The next day goes in mostly a blur. Michael is tired from admitting so much, and for once, he's not really sure what to say to make things less awkward between them. In some ways, he has spent the last few months in his exile from Los Angeles pointedly not thinking about all he did to his twin. Sure, he thought about it every time he walked past a reflective surface or spasms racked his body. When he was tempted to unfurl his wings but couldn't, even the slightest twitch of his shoulder muscles on reflex sent him screaming. His punishment he thinks about endlessly, especially in the last few days with his Creation anything but controlled.
That stupid rat he made now sitting in his lap as Lopez drives them closer to Santa Fe a prime example of it. He'd rather Pepe not sit on him (or near him for that matter), but Lopez won't let it perch on her while she's concentrating on the road and now such a bizarre little mistake is nestled on his knee.
The things he does to keep her happy. If he'd had choice in the matter, he'd have stomped the little abomination out. Had to be kinder for it.
But Michael has spent the last few months running from what happened to him and, more honestly, what he did. What he wrought. And as he watches the endless desert landscape stretch out before him, he can run the same arguments futilely in his head. Dad knows he did that over and over especially early on in Las Vegas and drinking even an angel into a stupor at various casinos. But the excuses were so easy to make, to stew in: Chloe knew all along and she was the one who shot him; that idiot Espinoza hadn't really hurt Sam because by then, as Michael had suspected, Sam was letting his relationship and feelings run away with his own self-actualization; so he scared Amenadiel's baby momma, who cared; so the First Born's defective child caught a cold from daycare and Michael leaned into the obvious for a power play; Mazikeen betrayed Sam during months with 30 days or less anyway; and even if the zoo abduction probably wasn't the Miracle's favorite thing…he bought her a very expensive coffee.
On and on.
But he knew every single excuse he'd made for himself and every bit of bitterness thrown toward Samael wasn't really true. He'd leveled real damage there, and if Chloe had been more gullible…he'd have done terrible things.
And yes, when Michael woke up after unspeakable pain on the floor of his bathroom in Las Vegas and saw the current shape he was stuck in, a tiny, bitter voice had told him frankly that of all the things to happen to him, this punishment—this form—made the most sense. He'd buried such a thought deeply and though it had turned at the back of his mind since then, he hadn't voiced it.
But as Lopez tended to do with him, she bumbled through and tore his carefully constructed lies and half-truths apart. After all, she was the first to call out exactly what he was doing by using his Fear on mortals to alleviate his pain, the feeding as it were. And, somehow, for the first time truly since his exile and gazing at the great formation he and Samael had made lifetimes ago when they were actually friends, Michael admitted that he felt this much of his problems, the fact that he was now technically female, had everything to do with Chloe.
With trying to trick and rape a Miracle.
And as he watches the city lights of Santa Fe come into view, Michael admits to himself for the first time, that he is not one hundred percent sure this one—his new shape—is actually a punishment from Father.
After all, if self-actualization made the First Born upset enough to fall in his own way and sire a mortal child and, if the rumors were true, made Samael change to be far more demonic in form than any Lilim, why couldn't his own guilt have rendered him female? And Michael would have said before Lopez and, frankly, at least before they'd both confronted and torn a few new ones in that bastard Pete, that Michael couldn't have done it to himself because he didn't feel guilty. Not over crackshot Chloe Decker, not over something that never even happened.
But he knows now that he does—that he has—maybe since the moment Sam's Miracle shot him.
He's not truly sure. But in the last day or so since his disaster of a second date with Scrappy, it's all he can think about, that if things had gone differently, if Chloe were as gullible as her idiot ex-husband, would he have…could he have truly gone through with it.
His stomach turns, and Michael knows the answer. Though that much he will never say outloud to even himself. His anger then as well as how much of a relief it had been for once, just once, to feel like someone liked him more than Sam, even if it had been a lie…oh he would have.
So, he is no better than Pete, than the men he and Lopez hunt and punish with discerning aplomb. And whether Father or his own, fucked up sense of guilt took his body from him is, at the end of the day, irrelevant. Michael deserves this, deserves to be rendered as unlikely to hurt the Miracle again or any woman for that matter as possible.
Especially Ella.
They pull up to the first motel they pass, and Lopez puts the car in park. Michael sighs and passes Pepe, his albatross, back towards her.
"He sleeps in your room tonight," Michael huffs.
She pauses again, and he's not sure why. After the sordid confession at the Grand Canyon, they've had separate rooms the last two nights running. It's the last thing he'd prefer to do, but she has to still be reeling from such information about him, and honestly, he feels too sullied to be around her in close quarters.
"I thought—"
He shakes his head slightly and, grabbing his duffle, slings it over his decent shoulder. "Scrappy, I don't want some mangy still probably radioactive mouse—"
"Pepe is a chinchilla. You can tell cause he's so soft."
He eyes it again and has decided that Creation without Will to shape crap just makes the ugliest fucking anomalies. "Yeah, sure is. And probably full of cancer or something."
"Michael!"
He rolls his eyes. "Anyway, you two get to bunk in. I'll be down the hall." Michael turns to go to the front desk and procure his room but only makes it a few steps when Lopez's hand is on his bicep. "It's getting close to dinner, and I'm pretty hungry, chica, so you know, can this wait?"
"We could…you don't have to have a whole other room. Even shit motels like this have double bed options, Mike."
He sighs heavily. "I think we both know for now that's not a great idea."
"Yeah, but—"
He ignores her and gets to the register first, leaving her time to mess with her three suitcases and the rat on her own. It doesn't take long for him to get his stuff situated and get to his own room. He locks the door behind him as fast as he's through and then slumps on the bed, not sure how much longer he can keep any of this up, no matter how much he wants to.
That night, he goes out after passing on delivery pizza with Lopez in her room. He makes an excuse about exhaustion, which alas isn't entirely inaccurate. He's drained and all he did was accidentally bleed out and make a…make a Pepe. Wherever he and his Creation stand, it's a far cry from an ecosystem or a star in his repertoire right now. Hell, even a bigger mammal. Not that he wants to make more things. Fuck no. But he is tired, and his right side is hitched up painfully high.
He needs to hunt, and for once, he'd rather prefer that Ella not be his wing-woman on that.
Michael had already heard from the front desk rumors about underground poker at a club three blocks over, and while it's tempting to hustle some spare cash while he's at it, that's not where he ends up. No, tonight, he goes to a tourist bar uptown, some place nice enough to ask for a cover charge. He also doesn't just try the bare minimum, goes further than jeans and a tank top. He does draw the line at the confusing and, frankly, confining assortment of undergarments Ella bought him a while back. He is still not sure what a Spanx is but he is not fucking with it. Probably not even to hit a high end casino and catch a whale or, at least, it would have to be fucking Moby Dick for him to lower himself that much.
But he makes a decent bit of progress at combing his curls, puts on a dress that Scraps selected, this one is black but probably a little too short on his long legs, but that flaw will work to his advantage in the end, and puts a bit of lip gloss on. He pocketed it via five-finger discount from a drug store a few days ago, before his first date with Ella. Michael chickened out then on using it, but whatever puts the worm on the hook, right? Except, as he looks himself over in the mirror to make sure he'll catch what he needs tonight, Michael doesn't quite hate himself.
Oh, he hates his power. He hated before it ran rampant and made him quite the predator he is now. Desire is shiny and enticing, seductive by its very nature. No one likes fear. Why the hell would they? It had isolated him long from his siblings even before the Rebellion made everything infinitely worse. And, of course, he hates his injuries—both the scar bisecting his face, which might almost be beautiful otherwise and the intense hitch in his shoulder. Currently, it's about as high as it gets and so very rigid, but he'll manage with it and find someone to use soon enough to solve his problems.
Yet around these two obvious caveats, Michael looks at this version of him, the one that still more often than not startles him in the mirror, and she still seems more approachable than he ever was. Wounded sure. Scarred, definitely. But there is no trace of being the second run to Samael in him because who could tell? He looms far less, and there is something if not familiar quite yet, then at least most pleasing about this form. The dress flatters him, works well on a frame that is still very much long and lean, and only but so curvy for a female. The gloss helps a bit, and he somehow, despite all logic, feels more approachable than he has in eons.
Or it's the guilt and the need and everything playing with his mind. Or maybe even the fact that Lopez likes him this way, finds him somehow beautiful, and that…he just can't hate himself completely when she looks at him like she does.
Michael shakes himself out of these silly, inconsequential thoughts. This is needed. This is to keep him together, a task that seems harder by the day. It's not fun. It's all part of Father's curse.
The bar is expensive. It's a sign of how awkward he feels right now around Ella and of how just drained and fucking hungry he is that Michael goes in. He is excited that he doesn't have to pay the cover fee. Apparently that's for men, so points to Dad or his own self–actualization or the whole damn universe for one, small bene. However, the drink prices are outrageous. Why in Dad's name would a vodka—a shot mind, not a whole martini—cost 9 bucks?What the fuck does this liquor do? It's not exactly top shelf.
Humans should mostly be damned for usury; he's sure of it.
But he buys his first shot, giving him an excuse to sit at the bar and drink. It doesn't take all that long for a man in an expensive suit that still doesn't fit him quite right and a failed attempt at a comb over to sit down next to him.
"Seems a shame for someone as pretty as you are to drink alone."
Michael snorts. "Won't be drinking long. Kind of over spent on the dress," he continues, affecting just a bit of Lopez's verbiage. Not that she's a valley girl since she's from Detroit, but he softens the Brooklyn in him as much as he can. Sells the act better. "And pay day is like too far off, you know?"
He turns then, regards his prey with his full face, no longer just his left profile. As always, Michael notices the slight hitch in his mark's breath when he gets a good look at him and the way his eyes dart away and around the room. It is a calculation. The homunculus before him debating on whether after a few drinks Michael will be worth it or if he can do "better." This man, at least, seems to know his limitations and decides to soldier on.
"I'd love to buy you more. What are you having?"
"Vodka, neat," he says.
"I can get you something mixed if you'd like. Most pretty girls I know love a cosmo or some fruity thing."
Michael laughs. "I have a brother who totally, secretly likes them. But sure, you buy, and I drink, sounds great."
The man beckons to the bartender and orders a beer for himself and a mojito—fuck if Michael has any idea what that is—for him. It's moot either way. He likes the habit of it, the feel of a shot glass in his hand. Short of drinking half the bar in a sitting, Michael can't feel it anyway. So a whateverthefuck-ito will be fine.
The drinks are set before them and Michael notices too how the bartender, a woman who is probably even older than Lopez, gives a worried second glance at the man he's with now. Ah, possible pay dirt. Michael doesn't just drag anyone out to the alley, not his style. This whole process has to have rules. It can't just be terrifying whoever because he needs to ease his pains, like some damn junkie avoiding a crash. The rules matter. They're all that's left of trying to preserve some of his Celestial nature.
Though it's probably too late.
Nevertheless, between the way this ass is already half leaning into Michael's space and pushing the mixed drink toward him and the bartender's worried glance, the angel is almost sure he has a good mark. He sips his drink, which is minty but not the most horrible thing he's had, and yammers away about the girls' trip he's on but how his friend totally was a bummer tonight and only wanted to stay in. But inwardly, he lets his power out, lets the Fear ooze out of him, small tendrils of it teasing through the air. He overshoots a bit and gets stray fears of other patrons—an embezzler sure her boss is going to finally find out, a college kid terrified their I.D. won't pass muster, and even the bartender, herself, anxious about being that kind of late. Mundane but not what he wants.
Michael focuses his gaze firmly on the homunculus's eyes and probes him directly. The results are mixed. He is not some frat boy who has drugged his share of women or a wife beater, nothing as cut and dried. He has, of course, in his time begged and nagged more than one date to just "let me this once" and worn her defenses down. And, oh yes, he's a traveling salesmans—windows Micahel thinks—and he's most afraid right now that his wife will find out.
That she will realize he's dallied quite a bit so far on this year's trip.
That's not exactly what Michael usually goes for, but he can feel the spasms threatening to flare up in his shoulders and has been drained since Pepe sprouted forth. This is what he gets. And, well, dear old Dad can't be too fond of adultery if it's on those fancy tablets Moses carved, can He?
Eventually, Michael talks enough and he can admit that inane bullshit and rambling is one of his skills, and finally Norman leads him to a booth in the far corner of the club. It's getting on toward one, and it's obvious that Norman isn't usually up this late. The beers he's consumed, by Michael's count at least five, and the hour are making the little man's words come out slurred and unsure.
His inebriation is making Norman sloppy.
Michael is mostly used to this part, the time when the mark relaxes, feeling fully comfortable and in control, where he gets grabby. Michael usually allows it just long enough to lead them to the alley and strike. But tonight he…he takes it.
He lets it happen as Norman wraps an unwelcome arm around his bad shoulder and then leans closer to him. As the beers add up, Norman has given up any pretense of looking anywhere but down Michael's cleavage. As the night rounds a corner toward last call, Norman gets bolder, settles a hand up Michael's thigh.
He wouldn't let it get this far. He rarely even lets a mark kiss him and only then if it's the only way to isolate them. The club's half empty in the last half hour before close and the back table their at is shrouded enough in shadow that Michael could just take what he needs now. But he's frozen in a way that has nothing to do with Norman.
Would you have done this?
And that's what this is all about, isn't it? Father's punishments, possibly his own self-inflicted wounds, and penance. So Michael keeps letting this pathetic example of humanity go to town on him. He deserves this.
He'd have slept with the Miracle. Hell, if she'd meant it, he'd have let her think she was Lucifer (albeit the 2.0 version) for as long as he could have. Even he knows that he wasn't good at the ruse. Ironically too dependable, too good at working by the book, no sexual harassment or drunk by ten a.m. shenanigans on the job. She'd have found out eventually.
Would have.
And then she'd feel like he feels now—used and dirty and wrong.
But he'd have done it, and Michael isn't sure how he fell so hard. He is a general, a judge, almost Father's right hand. Yet he is none of those things. Not anymore. Norman's clammy, fumbling hand goes up Michael's skirt and soon his fingers are touching a place even Michael hasn't touched yet, since at least none of his indignities come with human bodily functions. Scrappy hasn't had a chance to yet if ever and…
He freezes, this time it is not the guilt making him go still. It is…he is so confused because that should not be there. He doesn't even know what he's feeling there because it's not like anything that he's felt before and not like this and isn't that what he'd have done and…
One of Norman's fingers slides further up and that snaps him out of his shock. The motion is done before Michael's even really aware he's done it. Norman's screams bring him back to this moment, to the eyes of the bartender and a few patrons. Michael stares the noxious little nothing in the eyes, his own filled with his power—he can feel it—and he stabs at the human's fears easily now.
"Shut up or you'll feel worse."
Michael works over time to force the unease over Norman, to leave him so terrified that he can't move or scream, so that he can barely breathe.
He clutches his right arm, now sporting a painful compound fracture from which Michael can see both radius and ulna sprouting out, all gore pressed tightly to Norman's chest. "I…"
"I didn't say you could do that," Michael counters. His eyes feel so bright, like somehow even the divinity in him could melt through his own flesh and bone. "No one would say that. What made you even think… Nevermind. You go to the hospital, take yourself, and then you go straight home and tell your wife everything. About what you did tonight and the mistresses on the road and you tell her all you wanted to do and would have kept doing. You fear losing your family, despite doing everything to make that happen. So, go home and lay it all bare, see if she forgives your sins or throws you out like trash."
Michael's breathing hard after that and makes quick work of fleeing from the club. Even without his wings, he's preternaturally fast and Norman's shock and fear will keep him from saying much for a few more days, nothing much coherent. Michael makes it back to the hotel, his shoulder feeling good, strong even, and his strides as fluid as they ever get. Not as good as Samael's, never that, but he's been well replenished.
After he opens his door, he shuts it behind him and then his legs give out on him. Michael slumps to the ground and sets his head back against the cool wood of the door. What he's done, what Father has done, what he is and isn't…what that homunculus casually touched as if he'd owned a part of Michael…it's all too much, and still the thrum of divinity hasn't died out from him. He feels it warm and feverish over his skin, as if his body is too small to contain all of it.
There's a knock on the other side, and Michael knows who it is.
Only one suspect since he's pretty sure that glowing rat can't knock. He hopes not.
"Hey, Mike, are you okay? I didn't know you went out and if you wanted, I could have gone gambling with you." Scrappy's voice is worried, even as out of it as he is, Michael can discern that much.
"I wasn't."
"Then what were you…oh." Ella knocks again. "Let me in. Something happened. I…Mike," and she hisses his name. "I can see under the edge of the door all gold and glowing and stuff. Are your powers okay?"
He slams his eyes shut, trying to let whatever is flaring through him die out. "I'm fine. I just…after that rat, I needed more. I'm fine."
And once a liar, always a liar.
"Just let me in and—"
"Lopez, I can't. Don't make me," he finishes, his voice a small croak.
"Okay, but I'm across the hall and if you need anything, you come to my room."
He brings his legs to his chest and hugs them tightly. "Thanks, Scraps, but I'm fine. My shoulder doesn't even hurt now."
"Mike…estoy preocupada…I'm worried about you since Arizona. You know I can lock pick, right?"
"Stupid motels without key cards," he snaps. "Scraps, tomorrow, all right? We'll even take that rat thing to a pet store and get it its own cage, k?"
"Toys too?"
"For fuck's sake…fine," he bites back. "Please let me rest. This will all pass."
She's shuffling on the other side of the door, he can hear her sneakers on the cheap, shag carpet. "Okay, but if you change your mind one bit—"
"Won't." He replies before forcing himself to stand, shuffling to the bathroom and cuing up the shower as hot as this piece of shit motel can manage.
He just needs to feel something other than ruined.
This pattern holds for about four more days. He and she do something touristy to break the monotony of wherever they are up. She insists now that Pepe has a harness and leash on taking him for a walk near the greenest space close to their motel of the day. In the evening, they find a pick up poker game or bit of Black Jack. Two days ago, he spent the night happily watching her and her genius brain (and questionably allowable card counting prowess) mop the floor with a little place in Austin. Sometimes, that's the best, just watching Lopez work. But late at night after the errands of the day or their haul is over and through, Michael goes out to hunt.
He doesn't have to. Without another bleeding incident—and Lopez has secured the blade well by now—Michael doesn't technically need to Fear anyone for another ten days or more.
But he has to, this compulsion to troll alone and what? Serve his penance, maybe. Appreciate the position he put the detective in. To just let it all be taken out on him, even more than Father has already done. He never lets any mark get as far as Norman did. He cannot be touched there, maybe never, but if at all, certainly not by some fumbling, sweaty imp. But he lets his prey use him longer than he has to, lets them paw at his chest or slobber over him, lets them presume a lot of him.
It might keep going that way till he's outside an alley in a bar near a college campus in Houston. He's not sure which college. City this huge—and it goes on and on—it doesn't even matter. The humid night would be oppressive if he really felt temperatures, but the moisture, swamp-like and cloying, has made his curls a lost cause to control at all. Not that he cares much.
This time, he's snagged two prime specimens. Frat brothers, and he could give a damn which constellation of Greek letters make up their name. These two are the prime type of prey Michael prefers: carrying more than enough on them to have drugged half the bar by now and veterans of that racket, more afraid of getting the right internship for daddy's firms this summer than of any of their classmates they've left broken by night.
One has him pinned, or thinks he does, against the brick and is slobbering over his face. His frat brother, the fatter one, is pawing hopelessly at one of Michael's breasts. He can see why they rely on drugging as much as they do. Even at his most virginal with Lily, Michael was never this terrible.
And he lets them do it.
His mind thinking of how fucked up he is, how fucked up he was in Los Angeles, all the things he'd have done…and he figures creating a loop of his own is good enough, is the type of treatment he deserves. The taller one gets frustrated, starts pawing at his tank top too and something tears. Michael really should scare them and be done with it. He should…
And as if his thoughts could manifest, the fatter one is shoved hard away from him, landing with a thud against dented trash cans.
His focus comes clearer, the here and now comes back to him replacing the endless replay of his various crimes, and he finds Scraps in the alley, brass knuckles firmly affixed, as she slams a punch hard into the fat one's jaw. The frat douche gasps and passes out in the garbage around him.
The other guy finally seems to give a shit his so-called frat brother has been taken out of the picture. The taller one, relatively speaking since Michael would be taller if he were himself, finally stops feeling Michael up and whirls around toward Lopez.
Big mistake.
"You bitch! Mind your own business," the still conscious one says as he steps away from Michael and starts advancing on Scrappy.
He doesn't let the bastard get any further than that. Michael rounds on him, both tired of the game and not keen to let anyone like this even breathe near his…near Ella. It's not hard to hold the dick high above his head and pinned tightly to the alley wall. Michael applies a bit more force, and something in the jerk's shoulder crunches.
His eyes are bright and he can feel the power thrumming through him so hard, and sometimes all this energy, this Creation and this Fear, might just burn him from the inside out. "I don't have to ask, you know."
His voice is a low growl.
The frat kid blinks up at him, stammering. "What the Hell? I just…we were having fun."
Ella is to his right but she hasn't interrupted; by now, she knows better than to touch him when he's not safe.
Michael shakes his head. "Were we? Did it not occur to you that you dumbshits both took turns lacing my shit all night? That if I were human, I wouldn't just be passed out but barely breathing? So, is that your fun?"
Scraps is just over his shoulder now, but she doesn't say anything, though he can feel her studying him with large, limpid eyes.
"It wasn't…we weren't gonna…"
Michael feels his eyes heat more and he's not sure if it's his imagination or not that the alley is brighter than before. "You were, and your friend got off easy. Look, I'm bored. You're out of luck, and the spiel is what it is." He pulls on his power easily, maybe too easily, and the kid starts to scream, his voice hoarse with his terror.
Michael drops him roughly, feeling heady with all of it. And the bastard runs into the night screaming about the moving shadows, and sometimes, even nominally grown people fear the dark and the bumps in the night. This time, of course, they're more than real.
He turns to Scrappy and regards her, and it's fun, these extremes…in their way. The lack of sense of anything and the pain, the penance and penitence now fading into an ocean of warmth. Of power.
Damn, he feels so good when he hunts, and Michael isn't quite sure why he rationed it out as much as he did before.
"You missed the fun tonight," he says, feeling the heat leak out of him, not quite sure but fairly certain his eyes are normal again. Qualified term, but normal enough.
Lopez shakes her head. "Michael…shit."
She yanks off her jacket and, while it has little hope of fitting him really, it's big enough to drape at least over his exposed chest. He's not sure he cares since it's just him and his…his Ella in the back alley, and even if someone did see, Michael has pretty decent tits if he does say so himself.
"No, I'm fine. It's actually pretty warm tonight. Feels nice."
She quirks her head at him and gets up under his right side, even though he's feeling anything but weak. "Are you high?"
"Nope, can't be drugged…well it would have to be a lot. Probably why my brother Sam owns a whole bar. Just drink and drink, glub glub glub." Michael laughs and for a beat, he's so out of it, he's confused at the high pitched giggle in the alley for a beat till he remembers it's technically his.
She curses under her breath. Maybe that Clangon thing this time; he's not sure.
"I swear, you are the highest maintenance angel out there."
"You don't know all my siblings. I have a few who are real pains in my ass. Not just Sam. Menny's not much better, and do not get me started on Gabriel. That dick still owes me for a round of poker he lost before the Black Plague. Mr. 'I'm Good for It' my ass." He laughs again, a shrill peal in the night.
She glares up at him and, for a moment, he stops, suddenly not completely sure she lacks powers herself. "What is going on?"
"Doing what Dad wants, right?" He nods firmly, his hair falling in his face as he does. So many curls. "Remake me however He wants, and I'm so good at catching them…and making them scream in pain. It must be what He wants." He looks up to the stars and screams, "It's why You did this, right? Free show!"
She leads him down the alley and to a stoop of a few concrete stairs by the edge of the club. With both of his shoulders firmly between her hands, Lopez settles him there. He leans back against the wall and lets the jacket fall open. Scraps rolls her eyes and fixes it.
"You're high on something; you're never like this."
"I dunno, maybe I'm just full," he chuckles again and then leans his head on her shoulder. "I feel good though."
Scraps reaches up and strokes his hair, poofy as it is, away from his forehead. "Have you been going out every night without me?"
"No, just since…maybe New Mexico?" He squints as if that will help him remember. "But it feels nice. I don't hurt as much."
Her eyes get big and sad, and he feels terrible that he said this at all. Michael doesn't give a shit anymore about most anything, but he never wants Lopez to be sad, least of all because of him. "I'm sorry you do at all, but, corazon, why are you doing this?"
"Because I deserve it," he says, his voice quieting, some of the euphoria drained from him by seeing Scrappy so upset. "I tried to rape a Miracle. I did so many bad things, and Father punished me…I'm just helping it along."
Ella flinches a little at the casual reminder of what he's done or tried, not that there's anything casual about it. "Are you letting them get this far with you on purpose?"
He regards her solemnly but doesn't move his head from her shoulder; she's so soft and comfy. "That's why I'm like this. I should know. I should get it, shouldn't I?"
He's said something wrong; when hasn't he? But Michael's not sure what it is that was so wrong. It's true, isn't it? He deserves every punishment, even the loop of sorts he's created for himself.
She continues to stroke his hair and, eventually, sets a hand on the scar on his cheek, the one Sam carved into him. And Michael knows he earned that too. "You believe that?"
"I'm not better than Pete. He just got the opportunity. I was planning things. I had grand designs."
"But you regret them?"
"All the time now," he says softly. "It's all I think about, both what I almost did to Sam's miracle and to how I'd feel if it had happened to you. I don't want to be anything like these pieces of shit," he gestures vaguely down the alley to where the fatter one is still crumpled, unconscious, among the trash. "And Pete…I don't want to be like him either." He breathes in, and it's ragged and unsteady. "He hurt the best person I know, deeply. I didn't used to think anything of humans at all, just filthy monkeys."
She is crying but giggles a little at that admission. "Oh right, so I'm the fun monkey who does tricks and rides a trike?"
"No, you're the human that made me realize why Father cares about all of you so much, why you're all worth so much more than I imagined, even the shit ones." He moves his head off her shoulder and stares eye to eye with her. "But I can't…I was like him and I just…I don't know how to make it right."
She kisses his forehead first and then slowly up his scar, till she reaches his left temple. "You are nothing like Pete. He killed people. He hurt so many women. He…he lied to me and then when he realized I couldn't fix him, he tried to kill me. Even after everything, he used the last times we met to try and hurt me. To make me believe I'm dark like he is."
He relaxes into her touch. "Takes a liar to know one. You're not dark, Lopez. You are one of the brightest souls Dad ever made. But I am like Pete and like that bastard and like all of them."
She quirks her head at him, that intense scientist's gaze focused on him, as if he were a puzzle. Dad knows he feels like one these days. "And if you let enough of these pendejos fondle you or rip your clothes or drug you, does it fix it?"
"It's what I deserve."
"But it doesn't really fix anything," she continues, taking his hands in hers. "Corazon, you are trying. You saved me, and when we do this together, we stop these guys from hurting others, and maybe the rules are only arbitrary cause we made them to start with, but this isn't…this isn't going to help you or other people or make up for what you did with the Miracle-chick."
"No, but I…" he sighs and drops her hands, letting his curls fall in his face again. He can't stand to look Scraps in the eye, hasn't been able to fully since Arizona. "...why else am I like this if not so I can understand, walk a mile, be in this position for a few centuries or eons to really get it. If part of that is being fondled by every idiot in a bar, who cares anymore?"
"I care," she says, snaking her hands under his hair, grabbing his chin, and forcing him to look at her. "Corazon, if after we see your warlock—"
"I'd hardly call Constantine that, but he'll work for cash and booze, both of which I can get my hands on."
"But, if after we get your body stable or at least get the Creation less all over the place—"
"I hope."
"If you want to go apologize to your brother and to the Miracle, I'll be there for you."
Michael's blood run colds at that, since that can never happen. Besides, Decker shot him four times, not that it hurt or even pierced, but she's not gonna want him to come calling, even if he is sorry. Even if the gravity of what he was planning has hit him hard, especially since that homunculus in Santa Fe and his grabby hands. "I can't ask you to do that."
"Well, we'll think about it after Atlanta. You helped me with Pete, both to face him and to keep myself from going too far. If you need to make amends, if it'll help give you peace, corazon, of course I'd do that too."
He kisses her and sighs. "I don't think there are amends. If there were, Father wouldn't have taken so much or me or both."
"The self actualization thing?"
"Not sure, not sure where any of this begins or ends, but I'm sure what I tried to do to the Miracle…it's like the fulcrum for all of this." He sighs and stands, feeling physically strong and brimming with energy from his hunt but emotionally drained, like breathing through a vice. "I feel polluted. Defiled."
Michael starts to the mouth of the alley, since going back through the club in the shape he's in will just draw attention. Maybe cops; he's not sure.
A soft, small hand grips his bad one tightly. "You're not."
"I feel it though, all the time. I was His Sword and now…the things I've done are more than reason enough to have stripped me of all of it, just like Dad did. And now I'm put back in pieces and broken and wrong and not me but sometimes I feel just a hint that I like this, like when you smile at me or on our first date since I fucked up the only other one so far…like maybe I'm not so bad. But I am."
She sidles up next to his right side, even though he's not compromised there for now. "It's a lot, so much, and don't think I hate you or are taking us back because now I know why you were punished. I meant it when I said we're a package deal, corazon. I care about you, and it's complicated, but you going out to there to be hurt—"
"They can't hurt me," he replies.
"Not physically, but this isn't good for you and no one deserves this, not even you. We will get there. We'll get you stable enough and apologize to the Miracle if you want."
"Probably will just make things even worse," he mutters.
"And you and me and Pepe will make some kind of life, Mike, but I'm not doing it without you so—"
He groans, sobering a bit at that. "Can we not include that rat? I made a mess."
She shakes her head. "Kind of our brand. I brought Baby, let's get you home, and you're sleeping in my room and with me…not metaphorically because you seem super wrecked, but you're staying with me. Me entiendes?"
She glares up at him, and he should laugh because it's like a chihuahua threatening a dragon. And he has never called it so well than when he christened her "Scrappy Doo." Even if she's fierce in her own way, and he loves her so much for it.
"Aye-aye, captain," he says, feigning a salute, as she helps him to the car.
He settles in the seat first and she slides into the driver's side, before making Baby, as she insists on calling the, you know, inanimate object roar to life.
Lopez smirks up at him and takes one of his hands in hers as they hit the, well, very congested road. "I prefer reina."
"And what does that mean?"
Her smirk widens. "Wouldn't you like to know?"