I don't get it."

Michael stands and starts to pace, and it's a small relief with all he's gotten from ruining Pete and scaring his guards that it's smooth steps for fucking once. "Maze said I had to be a goddess." He laughs, but it comes out a broken cackle that scares him a bit. "Maybe Sumerian."

"Did she get hit on the head?"

"No clue. Maybe defective angels feel weird, but she spent years in California with my wingless twin so that's…I can't quite make a good explanation fit," he admits lamely. "But she was suspicious and pissed." Michael gestures to his neck and the fresh cut on it. "She wanted to make sure I got her message. Maze said I had to leave Ella alone and be gone in twenty-four hours. She'll hunt me down…hunt us down."

"Shit."

"Yeah, that about covers it," he says, stopping and looking back to her, as if his little sister could save him. "I don't get why she doesn't recognize me as what I am, minus the wings, but if Ella wants to keep heading to Atlantic City, I don't know how to keep Maze off our trail for long. I mean, sure, I have that incantation of yours, but it lasts a few hours maybe at a time."

Azrael nods. "That's why you called? I don't…I don't have anything better I know off the top of my head, but I can ask Death. The Endless know many things."

"The Endless are a headache."

"Death's not so bad." And his little sister blushes, and he knows that he's not the only one in the room smitten by someone.

He sinks back onto the bed and smirks at her. "Do tell? Wait, squirt, am I not the only one on the dumbass love merry-go-round?"

"Um, well, Amenadiel and Charlie's mom have uh something kind of going on right? And Lu and Chloe so no."

"Azrael!"

She bites her lip. "We don't have a label on it, but sure, I'll ask Death. I'm sure she has some options I don't know. Give me till sunset."

"It's about all the time I have," Michael replies. Then, because it has been a long day and he is just too drained to have any walls up at all, he opens up his arms and lets her settle against him. "And we really have come to the slumber party sisterly bullshit part of our evening."

"Brother," she counters, knocking an elbow into his ribs.

"Some days lately, if you squint hard enough," he bites back bitterly. "You said you had something for me anyway? A book or info about those of us who had to go wingless before?"

"Yeah, well, kind of?"

He lets her go, and she twists around on the mattress to drag her satchel to her front. "A book, it's something from the archives but it's not…I dunno…it's not Enochian but a few of the headers are in Enochian, like Dad's handwriting, so maybe He's been annotating it?" She hands him a thick volume, bound in a skin he would rather not guess at, and surprisingly slim for something that ancient.

"Dad's not much of a reader and uh, yeah, that actually…that was Uri's handwriting. He did the most research there besides Amenadiel back when Menny was young at least."

Michael's hand traces over the lettering, the occasional notes, but not many in the Enochian script. He misses that brother. They were not quite friends, but they were outcasts often together. There was a commonality there, even if a begrudging one. Besides, it was hard being one of the few smart ones around. He and Saraqael kept the great above running now minus the Angel of Patterns to take a lot of slack.

"Yeah, but it has a few parts where the handwriting mentions wings, but I have no idea what pantheon that's actually from or where the Silver City got it. Can't read it either," she says.

Michael groans. "It's half a start. I'm heading out to Atlanta on my way east for some help. That blowhard out there is a pain, but he often knows his shit or someone else who will for a double cross or a bribe. If I can't get at this, I'll see if he can."

Azrael frowns. "You think your Creation is still even there?"

Michael swallows hard and, for all his honesty tonight, does not mention a frog who could not have been in a city thousands of miles from its habitat. He only makes matter; he never could shape it. Any more than Samael could ever Create. They were, at their inception, made as fundamentally incomplete.

Will without Creation is as useless at the end of the day as Creation without Will.

"Mike?" And now Azrael's voice is thick with concern. "Have you tried to Create?"

"No, I haven't tried anything," he hedges. "We're in a great stretch of nothing out here. Maybe I can stop worrying if I go somewhere desolate, practice, and if I can't even make some matter, then obviously it's just my Fear going wacky alone." He sighs again. "I'll put that on my list of stuff to do."

"And I can help. You're not alone and-" She stops and groans. "I'm so sorry. I'll get the incantation, assuming there's a better one from Death, but I'm needed. There's been a flood in Thailand and I…"

"Dad always should have given you helpers." He nods. "Go get 'em, squirt."

"Ugh, Michael, I'm not a young angel at all."

"Always will be new to me. Anyway, I trust you, even if you get busy and a little scattered."

"There are like eight billion humans, and they're always dying."

"Right, well, no time like the present then, Rae Rae. Smell you later, right?" He winks at her, and at least he feels like there's some hope against Maze and about what he is. A plan. He was a general, and he can work with a plan. He doesn't do well with no information, and maybe that's another reason why his gift-loathsome as it is-goes with his former vocation so well.

Knowing what your enemies fear means you can easily exploit them, and he has so very often before.

She nods and hops up. "See you, Mikey." There's a ruffle of feathers, and she's gone soon enough.

Michael shakes his head after she's away and flips through the pages of the slim volume. The writing looks more like pictographs, something that is reminiscent of Cuneiform. It's not though. That would be too easy. Michael could read that, even now. But the few words translated in the pages, and definitely in Uri's hand, are intriguing at least: wings, power, sharing…control.

Michael doesn't stop flipping pages till he comes to the end. There might be a dozen Enochian words scrawled there, but control comes up thrice. He's not sure what Uriel was looking for or if it was a side project for himself or for Dad directly. Michael feels if Dad had requested it, then he'd have been apprised of it too. In the last decade with Amenadiel on earth, he's been Father's right hand. Big fucking deal, didn't net him shit, but if Uriel was on a side mission, Michael should have known.

Shouldn't he have?

Annoyed, he almost flings the book before reminding himself it's probably thousands of years old and might fall apart on impact with the wall. Instead, he stands and sets it on the particle board monstrosity that counts as a desk.

He's too keyed up with the last twenty-four hours to sleep, and the motel, like the last one, is basically in nowhere. Maybe if he walks out a bit past the parking lot, he can try Creating matter, realize it won't work cause Sam's the Devil now, and Michael's a mess, and then one big paranoid worry will be crossed off his list.

He grabs the key-an actual brass one with a huge, red plastic key chain-and locks the door behind him. If he were human, he vaguely registers that it would be cold outside to him. He hopes that Lopez's room is good enough for her, no holes in the windows and enough heat. Michael never got the design where the desert is hot as fuck in the day but icy at night. Dumb if you ask him, but Dad never did. And never had.

Still, he'd have designed it better.

He walks for ten minutes at a desultory pace past the parking lot, into the midst of sand and scrub brushes and one lone cactus. Then, he sits, cross legged on the desert floor and closes his eyes.

Fuck, it's been billions of years, and he's not even sure he remembers how he did it. Creation was like a dream, something from lifetimes ago, and with as broken as he is now, it almost seems like Michael dreamed that he was ever part of something that inherently glorious.

Grunting, he holds out his left hand, palm flat, and closes his eyes to concentrate. "Come on, Demiurgos, you have to remember how."

After twenty minutes and not even a spark, Michael opens his eyes and sighs. "Well, at least it's just one Celestial so-called gift that's busted. Good to know."

He stands and wipes the dust off him and laughs bitterly. Of course, he's not Creation anymore, not even a little. He's too busted for that, and again, as a twin, he's a package deal, always has been. If Sam can't use his-and there's no way Dad let Samael Fall but keep the Will-then why on any plane would Michael assume he could access his own half?

Stupid.

He's tired and strung out and worrying all the time about Lopez like some idiot high school human with a crush, and he's making up issues where there weren't any at all. Raking a hand through his hair, he starts back to his room and to civilization, such as it is.

Michael makes it a few steps before terror slams into him, hot and fresh and biting. It is not of Pete or of lilies. There are no hothouse lamps or needles. But the fear is unmistakably Lopez's and it leaves him nauseated.

He doubles over for a second and instead feels the ropes around his wrist, the cool metal pressed to his forehead, and the smell of pungent herbs and smoke fills his nostrils. Michael has no idea what that is or why she's feeling it, but the fear from this-whatever the fuck this is-runs so deep that it makes Pete seem like a picnic.

Fear, his own and that's rare, surges through him and his left hand sparks for just a moment, an arc of blue light so bright, he can barely look at it coming from it. Michael's eyes go wide. and he waves his hand and breathes slowly until he can push Lopez's fear away. A few bits of scrub bush catch, and he stomps them out. By the time he's done, his hand is normal.

And the fundamental matter of Creation is no longer trying to escape from his fingertips.

What the fuck?

But he has no time to worry about his own changes, his own problems. He feels it; Lopez is awake, and her heart is beating so fast she might just have a heart attack here in Bumfuck, Arizona. Not an option. Michael focuses on her, trying to push that cold, hard metal—the cloying sensation of it-from off his forehead.

He's a blur of motion, even for a Celestial, and then he's tearing open her door.